EV road trip postcard: Long-vacant Sleeping Bear Inn reopens after $1.7M rehab

• Built around the Civil War, the Sleeping Bear Inn has been vacant for five decades
• It reopens this summer, after a years-long, $1.7 million restoration effort
• Guests are transported back to a time when cordwood-fired steamships stopped in Glen Haven as they transported supplies across the Great Lakes

GLEN HAVEN — The quest to restore one of Michigan’s most iconic historic buildings began with Maggie Kato peering through its old blown glass windows, something countless visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore have done for decades.

“You look through the windows and say, ‘Wow, they should be doing something with this,’” Kato said. 

It had remained vacant since the 1970s, after the National Parks Service took ownership of the building and surrounding land and turned them into a publicly accessible, national lakeshore.  Since then, the inn has withstood a constant battering of sand and wind on its 160-year-old, wooden frame.

The eight-room inn officially welcomes its first guests again this weekend, the culmination of a years-long restoration effort that began with Kato’s glimpse through the window.

Soon after, an online search revealed that the National Park Service had intended to revive the inn, even putting out a call for proposals about 10 years ago that had netted no viable partners.

“​​I looked at the proposal, I called the number, and somebody answered,” Kato said. 

The rest is history.

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Despite a sign out front saying the inn opened in 1857, most agree it welcomed its first guest a few years later in the 1860s. 

It originally catered to business travelers in the then-busy Glen Haven Village, a port town where wood-fired steamships refueled en route to Chicago or New York. 

The inn, and eventually the entire village, were owned by David Henry Day, an entrepreneur who came to the area as a passenger agent for the Northern Transportation Company.

Later, the inn would become a tourist stop that offered thrill-seeking visitors a ride on its “dunesmobiles.” 

After that fateful visit several years ago, Maggie Kato and her husband, Jeff, moved up from Genesee County and threw their life savings into reopening the inn. 

“We sold everything we owned and put it into the project,” Maggie said. 

It’s been a long journey: They formed the nonprofit Balancing Environment and Rehabilitation, leased the property from the parks service in 2018, raised $400,000 in donations and spent two years restoring the building top to bottom, from the shiplap siding to the maple floors.

The effort has cost $1.7 million, along with many hours of labor by the Katos, construction manager George MacEachern and host of volunteers.

Despite decades of sitting vacant along the stormy lakeshore, the inn was in good shape when the Katos inherited it. Even the century old single-paned windows were intact.

“It is amazing, considering our northern Michigan weather,” Kato said.

She credits the drying effect of Sleeping Bear’s sand for the lack of the mold and mildew that often proliferates in vacant buildings. 

Today, the inn’s visitors are transported back to the early 1900s. The inn has been re-furnished with period appropriate pieces donated from nearby residents. 

There are stately old buffets and antique davenports. Black-and-white pictures offered up by the descendants of former innkeepers. Gorgeous views of Lake Michigan from the large enclosed porch, brick fireplaces in the common areas and not a single TV in sight.

Before this, Maggie spent 15 years running Genesee County Habitat for Humanity, so she knows what it takes to revitalize historic buildings. Jeff’s background is in hospitality, which is helpful when running a bed and breakfast.

They plan to operate year-round. The cozy guest rooms and stately parlor make lovely places to curl up with a book after a day of cross-country skiing along the dunes or watching the waves crash on the beach. Breakfast will be served every morning.

Rooms are $199 to $339 a night during peak season, and profits will fund restoration efforts of the rest of the 13-acre historic Glen Haven Village. 

Next up, BEAR hopes to collaborate with the parks service and the Friends of Sleeping Bear to work on a generator building that housed one of few remaining original Edison direct-current generators in the U.S.

“We'd love to put it on display for people to see,” Maggie said.

As for the inn?

“We want it to live for another 100 years,” she said. “We want generations beyond us to hear the story of steamships that came across the Great Lakes that were fueled by cordwood. And then how the forests were reforested with new trees coming in, and this full cycle of what is here and the beauty of this area.”

Only now, they won’t have to peer through windows to get a better view.