Petoskey Pete’s skips into Arbor Light building

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
Bubba and Roger Popa are learning all the knickknacks and intricacies of the old Arbor Light building. They own the clothing outfit called Petoskey Pete’s, which moved out of the Mercantile Building on M-22 over the winter and into Glen Arbor’s grand dame on Lake Street.
A fixture in town located across the street from Art’s Tavern and the Cottage Book Shop, the Arbor Light building is now 114 years old, and despite the holes under her stairs out back, her dead-end crawlspaces, and the creaking of floors on the second story as last century’s ghosts rummage about, this charming building is still open for business.

“People have been coming in and telling us stories about the building,” Bubba mused at the Chamber of Commerce meeting in early May. “Everyone else in town knows more about the building than we do.”
Gone is Karen Watson, caretaker of the building and proprietor of the popular Arbor Light destination for 20 years, and even longer gone are the huge ice blocks that locals used to purchase at the General Store back in the days before refrigerators. But Bubba and Roger have left some of the traditions in place. The Popas followed Karen’s advice and will continue to sell some of the Arbor Light store’s signature gift cards, but most importantly, the garden center on the building’s south side is still in bloom this spring. “We’ll keep the ‘Welcome to the Cottage’ signs as well,” Roger added. “Those are a mainstay.”
“I have mixed feelings about saying goodbye,” Karen admitted. “I’ll have summer holidays off for first time in 20 years, but I’ll miss the people and the traditions. I’ll especially miss the summer folks who always stopped into my store, but then again, now I can pretend to be a summer person, myself!
The Arbor Light had been on the market for over a year, and just when it looked like no suitors would come calling, the Popas approached Karen in November, and by December 16 the deal was closed. “The first of May rolled around and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t have to be here,’ Karen remembered. “Instead I can garden, go to the beach, plant my vegetables and play with my dog.”
She’s confident the new owners will do a good job, even though the building sports a new color and its sign no longer reads the Arbor Light. Karen pointed out that she was about the same age as Bubba and Roger when she inherited the reigns. How fast 20 years have gone by.
The Popas have owned Petoskey Pete’s for eight years, ever since the Sutherland boys built it. As they did in the Mercantile Building they will continue to carry shoes, Tevas, sunglasses, beach towels and any clothing you might need for your day on the water. They also offer screen-printing for a business and custom screen-printing. But the coolest things on display at Petoskey Pete’s are the piece of marble likely dating back to the old ice cream parlor in the Arbor Light building and a gigantic Petoskey stone that weighs 12 pounds and contains three different kinds of coral. They’ll even let you pet it if you ask nicely.
Bubba and Roger’s mother Ruthie, “the Ruthinator,” will run Petoskey Pete’s on a daily basis since Roger usually works in Traverse City. The back of the shop will house Pete’s Fleece, and the Glen Lake Artists gallery will continue to occupy the room next door, closer to M-22.
“We’re just happy to be on Lake Street,” summarized Bubba. “Everyone here has been so supportive and complementary, lending us everything we need, from buckets to hot water.”
Bonsai trees sold in the garden
After Glen Arborite Josh Humphrey Sr. returned from his Marine Corps tour in Okinawa in the late-90s, he saw a Japanese man selling the miniature bonsai trees he had come to love at the national arboretum in Washington D.C. These particular bonsais were grown by the man’s grandfather only a mile and a half from ground zero in Hiroshima and miraculously survived the atomic bomb blast at the end of the Second World War.
Josh is now an expert on bonsai trees and sells them from his home across M-22 from the tennis courts in Glen Arbor as well as in the garden next to Petoskey Pete’s. He’ll perform demonstrations and house calls (give him a ring at 231-642-6333), and hopes to become a nationwide bonsai expert with a large-scale hydroponic nursery where he can grow them. Humphrey, 31 years old, is a member of the Sakura Bonsai Club in Traverse City, and one of the few who isn’t retired. Fittingly, sakura is the Japanese word for “cherry tree.”
Bonsai trees are tough and hearty plants that, like lawn furniture, can survive a tough northern Michigan winter. They don’t need a lot of light and as long as they are kept in a setting above 25 degrees Fahrenheit they could live up to 300 years … not to mention survive a nuclear war.
The word bonsai means “shallow pot” in Japanese and it describes the tiny tree sometimes as short as the length of your arm, yet looks like a large, 80-foot tree seen at a great distance or off on a hill. Bonsais are actually native to China, where people often placed shrines or figurines in or around them.