Tour an Artful Coastal Shingle-Style Retreat with Bay Views

The second stop on our 2022 Northern Home & Cottage Virtual Tour is this coastal shingle-style home. Take a sneak peek inside + enjoy an exclusive, never-before-seen Host’s Highlight below. Want to view the full tour along with 7 more of Northern Michigan’s most gorgeous homes? Get your donation-based tickets now.

This article first appeared in Traverse Northern Michigan. Find this story and more when you explore our digital issue library. Want Traverse delivered to your door or inbox monthly? View our print subscription and digital subscription options.

This beautiful home sits on a bluff 70 feet above East Grand Traverse Bay, a perch that offers a stellar view across the water to Old Mission Peninsula. The homeowners originally asked Jamie Wilkins of Trillium Shore LLC. for a construction bid—along with many other fine Northern Michigan builders—in 2019. Deciding the home would be too large, they tabled the project. When they were ready to start again last year, they went straight to Wilkins. “We’d felt an immediate connection to Jamie the first time we met him,” the homeowner says. “He had this appreciation for older homes and so do we. We wanted a Shingle style with a lot of traditional touches. We saw his work and the quality was terrific.”

Photo by Dave Speckman

Wilkins suggested Steve Werner of Shoreline Architecture & Design based in Petoskey to help the couple pare down their original plan. The home has all of the gracious qualities of a coastal estate: cathedral ceilings, windows across the front to let in water views, elegant white oak floors and a kitchen (by Heather Neal Design) with marble counters and a butler’s pantry. Even with all of that and more, Wilkins and the homeowners agree that the home’s pièce de résistance is the round, covered and screened porch off the side of the home that is outfitted with a fieldstone foundation and a massive fieldstone fireplace.

In the midst of construction, the family had a medical emergency and needed to let Wilkins make many decisions himself. “We knew they would be what we would choose ourselves,” says the homeowner. One of those decisions was cladding the ceiling in marine-grade mahogany, instead of the beadboard the homeowners assumed it would have. To top it off, he hand-painted a compass rose in the ceiling peak. “It’s a work of art,” the homeowner says.

Photo by Dave Speckman

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NHC Home Tours Digital Exclusive: Host’s Highlight

No one knows all 8 homes better than this year’s host, Erin Lutke. We sat down with Erin to get the inside scoop on each and every home, and here we share some of her favorite moments when touring + a never-before-seen video snippet of the room or moment that she revealed. You can only find the 2022 Northern Home & Cottage Virtual Home Tour Host’s Highlights on MyNorth.com.

“This home is where I learned about the Detroit delicacy known as Pewabic Pottery—their butler’s pantry backsplash was done in the tile as well as the main floor powder room and when I was offered a mug of hot tea on the chilly fall day that I was shooting the home it was served in a you-guessed-it Pewabic Pottery mug.” – Erin Lutke

Want to see more Pewabic home features? Looking forward to viewing 7 more gorgeous, Northern Michigan homes? Get your donation-based tickets now for this year’s Northern Home and Cottage Virtual Tours, benefiting Child & Family Services.

Preview More 2022 NHC Virtual Home Tours!