Michigan Trip Day 2

Updated Sept 9 to add…photos!

Tuesday – on to Grand Rapids! I wanted to see the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park and there happened to be a FLW house nearby that was offering tours the day I planned to be there. But first, I had to get there. The weather tried to thwart me – again. I decided to drive up through South Haven, but on the way had to pull off the highway to wait out another terrifying storm. At one point, I literally could not see in front of the car, and there was standing water. On the highway. After about 30 minutes in a gas station parking lot, I headed out again.

Once I got there, South Haven was as lovely as advertised.

I made the most of my 30 minutes and walked down to the beach, then left to head to Grand Rapids. I wished I had more time to explore South Haven, but I had a reservation at the Meyer May house. This was one of the best stops of the trip. The house is amazing, and if you are at all interested in Frank Lloyd Wright (ahem, Birchie) or architecture or historic houses, I highly recommend it if you are ever in the area. The tour was free, and led by very passionate volunteers. It was so much fun to listen to them.

The tour starts with a video on the house’s history and its renovation in the 1980s. It’s apparently one of the best restoration jobs of any FLW house, paid for by the Steelcase company. The Steelcase company built a Wright-designed desk (that you can still buy!) for the office building that Wright designed for the SC Johnson Company in Racine, WI, which Engie and Birchie toured back in June. Got that? Steelcase paid for the restoration of the Meyer May house after it fell into disrepair. Although they have never disclosed the costs (and they pay to maintain it, even now), you get a sense of just how much time, energy, and passion went into the restoration from the introductory video. It’s the kind of thing I love – the story behind. It did not hurt that the video was filmed in the mid-80s, so the glasses, hair, and clothes all just added to the vibe.🙂 So many artisans worked to uncover original elements of the house that had been lost to time. They meticulously repaired what they could (which was more than I anticipated), and carefully reproduced what they could not restore. The care, love, and time that went into this was astonishing.

The tour was wonderful – thanks to Darcie, our tour guide. She loved sharing all the minutiae about the house and the story of the May family. It was commissioned by Meyer May, a Jewish businessman in GR. He and his wife built the house and lived there with their two kids and then… she died in the Spanish flu epidemic. Mr. May and his two children stayed in the house and were eventually joined by Mr. May’s 2nd wife and her two children. At that time, they expanded the house to accommodate the additional kids, an expansion that was reversed during the renovations.

They bought the lot in the Heritage Hill Historic District, a neighborhood with homes that are very, very different from the May house. It stands out, but not in a bad way. It is a double lot – more room for the gardens – and one of the things I liked about it that you don’t get at Taliesin or at Falling Water is that it’s literally in the middle of the neighborhood. There are good things about this, but there are some drawbacks. One is the house next door that has fallen into disrepair. They have compensated by putting up a wall between the properties, but it is still visible.

The house itself is stunning. The ways in which FLW worked with the family – and in some ways, against the family’s preferences to get what HE wanted instead – were impressive. (The story of the primary bedroom beds is hilarious and worth the tour.) I loved that the house was designed for a man who was short even for his time, making the house just my size! This house felt like one I could live in very comfortably. Not like most places, where the top shelf is not a storage option.

In short, it was a lovely, lovely house, with a fantastic tour led by highly enthusiastic docents. 10/10 would recommend. Then I headed off to the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. I was really looking forward to seeing them, and figured that August would be perfect timing. Unfortunately, they did not live up to my expectations. It wasn’t the gardens themselves – it was the weather, which was cold, windy, and drizzly. Not to mention, I hadn’t planned well and only had a few hours. I wish I had planned better, picked a day with better weather, stayed longer, and maybe gone with a friend. I suspect I’ll be back at some point and I hope to see more.

Despite the chill and damp, the gardens really were lovely – very, very green, not very crowded, and I did get to see some of the sculptures that I really wanted to see (Mad Mom and Neuron, among others).

It was beautiful, but it was also about 65 degrees, windy, and still misting, and I was turning purple. So, I headed in to the interior exhibits, where I warmed up in  the tropical conservatory (heat! humidity! bliss!) and the greenhouses for the carnivorous plants (they get their own, ha) and desert plants (heat! dry heat! bliss!), then visited some of the rotating exhibits. They were kind of fascinating, with an underlying theme of environmental catastrophes. Not uplifting, but fascinating. One used insects’ bodies to make art, as well as make the point that many insect species have already gone extinct as a result of climate change, and the other was composed of wall-mounted sculptures made entirely of soda and beer and other cans that the artist retrieved from trash and the streets. Until you got close – in both exhibits – you had no idea what was used to create the art.

I visited some of the Chihuly sculptures (when I get back to Washington state, the Museum of Glass is very high on my list), then decided to get lunch there. They had great vegetarian options in the “cafeteria”, so I went with that. I sat, read my book on my phone, and (again) people watched. I was inside, warm, and wound up with some leftovers to work into my dinner later.

Then I hit the road for Holland. All I have to say is, wow. Michigan drivers rival those in Illinois and the 95 corridor out east for Scariest Highway Drivers Ever. Holy moley. I was terrified most of the way, which of course makes me drive 10 miles below the speed limit, which then ticks off the other drivers, who zip around me even faster.

I arrived in Holland mid-afternoon, checked into my hotel, then headed into town. It was another cute beach town. I’m more into the beaches and water and (where I can find it) solitude and quite, though, so I went out to the state beach (thanks to my non-resident Michigan state parks pass!) and walked out onto the breakwater. It was gorgeous, didn’t have many people braving the walk out, and gave an unobstructed view of the lake as far as the eye could see. *happy sigh*.

After walking back, it was time for ice cream for pre-dinner (sensing a theme?). I found Whit’s Custard after a brief check of Google Maps and learned that I could get peanut butter as a mix-in. Pardon me for a brief moment here, but… WHY doesn’t the Midwest have vanilla peanut butter ripple ice cream? It’s all chocolate PB, or chocolate chocolate PB cup, or they throw peanuts in, or caramel, or pretzels… I like my simple vanilla/PB combination, so please, if anyone knows of any in Wisconsin or surrounding states (I’m willing to travel!) please let me know.

I thoroughly enjoyed my vanilla ice cream with peanut butter, wandered the streets a bit and people watched, then went back to the hotel for dinner, shower, and bed. The next day would be a long driving day from Holland to Traverse City, and I hoped to make it to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park along the way.