Glen Arbor gets a “Doc”!

By Jenny Robertson
Sun contributor

It’s 8:30 on a Saturday morning in May. Doctor Matthew A. Houghton, Jr., sits in his office at Glen Arbor Medical Arts, once the Glen Arbor Beauty Salon, with a few quiet moments to himself before the first patients arrive. He smokes a cigarette — “My last bad habit,” he says — and mumbles something about needing to smoke when you habitually jump out of helicopters.

Doc Houghton is and isn’t your typical small-town doctor. Son of a physician, Houghton always knew he would take up his father’s profession. But as a young man working for Phil Krull of Glen Craft Marina, Matt Houghton discovered a second passion … powerboat racing. And so it was that by the time he graduated from medical school and served his residency in emergency medicine, Houghton was also the editor of Propeller Magazine, the official publication of the American Powerboat Association. He moved back to Glen Arbor after graduation — submitting his magazine articles by mail — and applied to the newly formed osteopathic hospital in Traverse City that fall.

His job at the hospital was to put together a cohesive emergency room staff. Within a year, his task was complete, and in 1971 Houghton left the hospital to start his own practice in Leelanau County. With the support of the local Lions Club, and locals such as Phil Krull and Kaye Whitney, Houghton canvassed the county and settled on an office built by Frank Fischer in Empire. At that time, Glen Arbor’s full-time residents traveled to Empire in the winter for goods and services, and Empire seemed to be the best place to begin a new practice. Houghton and his new wife Barbara served as caretakers of the Old Orchard Inn until it closed in 1975, and that year bought the old Cushing House that he had watched being built on Miller Hill in 1953 and had wanted to live in ever since.

As a small-town doctor, Houghton has seen things few hospital-based physicians will ever see. For instance, he’s treated dogs, addressing everything from porcupine quills and hurt paws to possible poisoning. He also delivered a two-weeks premature baby in his Empire office. Because her labor arrived ahead of schedule, the mother was just coming in for a checkup. By the time she got to the office, the baby’s head was already visible, and Doc Houghton’s assistant Dave Graddup, now of the North Flight Ground Division, barely had time to run to the hardware store for big plastic tubs and blankets before a beautiful health baby was born. Mother and child never went to the hospital.

“We basically have two practices here; one as a mini-emergency ward, one as a family practice,” Houghton says. These are, however, definitely not the only two services Houghton supplies to the community. Houghton has been the medical examiner for Leelanau County since 1975, and has recently taken on this responsibility for Grand Traverse County as well. “I see this really as being a guardian of the public health,” he says. “My job is to make sure that the cause of death isn’t something that could put the entire community at risk.” He has been the medical consultant for Glen Lake High School sports teams for 26 years, and has great memories of traveling to state championships with the teams. Houghton’s practice also services as a training facility for medical students, from first-year students to recent graduates from the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State.

After 28 years in Empire, Doc Houghton’s office has moved to Glen Arbor, and the change has been a real coming home for both the doctor and his staff, two of whom, Marion Harriger and Angie Plowman, are sisters who grew up in Glen Arbor, and who now are able to walk next-door to another sister’s house every day for lunch. A lot of old friends and patients have resurfaced since the move; Houghton only wishes Kaye Whitney was alive to see the changes. “She was primarily responsible for my being in this area as a physician,” he says. “She would have loved it here. She was a wonderful lady.”

Houghton also likes the progress that the Glen Arbor business community has made. “Now Empire is coming here for goods and services,” he says. “Glen Arbor has a good plan for the future.”

The new office itself is comfortable and well-lit, with rooms for family consultation and emergency work, and large posters of powerboats hanging conspicuously on the walls. Doc Houghton hasn’t given up his passion for the racing world. If he’s out of the office, it’s a fair bet that he’s in Italy, Dubai, Russia or Norway, performing his duties as the Medical and Safety Director for Victory Team, an international powerboat racing team. As part of his job with the team, Doc Houghton teaches first responder courses and water safety to racing teams from countries where no such programs exist. One can only imagine that Doc’s work on the race circuit is the reason he ends up jumping out of so many helicopters.

As a doctor who wears so many hats, Houghton’s only regret is understandable; he doesn’t have a lot of free time. “I’m an enthusiastic boater and fisherman,” he says, sighing. “That’s part of the reason I moved back up here. It’s just that my boats haven’t been in the water since 1981.” Still, the life of a small-town doctor-and-part-time international race doctor suits Houghton. It has allowed him to be the kind of doctor that he wants to be.

“We are definitely a country practice,” Houghton says. “We are friendly, very friendly. We know our patents and our patients are our friends. Something we can afford to do here which is rare elsewhere is that we are able to practice medicine the way I feel it ought to be practiced … with a personal approach. We don’t see a person with a disease; we see a disease in the person. I have a strong believe in that, that you have to treat the whole person, and we’re able to do that here.”