Saugatuck Village Hall

Location: 102 Butler Street, Saugatuck
Date: 1880 / Remodeled, 1926

The Saugatuck Village Hall began in 1880 as the village firehouse with meeting rooms above. Architect Carl Hoerman’s 1926 reconstruction of the building was part of a village-wide clean up and fix up campaign in the 1920s that resulted in a new “Colonial Revival” architectural face for the village. This structure, with its side pilasters, elegant recessed portico and arched windows was a way of announcing the new “quaint village” message of the 1920s and 1930s. Alterations to the structure were proposed by the Village Council in 1988 but were rejected in the face of strong community opposition. The upper floor was the village’s first art exhibition gallery and today it is the village council room. In earlier times the site was a local cemetery that had been built over a Native American burial ground.