The Characters of Burdickville, take 2

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

The future of Burdickville is now. The engagement of Max Miller to Heather LaBerge is another indicator that the next generation of Burdickville-ians is poised to take over from their parents. Max’s mother Pat Miller lives in the house she built in 1988 on MacFarlane Road opposite the foot of Bow Road inside the corner that used to be an apple orchard, but she has been coming here since 1954. Along with sisters Nancy and Jan and brother Don, Pat now owns and operates the Miller Cabins that their parents bought in 1961. So all of the Millers virtually grew up in Burdickville.

“This generation is all people who summered here in the 1950s and ’60s and then settled here,” says Pat. “We’re aging gracefully, and our kids are ready to take over: Max, the Binsfeld girls, Dane Hillard, Molly Flerlage, the Faulman kids. Our families have been the year-round residents here, and other than us it’s the resorts and the restaurants. So the third generation is coming.”

A retired school social worker, Pat travels a lot during the winter—California, Florida, New York—but she always longs for home. “Just get me back to that corner,” she says, “It’s so precious here. You can walk to two of the best restaurants in the County—Funistrada and La Becasse, or walk to get Moomer’s Ice Cream at Laker Shakes, or you can walk to the public access to swim.”

Max Miller lived in California for several years teaching in Oakland, but a PhD program at Michigan State University has brought him back closer to his Burdickville roots. “Burdickville has always held its consistent warm core,” he muses. “The trees are taller, some elders have passed on, but the loving spirit has remained, keeping this place so special.” Max learned to swim in front of the Miller Cabins, and to play basketball right here in the yard with Todd Ciolek. Their Glen Lake High School team reached the state quarterfinals their senior year, under the tutelage of coach Don Miller (Pat’s brother), and Mike Binsfeld across the street, says “I know Max is home when I hear that basketball bouncing!” In 1994 a German exchange student named Tom Brendelberger lived with Max and Pat, and he became the talented kicker on Coach Bill Hollenbeck’s Glen Lake team that won the state football championship at the Pontiac Silverdome that fall. Now Max is back, with Heather. “Now we’re engaged, and I know this will be ours. It’s like a beautiful cycle of nature. From the church to Old Settlers,” Max concludes, “you know you’re in Burdickville.”

Just past Villa Glen and Funistrada around the corner from Miller’s is a building rich in history: Larry Faulman’s house. It was built in 1948 and opened as a store in 1949. (There are pictures of the store in Tom Van Zoeren’s book Dottie Lanham of Burdickville, which is available at Laker Shakes.) The voluble Larry, who remembers many of Burdickville’s historical characters, is quick with interesting stories. “I bought my brother out of his share of this house when our father Ellsworth Faulman died at 100 years old in 2011,” Larry explains. “My parents moved here when I was 5 years old in 1948 when they bought the old Holden Grocery Store (now the Villa Glen duplex) from the Paulins. So I spent my childhood here.”

Larry remembers characters like Frank Wilson, who lived in a red, white, and blue school bus. “He had a forge, made the chains for our moorings, and drove old stripped down trucks with wooden spoked wheels and big bifold hoods with a piece of plywood for a seat.” He also remembers Nan Helm, who lived on the hill above Laker Shakes, and is featured on page 28 of Dottie Lanham of Burdickville. “In 1906-07, there were 160 people in Burdickville,” Larry recounts. “D.H. Day had a potato warehouse across from where La Becasse is now. He shipped taters out of Glen Haven. Potatoes were the first cash crop for first generation farmers around this side of the lake.” Larry also appreciates the local ‘sense of place’. “Many people who grew up here during their childhood summers came back, so there’s a community here of folks with lifelong bonds. It’s a group of people who remain good friends, and the “new” summer people love this sense of community.”

Binsfelds-Molly_Nancy_Mindy_MikeMike Binsfeld, who lives at the foot of Bow Road, has been part of this community for most of his life as well. The family had a summer cottage on Glen Lake, and then they decided to move up for good in 1968 when Mike was 12. “Faulman’s store was only open in the summer, and I got pop and Doritos in there every day,” Mike recalls. “I started working at Alfano’s Glen Lake Inn, an Italian restaurant, when I was 13.” (Now Funistrada, the popular restaurant was operated in the 1980s as a German Supper Club by Frank and Pat Hockstern.) “I get ALL of Burdickville,” Mike continues. “I got to grow up here, and to raise a family and grow a business here. It feels much as it did. We lost Faulman’s store, but the O’Neill sisters took over Rich Hargreave’s Laker Shakes, and we still have the two restaurants, Funistrada and La Becasse. I still meet people I know as a kid when we swam at Garside’s Resort, now Villa Glen.”

Much of the change Mike has seen has been along the lake. “There used to be lots of small cabins like Miller’s Cabins. Now one huge log home can replace six small cabins. Each little cabin used to have a small rowboat for fishing, so there was more activity out on the water. Back in the day it was blue-collar families up here. Next to our family Binsfeld cottage was Scotty’s Haven, run by Irma and Harold Hengelsbach, who rented to blue-collar folks from Lansing, and on the other side was the Taylor log cabin, since moved by John Martin and now owned by Chip Hoagland.”

Mike is excited to see the next generations start to emerge. “The first male child born in Burdickville in 22 years is Pastor Andy and Heather Boissardet’s son, Micah!” (Andy is pastor at the Glen Lake Community Reformed Church at the western edge of Burdickville.) Mike’s daughters Molly and Nancy still walk to work at La Becasse, just as Mike did when the fine French restaurant was Woodcock’s. Molly has been the nanny for the Hazael-Massieux family for eight years, and Nancy has worked at La Becasse for six years, along with Rosie Hartshorn, “our summer daughter,” says Mike. “Having all of these fun 20-something kids around makes Mindy and me feel young!”

The passing of the torch to a new generation was recently marked by the death of Mike’s mother, Connie Binsfeld. Connie was a four-term state representative, a two-term state senator, and ultimately Lieutenant Governor from 1991–1999. Her memorial service, organized by Jan Price, was attended by 300 people and included speeches by retired Michigan Supreme Court justice Elizabeth Weaver and former Governor John Engler.

There are, of course, many more characters in and around Burdickville. The Dekorne family has played a big role in the hamlet’s history, and Tom VanZoeren has written a book about their contributions as well. Conley Addington, who lives next to Laker Shakes and who just received his honorary high school diploma from the Leelanau School, has lived in Burdickville longer than most of his neighbors. But these stories will have to wait for another issue of the Glen Arbor Sun. Meanwhile, time marches forward as the next generation grows into prominence in Burdickville, punctuated by Max Miller’s bouncing basketball.