Businesses change in a changing town

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Photo: Patricia and Larry Widmayer (standing on the right) co-owned the Glen Arbor Bed & Breakfast for 22 seasons. They wish the Aragon family, and innkeeper Laura, great success in 2023 and beyond.

By Julie Zapoli

Sun contributor

When I look out my shop window on Western Avenue in downtown Glen Arbor, in one direction I can see oak trees and pine trees old enough that they’ve started to lean a little, and cabin-style buildings that flood when the snow melts too quickly in the spring because the sidewalks have sunken with age. In the other direction is the iconic Art’s Tavern—which might possibly be visible from outer space with its seasonal light display—and across the street from Art’s is a small green box that has been a bakery and a pop-up and is now an artist’s studio.

There’s a field next to the Post Office where two deer graze in the warm sunshine—the same two deer everyone in town has gotten to know and feed this past winter, sometimes tossing apples to them in the garden behind Inn and Trail Gourmet. The building where we have our gourmet food market was previously a clothing store, and speciality food shop before that, and a video store, and Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate shop, and a real estate office whose proprietor at one time had to implore the bartender at Art’s to run over at 2 a.m. each winter night before closing to throw a log into the wood stove so they wouldn’t get hypothermia while working the next morning.

It’s hard for anyone to pinpoint exactly when a town changes. Most of the time we’re too busy with our daily life to notice the subtle transformations. Living in one place prohibits noticing much beyond our typical path, but we adjust: a clothing shop becomes a food market, the old school house becomes a vacation rental, a bed and breakfast changes hands after 23 years. The Glen Arbor Bed and Breakfast, which was purchased earlier this year by Michael Aragon, was originally built as a boarding house 150 years ago for the loggers who came to northern Michigan to cut timber. Some of that Michigan timber helped to rebuild Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871 ravaged the city when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow (supposedly) kicked over a lantern … it’s that kind of history that makes you appreciate a place.

When Jeff and Georgia Gietzen purchased the property next to their Northwoods Hardware location—formerly Wildflower’s Home Décor store—from a downstate company who was going to put in 12 condominiums, it was with the idea that the space would enhance business with the addition of a rental center and expanded nursery, but that it was also sorely needed to relieve the challenging and sometimes dangerous parking situation that occurs each summer when business in Glen Arbor skyrockets.

Change happens. Expansions happen. Trees are cut down including a few precious hardwoods that were more than 75 years old. “There is always a concern,” said Gillian Gietzen, “when there are so many people who have been coming to a place for so many years of their lives. Change and expansion aren’t always a welcome thing in a small town, but we have always maintained we are a family business first—dedicated to our community and to customer service.”

There is a saying among Glen Arbor residents that even in the middle of winter you could walk into Northwoods Hardware needing the most obscure item and they will have it. It’s become a part of the local lore for anyone to try and disprove this. Before Jeff and Georgia purchased the original Northwoods Home Center at its current location on South Glen Lake Road, it was called the Old School Hardware located in the Brick School house on Western Avenue, and primarily served the construction community and general contractors.

South of town on M-22, the quaint blue and white “Welcome to Glen Arbor” sign greets you on the right, and as you cross the Crystal River driving northeast is The Mill—the rebirthed, refurbished property bought by Turner Booth. The Brammer Grist Mill—once an actual working mill—has been inoperable since the 1970s when Fred Ball, of the Ball Canning Jar family, last used it as a recording studio. The peeled paint, sagging roof lines, and crumbling structures almost slipped into the Crystal River, but have now been replaced, repainted, and revived. Inside there is a café that will open soon, plans for a small restaurant and cocktail bar, and the possible milling of their own flour for use in baked goods and for public resale. It’s the ‘recycle-renew-reuse’ concept put into action.

In the book How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built, Stewart Brand writes, “Buildings can tell stories, if they’re allowed—if their pasts are flaunted rather than concealed.”

I moved to this area of Michigan from Ketchum, Idaho, in March 2017. The line I used with my western friends was, “I fell in love and married a house.” At that time I had scoured every place I loved to find a home I could afford, that I liked, and a place to make a life. Moving from Ketchum to northern Michigan might have shocked my Idaho chums, but when they visited they understood the draw—pines and white Birch trees that illuminate in the sunlight, water in shades of cobalt and jade you’ve never even seen before, Easter Egg daffodils and crocus growing wild on the roadside, sunsets on Lake Michigan that could go on for what felt like days. If you can’t fall in love with northern Michigan in spring and summer then face it, you can’t fall in love … and everyone loves northern Michigan.

In 2011, the National Park Service reported the increase of tourism to the Glen Arbor area was up over 20 percent. Between 2018 and 2020, Glen Arbor saw an influx of visitors and second home owners who fled their crowded cities to an area known for its quiet clear blue lakes, striking views, hiking and biking trails, and few full-time residents. The demand for services and workers also increased, straining supply chains and local businesses. Real estate and housing prices rose, and the ability for service workers to live a reasonable drive time from their place of work became almost impossible. A town can change while our attention is focused on something else … like a pandemic.

If you had been coming to Glen Arbor each summer since you were young, you might remember that you could at one time park your car anywhere on the street because there were no curbs or dedicated parking. You might remember that Bob Sutherland’s Cherry Republic started as a t-shirt shop in a van, or you might have chased Petoskey Pete’s around summer after summer because their location changed to a different building almost every year.

“Most of the time buildings will adapt,” writes Brand, “because the usage in and around them are changing constantly.” Certainly, this is true of Glen Arbor.

Small towns that adapt to change do so because new owners and new businesses are always redefining old buildings to new and current use. “Buildings adapt best,” said Brand, “when constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and architects can mature from being artists of space to becoming artists of time.”

The Glen Arbor Bed and Breakfast has been a marker of time for many—certainly for its most recent stewards, Patricia and Larry Widmayer, who purchased the property 23 years ago from Mike Sutherland. Mike bought the property from the Andresens 10 years before that. Mrs. Andresen used to serve Sunday chicken dinners from the dining room to visitors before the Second World War. In 1920, John and Linda Peppler’s mother, Helen Rader Peppler, was born in that home. Over the course of their 23-year tenure, the Widmayers used three notebooks to run the bed and breakfast: one for reservations, one for marketing, and one for operations—no fancy computer system needed—and it apparently worked just fine. A 150-year-old building has a lot to say about a community. This building deserves to be flaunted, simply because it has marked time for so many people for so long.

The new owner of Glen Arbor Bed and Breakfast, Michael Aragon—who married into the Warnes family, which has a long history in Glen Arborhas said that the Inn will open for business as usual this summer.

“The evolution of a business or a building in a town is that it’s constantly morphing,” said Aragon. “The baseline is not to have to build something new, but to strive for quality with what already exists. Towns can still hold on to their image because making improvements are about making what you already have work better for everyone.”

How do we end up choosing the places we live in this world? It might be fate or a calling, and it might be random, but random doesn’t feel quite right. The answer is different for each of us: maybe you have been coming here since you were a child; or you’re the legacy owner of a lake cottage; or maybe you arrived during the pandemic, fell in love with northern Michigan and never left; or maybe you’re just like me and got lucky. It is important to preserve and honor the physical fabric and social histories of the places we choose to live. Stay in one place long enough and you’ll see change—buildings morph and adjust into new ventures, businesses expand. The next time you drive through Glen Arbor look around and remember where you live … it’s evolving every day right before our eyes.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misspelled Helen Rader Peppler’s middle name. We regret the error.