Mushroom Houses

We arrived in the charming village of Charlevoix, MI just as the drawbridge was being raised to allow a big boat to go through to Lake Michigan.  We had a tour of the Mushroom Homes designed by Earl Young (also the name of a former neighbor of ours.) He was a self trained architect who would go find the stones he used to build the houses. The buildings have an organic, fairy tale quality to them and also shared some characteristic with Frank Lloyd Wright homes. This was Young’s hometown and he built 26 homes and 4 commercial structures  during the 1920- 40s. Many of the homes are now available to rent via vrbo and there is the Hotel Earl. During most of our time in Charlevoix I inadvertently paid homage to Young’s quirkiness by wearing my shirt inside out.  The people behind me on the tram must have been very impressed.  Other stops included the Kilwin’s (candy and ice cream) manufacturing facility, a sailboat race on Little Travers Bay and a stop for pasties.  Each of these meat and potato hand held pies weighed about 1 pound. Somehow we were able to each (almost) finish one.