It is believed that Carmichaels boat house underwent several transformations, in this case into a garage along the shore road. Courtesy Linda Kemper
Giving your cottage a name gives you “dominion over a part of your world, and gives you a sense of stability,” according to Mike Curtis in an article last November. In other words, it makes your cottage your own, and says something about how you feel about it.
There are a lot of interesting names in Omena: Idyllcrest, Idyllwild, Sandlapper, Robin’s Nest, Pioneer, and Birchwood Terrace are a few of them. But what about “House by The Side Of The Road”? That was the name on the sign attached to a little yellow house across from the cottages on Ingalls Bay Road. Hmmm. Pretty plain and boring compared to the others, isn’t it?
Leonard Wheeler watering his horse at the Omena Beach. Photo courtesy Omena Historical Society
House by the Side of the Road
Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Lay, from Marshalltown, Iowa were among the earliest visitors of the Wheeler’s Sunset Lodge around 1905. Leonard Wheeler regularly took guests with his horse and wagon to Ingalls Bay for swimming, since the sandy beach there was superior to the other area rocky beaches, and the water there was shallower and warmer. It was on one of those trips to the beach that the Lays discovered Ingalls Bay, fell in love with its beauty, bought two lots, and in 1910 built their cottage.
In 1911 the Lays’ friends, Ira O. Kemble and his wife Caroline came from Iowa to visit them at their cottage, and they, in turn, bought two lots west of the Lays. With the help of two Indians, the Kemble’s built their own cottage the following year.
It is not that the women in these two families did not like to cook or were lazy. Feeding a family was tough in those days, what with cooking on wood stoves and trying to keep things cool in ice boxes and having no cars for running to the grocery store. So it happened that in 1915, these two families built a dining facility across the road from their cottages which became known as “The House By The Side of the Road”. Why across the street from their cottages? One advantage was that the wood stove cooking the meal would not heat up the house. Another was that if there was a fire, only the dining facility would burn down. Their cottages were safe. Fires were common.
Community Dining Hall
The first summer a cook came from Chicago to cook for the two families in the yellow dining facility. The following year the Garthe girls came down from Northport to cook for them. As the Ingalls Bay summer colony grew, so did the interest in dining in the “dining hall.” Soon most of the Ingall’s Bay cottagers were dining there too. The dining facility became called “The House By The Side Of The Road” and as time went on was the gathering place at mealtime for these families, much to the relief of the wives.
By 1920, other cottagers were naming their cottages on Omena Point. The Hartley’s “Pioneer,” the Reed’s “Sandlapper,” and the Santo rental cottages: ‘Homewood,” “Shorewood”, ”Idlewild,” and “Idlecrest” to name a few.
The Carmichael boat house in the summer of 1949. It must have moved around for at this time it was located near the Omena Traverse Yacht Club. See Mary Helen Ray’s description on the back of the photo below. Courtesy Linda Kemper
Birchwood
Hector Carmichael built a summer cottage on the bay that year for his family and named it “Birchwood.” He bought several other cottages on the point as the depression hit and times got hard. Eventually he owned all of Santos property, which included the Omena Point cottages named Homewood, Shorewood, Idlewild and Idlecrest. He lived, for a time, in the cottage named “Homewood,” (Now the Bosco/Flett house), and built a long dock and a boathouse for his boats, which Hector and Jessie’s little son loved to play in. Charlie was their only son, and he had an incurable lung disease. He was not expected to live past childhood.
Their lives pretty much revolved around Charlie. You might say he had unusual liberties. As a teen, Charlie caused them a bit of a problem when he furnished the boathouse with furniture from Gull’s Island without the owner’s permission and was arrested for stealing (however charges were later dropped). It is said that in 1932, Charlie won a hotly contested boat race between Ingalls Bay and Omena Point teens with somewhat dishonorable tactics: that he used his father’s money to purchase a very fast motor days before the race. He was going as fast as 42 miles per hour in his daddy’s boat that day, and easily won the race. Charlie died when he was in his twenties from his lung disease and is buried in the Omena cemetery.
Charlies Boathouse
Hector and Jessie were heartbroken. Hector, perhaps for sentimental reasons, wanted to move Charlies boathouse down to their winter residence at the end of the bay and attach it to their house. Jessie, whether for emotional reasons or because she thought it would look strange to have an old boathouse attached to one end of their pretty farmhouse style home, was bitterly against the idea. Much to the fury of Jesse, Hector had his way. The boathouse was dragged over the ice one winter, up on the shore and attached to the west end of their house where it is today. The Carmichael’s winter house became the Silverman’s house and is now the Kemper’s house…but is still known as “The Boathouse.”
Not far down the road from the Kemper’s Boat House is a house named “Lavender Lane.” It is now owned by Omena Village Preservation Association as a summer rental but has had a checkered past. OVPA rescued it, restored it, and continues to repair it after an unfortunate rental experience by the previous owner. Prior to that it had been a dried flower boutique and featured many items involving dried lavender…thus the name “Lavender Lane.” Cottage names stay with the cottage, it seems. Forever. Does your cottage have a name?
Courtesy a Nov 6, 2023, article by Mike W. Curtis on medium.com. Omena Historical Society, “Omena, A Place In Time” by Amanda Holmes, and Linda Kemper for the photos and story of the move of the Carmichael boathouse.
Motorboat Race – Photo credit “Omena, A Place In Time” by Amanda Holmes