Presque Isle Lodge / Presque Isle Lodge
Newell Avery Eddy Jr. (1880-1940) had the Presque Isle Lodge built around 1920, when the construction of what would become US-23 opened the area around Grand Lake to tourism and recreation. The lodge, placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, is an example of rustic architecture popular in Michigan in the first half of the twentieth century. During this time Michigan’s lumber industry became a leading manufacturer of rustic-styled board-and-batten siding and rough-hewn logs. Responding to the rapid urbanization transforming American life in the late nineteenth century, and associated with healthy living, wilderness and leisure activities, the rustic style was regularly employed by the National Park Service.Newell Avery Eddy Jr., who built the Presque Isle Lodge, was born in Bay City in 1880 to a lumbering family that had relocated from Maine to Michigan’s Saginaw Valley in the early 1850s. In addition to the Eddy Brothers and Company lumber operation, the family’s business interests included Michigan mines and Great Lakes shipping. Eddy believed this lodge, constructed without the aid of electricity, exemplified the “pioneer spirit and artistic taste” of his New England ancestors. The resort’s furnishings were built exclusively for the lodge in a small shop to its rear. They were so popular with guests that shortly after the lodge opened Eddy formed Habitant Shops, Inc. to meet the demand for the knotty pine furniture.
Plaque via Michigan History Center