The North’s Original Workforce Housing

Boarding houses of the past — and present

By Ross Boissoneau | May 2, 2020

Swanky hotels and modest motels dotting our downtowns and shores have long been the norm of the North, beckoning tourists to unwind for a weekend or even a season, since the mid-19th century.

But between the tourists and the townies are another lot — those folks who came here not to play or buy property for a lifetime stay, but rather, to test the waters and try their hand at a new job, a new town, maybe a new life ... at least temporarily.

Boarding houses, you might say, are the true birthplace of our Up North towns, the place longer-term travelers and workers called home while they built our local industries and economies and figured out the future shape of their own dreams. 

Most of those "as long as it takes" lodgings — like the folks who occupied them — are long gone, but some of their structures remain. And while few serve their original purpose, we can't help but give a nod to the many ghosts and hopes for a better life Up North that they once held.
 
Shilson House Now on Tap
Traverse City
Traverse City’s first boarding house, Hannah and Lay’s, was located on the southwest corner of what today is North Union Street and Grandview Parkway. This “home” for the employees of Hannah, Lay & Co.’s early lumbering and mercantile operations is no longer with us, but its second proprietors established a new boarding house, which is still extant.
 
William and Jane Shilson took over Hannah and Lay’s from original proprietor David Goodale (who also served as Traverse City’s first doctor) in the 1860s. In 1872, they opened the Boardman River House at what is now 401 S. Union St. William Shilson died a year later, so their son Tom joined his mother in running the place.
 
When Jane Shilson retired in 1891, Tom took over, renaming the family establishment the Shilson House, in his parents' honor. Like its predecessor, the Shilson House served as a home for the workers of the area.
 
Nevertheless, accommodations for the town’s blue-collar residents seemed to lack for little. An ad in the Oct. 10, 1897, Traverse City Record touted “First Class Accommodations” in the “pleasant and well-ventilated rooms.” The rates were described as very reasonable — and with an option for seating at the “First Class Table.” (Right next to that ad was one for McLellan & Ash Fine Candies and Ice Cream, including Peanut, Taffy, Coconut, Almond and “Fresh Oysters, Direct from Baltimore.” (It seems there were oysters aplenty available in Northern Michigan in those days; the ad below McLellan & Ash, for Frank Stepan’s Big West Side Grocery, also touted “Oysters in Bulk.”)
 
Though no longer a boarding house, the Shilson House still stands today, and from the outside, it really doesn’t look all that different from what it was then. It goes by a different name, however: Brady’s Bar.
 
Post-Civil War Retirement Plan & Hemingway’s Stopover Spot
Petoskey
Head north on US-31 to Petoskey, and you’ll find the grand home at 418 Waukazoo St. It was built between 1903 and 1907 as a boarding house and home for Eliza Phillips, its proprietor. She previously lived next door, at 414 Waukazoo, with her husband, R. T. Phillips. He was born in 1843 and died Jan. 7, 1905.

R.T. Phillips, who had served in the Union Army during the Civil War — first in a battery, then re-enlisting as an officer in the Sixth United States Colored Cavalry — is credited as one of the pioneer settlers of the region. He first came to northwest Michigan in l878, moved to Petoskey in 1880, and, as his obituary later stated, “… he worked untiringly to promote the commercial interests of our city.”
 
For nearly 20 years after her husband’s passing, Eliza Phillips ran the boarding house alone, her work ending only when she died, in 1923. The Phillips house’s role in the city, however, continued on for decades. (Sue Watson, a member of the board of directors at the Little Traverse Historical Museum, said her great aunt Mary Yesberger lived there for a time with her son, Francis, and his wife, Ada, sometime after the 1940s. Since its time as a boarding house, the building has had a couple of encores. It’s now the home of Encore Financial.
 
Perhaps of greater fame in Petoskey, however, is the former Potter’s Rooming House at 602 E. State St., occupied for a time by a struggling writer trying hard to make a living while recuperating from injuries he received in World War I: Ernest Hemingway. The wounded solider had returned to his family cottage on Walloon Lake in the fall of 1919, but because the home's only source of heat was from its lone fireplace, he moved to Petoskey to rent an $8-a-week room, heat included, in Eva Potter's Petoskey rooming house.
 
