The sixth stop on the 2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour is located in Harbor Springs at 2598 Pennsylvania Avenue. A combination of spacious design and a Victorian cottage style makes this kitchen a perfect gathering place for family and friends!

Visit other kitchens on the Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour:

  1. Elegance, Torch Lake Style
  2. Simple Pleasures
  3. Period Piece
  4. Walls Came Down
  5. Up North French Country

The 2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour takes place on October 18 from 9 am to 5 pm. This year there are 11 kitchens ranging from north of Harbor Springs down to Glen Arbor. Proceeds raised during the home tour will benefit Northern Michigan non-profit, Child and Family Services of Northwestern Michigan. Save by purchasing tickets to the 2014 Northern Home & Cottage Home Tour at MyNorthTickets.com:


Cindy and Bill Rohde have moved a number of times over the course of Bill’s career as an insurance executive. Cindy refers to their long list of neighborhoods and houses as opportunities to make friends—and to learn what she does and does not like in a kitchen. She does not like her dishes in cupboards. She does like them in drawers. She doesn’t like appliances cluttering the counter. She does like them in a big, roomy pantry. She doesn’t like people in her cooking space. She does like family and friends visiting with her (at a comfortable distance!) while she cooks.

When the couple began building a vacation home in Harbor Springs’ Wequetonsing Association, they intended it to be a home base for their family, “a place where our children will come back with our grandchildren,” Cindy says. So naturally, the kitchen had to be right. As important as all of the above, the Rohdes wanted their new home, both inside and out, to jibe with the Victorian cottages that venerable Wequetonsing Association is known for.

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Enter kitchen designer Jethany Lee and her years of experience working with Victorian cottage kitchens—both the authentic and new- builds designed to feel vintage. In the Rohde kitchen, Jethany helped accomplish the look with shiplap wall paneling and a ceiling made with rafter beams left exposed and rough: “Like many of the older homes in Wequetonsing,” she says. Maple cabinets—stacked for a homey look—with recessed panel doors continue the classic cottage feel. Walls, ceiling and cabinets are all white. “White is Weque … and timeless,” Jethany says. A custom stainless hood with a matte finish echoes the soft pewter-toned Vermont Danby marble countertops.

Fresh, timeless, beautiful. But how does it cook? Cindy will be the first to tell you: with big roomy drawers for the dishes and pots and pans, a deep walk-in pantry for appliances and dry goods and the biggest island she’s ever had in a kitchen—with room to play chef and entertain family and friends. In short, it cooks just right!

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour

Volunteer for the Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour!

Check out other kitchens on the 2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour produced by Northern Home & Cottage magazine and the National Kitchen and Bath Association and sponsored by Virginia Tile and Honor Onekama Building Supply:

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #1: Elegance, Torch Lake Style

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #2: Simple Pleasures

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #3: Period Piece

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #4: Walls Came Down

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #5: Up North French Country

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #6: Vintage Cottage Style

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #7: About the Stove

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #8: Life as Style

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #9: Coastal Living

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #10: Pretty Painted Lady

2014 Ultimate Up North Kitchen Tour #11: Built on Granite