95. Tour of Architecture and History

 

Saugatuck was founded in 1830 as a trading post. By the 1870s it was the second busiest port on the Michigan side of the lake. This tour takes you through part of the old “Flats” area which was the village’s early industrial/docks area (lumber and flour milling, shipbuilding, commercial fishing) — complete with boarding houses and taverns.
With two small parks, today the area is dominated by structures that mirror the village’s “colonial revival” in the 1920s-40s. A number of important American architects began the redesign of the village in a tourist-friendly “quaint village” setting—similar to the reconstruction-preservation work Thomas Eddy Tallmadge was doing at the time for the Rockefeller family in Williamsburg, Virginia.

1 – Start at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts at 400 Culver Street. A former frozen pie factory repurposed to be an arts center.
Follow the sidewalk west to…
2 – SW corner of Butler and Culver Streets. Interurban Electric Train Station, built 1899 in Jones Park. The Interurban “tourist run” connected Grand Rapids, Holland and Saugatuck.
3 – 102 Butler. Saugatuck Village Hall/Fire Station, built 1880/1924. Redesign by local artist/architect Carl Hoerman in 1924. Formerly an Indian burial ground.
4 – 152 Butler. Landmark Building, built 1878. First bank and early clothing store where the guard dog ate all the fur coats. Site of famous Susan B. Anthony speech and her temperance battle against local saloons that closed six out of 14 saloons. Now Kilwins.
5 – 202 Butler. Union Hotel, bar and restaurant, built 1864. Now Pumpernickles.
6 – 238 Butler. The Old Post Office, 1901. Now James Brandess Studio & Gallery — Saugatuck’s best-known artist.
7 – 252 Butler. Meat Market, built 1889. Various uses, including saloon. Now Tucks Christmas Shop.
8 – 303 Butler. Saugatuck Woman’s Club, built 1935. Entrance is on Hoffman Street. Built for literary, music and social events by architect Thomas Eddy Tallmadge — based on his work at Williamsburg.
9 – 306 Butler. Heath Building, built 1907. Once the village drugstore, with hotel upstairs, now Landsharks.
10 – 317 Butler. Singapore Bank Building. Now Saugatuck Gallery. The 1837 “Wild Cat” bank of the nearby buried village of Singapore was moved to the village in the 1880s by dragging it up the frozen Kalamazoo River.
11 – Village Square (in 3 sections): Civil War era cannon. Memorial to local resident Burr Tillstrom, creator of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, and a memorial plaque to May Heath, a local historian.
12 – 12 Main. Christian Science Church, built 1925. Howard Cheney, Architect.
13 – 428 Butler. Maplewood Hotel. Formerly a general store, built 1860. George Maher, new façade 1923.
14 – 439 Butler. Koning Hardware Store, built 1865/re-built in 1904. Operated as a hardware store until 2007.
15 – 447 Butler. Victorian Inn, built 1904. A Queen Ann home reborn as a hotel.
16 – 246 Mary. Fursman Painting Studio. The studio is part of former village school complex, reconstructed by Architect Thomas Eddy Tallmadge. One of the mid-west’s most important impressionist painters, Fursman was director of the Saugatuck Ox-Bow School of Art. Now the Pine Grove Cottage
17 – 510 Butler. Wickwood Inn, built 1940. Former B&B of Silver Palette cookbook author Julie Russo.
18 – 521 Butler. Timothy Coates House, built 1852. Early lighthouse keeper home. Classic Michigan Greek Revival (porch added later).
19 – 607 Butler. Judson-Heath Colonial Inn. Early residence and boarding house for mill workers.
Turn left on Francis Street, walk to Water St./river.
20 – 326 Water. Hiestand house, built 1950.
21 – 528 Water. Ship n’ Shore Motel-Boatel, built 1960. Early luxury “boatel” for boaters.
22 – Wick’s Park. Formerly one of many shipbuilding yards. Over 200 schooners and steamships were built in Saugatuck from 1837 to the present.
23 – Saugatuck Chain Ferry, Saugatuck-Douglas History Museum and Garden at the historic Pump House. Take the Chain Ferry across the Kalamazoo River. After disembarking the ferry, turn right to follow road along waterfront to the museum. The Chain Ferry began service in 1856 (present ferry built 1965).  The Museum was originally the Saugatuck Pump House, designed by Shorewood summer resident John Alvord, partner in Chicago firm of Daniel Burnham. Alvord was instrumental in design of the Chicago Exhibition of 1893 and Chicago’s Buckingham Fountain. The Museum, founded 1992, welcomes over 30,000 visitors annually.