Now a private home, Eva Potter's old place bears a plaque in the front yard: “In the fall of 1919, Ernest Hemingway decided to stay in Petoskey and work on writing stories. From October to December, he rented an upstairs bedroom from Mrs. Eva Potter, a widow living here with her children. It was in that bedroom that he worked hard — but with little success — at writing fiction.”
 
A Widows Nest & Teenage … Dream?
Gaylord
Imagine moving from the big city to rural northern Michigan town at age 14 — decades before the advent of internet and cell phones — to a new home with a more than a dozen beds, which your parents intended to rent out to strangers.
 
That was the case for Chris Grosser when, in 1971, her parents, Fred and Gerrie Bagnasco, bought the rambling house at 210 E. Main St. in Gaylord. They’d purchased it from Beeman Simmons, whose own mother had operated it as a boarding house after her husband had died and he and his brother, Bud, had grown up and moved out.
 
“My folks paid $25,000 for the house, one of three on the block just east of the edge of the business district. My mom says there was still a sign reading “Rooms for Rent” at the time,” said Grosser.
 
When they moved in, there were 14 metal frame beds set up in the upstairs. “One bedroom was dormitory style and would have easily accommodated at least four beds; three of my sisters shared the room and had plenty of space, and a sink was tucked into the closet. There were four other bedrooms, all except one of which was large enough to accommodate a couple of large beds, and my mom recalls a bed or two in the hallway as well, with a curtain drawn across as if to make a room out of the hall, which extended into a second-story balcony.”
 
The house featured beautiful and substantial oak woodwork throughout, including a stately staircase from the large foyer to the upstairs. It also had massive pocket doors leading into the parlor and beautiful French doors leading into the dining room. Grosser said her mom recalled that for a time an attorney had rented out the dining room as both a sleeping room and his office; it not only had a separate entrance off the west side of the porch but also featured double oak doors that hid a murphy bed. “It was absolutely my favorite feature of the entire house while we lived there,” said Grosser.
 
Despite its many fine accouterments, the house did not ever have a fireplace. According to Gerrie Bagnasco, the omission was purposeful: The original owners wanted everyone to know they had a furnace, a status symbol at the time, instead.
 
Ralph Skinner and his wife, Lois, bought the house from the Bagnasco family around 1999. Besides selling them the house, the Bagnascos left a gift for the new owners in the form of an old cookbook. “Mom recalls an advertisement in an antique community cookbook of that era that mentioned Dr. Simmons and his painless dentistry,” noted Grosser. “Mom left the cookbook behind with the Skinners because she felt it belonged with the house.”
 
Another story she learned about the house is that one of the Simmons sons, either Beeman or his older brother, Bud, weighed only 1½  pounds at birth so the family had made a bed for him from a shoebox. He slept in the large closet under the front stairs because that was the warmest place in the house, as the furnace was located directly beneath the closet.
 
The Hallett and Francis Homes: Two Grey Gables
Charlevoix
The Hallett House at 312 Belvedere Ave. in Charlevoix was owned by H.H. Hallett. It was built in 1887, one of the original cottages of the Belvedere Club, a chic summer colony on the south side of Round Lake. Each guest room at the Hallett House boasted running water — a big deal at the time. The dining room catered not only to guests but also to club members, offering capacity for up to 100 people. Although the home has changed hands and roles throughout the years, its original use — and rooms — have remained intact (with water still running) and available for rent for the last 20 years.
 
Next door, on the west side, sat the Francis House, owned by W.H. Francis. When Dan Clothier bought it in the 1930s, he changed its name to the Grey Gables Inn. “A most delightful home built in the lumber baron days,” read a brochure. “Outfitted for those who want Refinement – Comfort – Rest.”
 
Apparently the one who got tired was Mr. Francis, as he sold it in the 1940s to Florence Dundas, who remodeled the rooms and the menu, and — by the early 1950s — had transformed it into one of the most classic dining experiences in Charlevoix, Grey Gables Restaurant & Catering.