See this Glen Arbor condo on the Traverse Area Northern Home & Cottage Tour October 13, and enjoy the sneak peek below.

Location
5500 Overbrook Rd. South Beach #59, The Homestead Resort, Glen Arbor

Contractor
Will Kleehammer, Kleehammer Construction, LLC, 231.218.9675

Carl and Virginia McCoy spent two weeks in Glen Arbor in 2011 and they couldn’t get it out of their minds. The Grosse Pointe Woods couple decided they wanted a vacation condo with a waterfront view, so in December 2014 they bought a 1,200-square-foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bath 1980s condo at The Homestead’s South Beach Club.

The first thing they did was hire a structural engineer, to see if the tight, enclosed kitchen’s walls could be removed so the living room, dining room and kitchen could open up and take in the breathtaking views and sunsets over Lake Michigan. The engineer said yes.

The McCoys hired General Contractor Will Kleehammer to do the demo and rebuild. They asked their longtime interior designer, Margo Bishop of St. Clair Shores, to do the rest.

A year later, after ripping out the entire interior and putting it back together again with a more elegant Craftsman feel and with views beyond compare, it was party time. There’s brand-new everything here, including crown molding, LED lighting, air conditioning, a Sonos sound system in every room including the exterior deck, and appliances that they adore, such as their new Kitchen Aid range with glass cooktop and many-function burners, and the oven with a baking drawer for slow-cooking as well.

“We love to cook and entertain,” says Carl. Virginia roundly agrees: “Our love of food and wine drove our renovation. We wanted to cook together and center our entertaining around food and wine. We even planned in a wine refrigerator.”

Carl says the room that the wine cooler inhabits is shared with the stacked laundry appliances. “It’s really sweet, like the interior of a boat—everything fits into a small space with crown molding, cabinetry and pantry.”

The couple, who just celebrated their 40th anniversary, rave about the transformation of the entire condo, whose Benjamin Moore paint hues echo the colors of the lake, the dunes and the pines. Coincidentally, the new shade in their master bedroom is called South Beach, the same name as their condo association.

The McCoys can curl up in front of the fireplace, whose handsome surround is Pratt & Larson tile made in Portland, Oregon, and whose custom doors are from Source Julien in Traverse City. “The hearth is made of a solid piece of quartz, which is the same as the countertops in the kitchen,” says Carl. “It took six men to carry it in!”

The master bath also has great creature features: A heated floor and an electric Mr. Steam towel bar that allows for programming the heat. “If you would shower routinely at 6 a.m. you can program it to come on at 5 so that your towels are toasty warm when you get out of the shower. It is great in winter up here and in the humid summer as well,” Carl explains.

The McCoys now savor all that the area has to offer—streaming Interlochen Public Radio on their sound system, shopping for fresh produce at the farmers’ markets, sipping all the earthly delights from the many local wineries.

“It’s hard to rip ourselves from the waterfront,” says Carl, “but we try to support all of the local businesses.’’

Clearly, they’ve found their Nirvana, right here in Northern Michigan.

Tickets to the Traverse Area Home Tour are available on MyNorthTickets.com.

Thank you to our sponsors.

Photo(s) by Kleehammer Construction