History

 

Traverse City sits at the mouth of the Boardman River, straddling both the East and West arms of Grand Traverse Bay. Noted today for its woods, waters, and recreational opportunities, it developed first as a lumber town. In 1847, Harry Boardman and son Horace bought land at the mouth of the Ottawa River and established the area’s first sawmill. Four years later, Perry Hannah, now known as the founder of Traverse City, purchased the operation and with partner Albert T. Lay, expanded it to be one of the largest and most successful sawmills in the Grand Traverse region. With the abundance of white and red pine, lumber production was at its height in the 1880s, notably providing lumber to help rebuild Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871. But by the turn of the century, the waning industry was replaced by manufacturing and agriculture, producing potatoes, apples, cherries and now grapes.  

 

As Traverse City developed during the 1880s and 1890s, neighborhood houses ranged from glorious Victorian Queen Ann, Italianate and Neo-classical architectural styles featuring spacious rooms, elegant woodwork and stained glass windows, to more modest Victorian structures with steeply pitched roofs, narrow frames and gingerbread ornamentation. In the early 20th century, builders began to adopt the Arts and Crafts style creating a mix of opulence and utility reflecting the changing times.  

 

Until the 1940s, firmly established downtown neighborhoods, a small business district along the Boardman River and the combined commercial and recreational waterfront to the north, all served as the nucleus of life in Traverse City.  

 

Growth and Development at Mid-century

 

Following WWII, the second half of the 1940s brought renewed growth and by the 1950s, Traverse City began to stretch beyond the downtown
to the south and north, and embrace a more innovative approach to architecture.

 

One of the first neighborhoods to evolve was Boughey Hill, formerly a cherry orchard set high atop a hill at the city’s south edge affording idyllic views of West Bay in the distance. The development was organized by a handful of streets in a grid-like fashion with modestly designed single-story houses. Characteristically they feature either a flat or low-pitched roof and an open floor plan, giving a clear, fluid approach to spatial organization. Architects Carter Strong and Richard Drury both designed their own residences there. While not all houses were architect-designed, each was inspired by modernist principles.

 

Simultaneously, Anderson Road at the base of Old Mission Peninsula and a stone’s throw from the high school, the newly established Northwestern Michigan College, and the water’s edge, was next to adopt an architecture of rational, uncluttered, functional spaces. The firm
of Harford Field and Associates designed several modest, single story homes here.  

 

Houses designed by Orus O. Eash along West Bay on Peninsula Drive further refined and enhanced these design principles, which often featured curtain walls of glass overlooking the waterfront or into rear patios, integrating interior and exterior environments. One served as a residence for Jim Davis and Bill Yankee, 2nd and 3rd Presidents of nearby Northwestern Michigan College.

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Traverse City Architects

 

The growing need for schools, churches, civic buildings and private residences became apparent and the architects who served these clients readily employed modernist ideas. Most architects who established firms in Traverse City hailed from and were educated in the mid-west. 

 

The architectural style in Traverse City can be said to have evolved from Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture. Michigan’s Alden B. Dow, who briefly studied with Wright, came away with a full understanding and reverence for buildings that emerged from the natural world, fit harmoniously into their environments, and utilized natural materials to the fullest. In Traverse City, there is one Dow-designed building; the Holiday Inn, now the West End Beach Resort, although it is greatly altered. Architect Donald Bouschor of Cornwell and Associates, who had previously worked for Alden B. Dow Associates, Inc., served as project manager. Another Traverse City architect, Robert Bell, originally worked in Dow’s office.  

 

Other architects came to the city to work in established architectural firms before opening their own. David Stiffler worked for Bauer and Eash and Robert Holdeman worked for both Harford Field and David Stiffler. Holdeman and Bell designed houses set into the woods overlooking East Bay, utilizing the natural undulations and elevations of the landscape on The Bluffs of Old Mission Peninsula. 

 

 

Gordon Cornwell, who designed the new Traverse City High School, the First Congregational Church and Bethlehem Lutheran, all located at the base of Old Mission Peninsula, also designed a residence along Peninsula Drive for the Milliken family, sheltered from the road by a deep woods, yet open to a big sky view and setting sun over West Bay.

 

 

The one exception to mid-west based architects is Northwestern Michigan College’s Fine Arts Building, which was designed by the Massachusett’s based The Architect’s Collaborative started by Walter Gropius, a proponent of the International Style of architecture. 

   

Each of the local architects helped shape the uniqueness of a small town at the water’s edge. They embraced a modern aesthetic that focused on maintaining the integrity and use of local material, and pushing design to reflect ultimate function through simplicity of means. By the 1960s, the modern style had firmly taken root.