Next Cool Place (Again): Harbor

Springs

If you know Harbor Springs you understand that cool—as in moneyed, chi-chi, and green-and-pink polos—is the village pedigree. But here’s a scoop on this most fashionable of Lake Michigan towns: Harbor is looking to reinvent itself. Yup, Harbor wants young families, as in folks who earn money the old fashioned way. Community leaders are jamming ideas to attract new businesses into their downtown. Though investment enticements have yet to be formalized, Harbor already has plenty to offer families—miles of Lake Michigan beaches, natural areas galore, two ski resorts in its backyard, a beloved kids sailing program and a school system that counts within its tiny graduating classes a high percentage of kids bound for the best Michigan colleges and universities and even the Ivy League. Then there’s that it-takes-a-village spirit that all but lights up Main Street. Case in point: when 11-year-old Harbor Springs’ resident Noah Bassett broke his leg recently, the local café made a surprise hot chocolate home delivery. Here’s a live/work combo to get a young family scheming to move the brood:

118 S. Main

The plan: one parent works remotely, another runs the art gallery (antique shop? boutique?) you’ve both fantasized about for years from this 815-square-foot downtown retail shop. When school lets out the kids walk home to the Summit Street address we’ve paired this with, or stop in at the store on Main Street. Sweet!

$119,000. Graham Real Estate, 231.526.6251, grahamre.com.

510 W. Summit Street

4 S. Lakeshore Dr., Lake Michigan

As if 200 feet of buildable, duneswept Lake Michigan frontage near Ludington for $750,000 isn’t good enough to get you speed dialing. Also in the deal: the blueprint of a cottage specifically designed for the site by Frank Lloyd Wright (yes, we said Frank Lloyd Wright), commissioned in 1955 by a former owner of the property. The 1,560-square-foot Wright-signature Usonian home has yet to be built. Feeling up to making architectural history?

Contact Don Bradley, Lighthouse Realty, 231-845-7500, golighthouserealty.com.

Legacy Properties

What’s selling these days? Petoskey area Realtor Wally Kidd (Kidd & Leavy Real Estate) says it’s all about distinctive properties. We’d call this trilogy a standout by any measure.

Point of View, Lake Charlevoix 

Lovely, tasteful, outfitted with a bounty of Up North amenities, Point of View rolls from its 3,000 sandy feet of Lake Charlevoix shoreline into 70 acres of forest. Betwixt? A hand scribed log home, guesthouse, stables and that serenity you’ve been searching for.

$10,995,000. Wally Kidd, 231.838.2700, wallykidd.com

Funk’s Lodge, Lake Gogebic

Where some folks see miles of trees in the Upper Peninsula, real estate agent Dick Huey unearths properties that make you want to play Gatsby. His latest is Funk’s Lodge, a Craftsman-style palace on Lake Gogebic, the U.P.’s largest inland lake. We’d wax poetic but more enjoyable: pop some corn and click on the video about it on Huey’s website.

$10,500,000. Huey Real Estate. 906.228.8889, upwaterfront.com.

LEGACY PROPERTY: MI CASA 

South Bar Lake and Lake Michigan

Made for the person who can’t choose between the warmth of an inland lake and the expanse of a big lake—and won’t settle for anything but tasteful architecture. It takes two trams to get up to this home perched on a dune between South Bar Lake and Lake Michigan in Empire—then again, if you’re in the market for this home, you already know your way to the top.

Make it Su Casa for $1,950,000. Mark Fisher, Coldwell Banker, 231.633.5041, cbgreatlakes.com/mark.fisher.