6. Felt Mansion

Location: West end of 138th Avenue in Laketown Township / Near Shore Acres Township Park

Date: 1925-28

Dorr Felt was one of a number of Chicago millionaires of the 1920s who sought to be a gentlemen farmer in the Saugatuck area — although Felt was a particularly ingenious one. Making his fortune with the first adding machine, the Comptometer, he turned the damaged dune-woods of his property into an experimental farm with an elaborate irrigation system that used windmills to pump water from Lake Michigan. His thousand-acre estate included an orchard, a restored forest, and a half-mile of Lake Michigan beach with a road for public access. The family sold the property to the St. Augustine Seminary in 1948 which used it until the 1970s at which time it became a State of Michigan medium-security prison. The property is now part of the Saugatuck Dunes State Park and Shore Acres Township Park. The family mansion, a grand Georgian Revival structure designed by F. P. Allen and Sons, is now open to the public and used for public events. The Felt Estate is listed on the State Register of Historic Places.