You are here

Michigan » The Upper Peninsula » Central Upper Peninsula » Alger County » Brownstone Inn

Brownstone Inn

-A A +A
1946, Ed Niemi, builder. E4635 MI 28, 2 miles west of Au Train blinker light
  • (Photograph by Roger Funk)

Clark Hasdins, a retired Detroit police officer, built this dormered side-gable, one-and-a-half-story roadhouse of local and salvaged materials at the side of the main highway between Munising and Marquette. Cyrus Bark of Chatham reportedly milled the half logs for the canopies and cabins. Ed Niemi, the Alger County builder who constructed the inn, recycled steel beams and metal-framed windows from a demolished lumber camp and mill once operated in Munising by the Michigan Iron, Land and Timber Company, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. This was one northern Michigan operation that supplied wood for the company's Model T and Model A cars and trucks. Bacco Vadnais, a Munising stonemason brought sandstone up from the Lake Superior shore and laid it in the exterior walls. Pine paneling came from Chatham. Mahogany wainscot was rescued from Ford's Kingsford veneer mill that made gliders for the war effort. John Rittenhouse of Cheboygan supplied the handcrafted rustic log dining room furniture. The inn tells of the resourcefulness of builders in the Upper Peninsula after World War II.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
×

Data

What's Nearby

Bay Furnace

Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Brownstone Inn", [Au Train, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-AR8.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 535-535.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,