Brownwood Acres, Donuts and The House That Fell Through The Lake

Once upon a time, in the tiny village of Eastport at the northern tip of beautiful Torch Lake, lived two sisters, Dessie and Maud Evans. Maud, who was born in the back of a covered wagon in Kansas, was thin and bookish and loved baseball her entire life. Dessie was three years younger than her sister, big and strong and the life of every party.

They grew up in the building that had been the Eastport Inn, built in 1866 and used as a stagecoach inn for travelers between Traverse City and Petoskey. There were rumors of it having been a speakeasy during the early years of Prohibition, but once Wendell Phillips Evans and his wife, Nora Susan, bought the house in the mid- 1920s, it became their beloved home. Dessie and Maud spent many happy years growing up in the big structure.

Wendell and Nora Evans were people on the move. He was a foreman in the logging camps of the Upper Peninsula. They would take their player piano on the train so they could have it in their tent all summer. Then they would bring it back to their home in Eastport for the winter months. They were known to take trips to Arizona, by car, keeping diaries of every nickel spent on gas and how many flat tires they had. Nora was an early photographer and developed her own film. She was known far and wide as a fabulous baker.

When Maud and Dessie each married, they and their spouses joined in the logging business; there are photos of the Halloween parties held in the three tents that the three couples lived in near Bergland, side by side. They were a jolly bunch who always seemed to enjoy life.

Always, after every adventure, the family returned to their big old house at the tip of Torch Lake. In her later years Nora Evans lived in the old building, with no running water and no electricity, despite her family having built her a comfortable house next door.

After Nora’s death the old inn was sold to Mary Louise Morse, who was putting together the small village of historic cabins and schools called Brownwood Acres, located along the eastern shore of Torch Lake. She had started Brownwood as a honey and vegetable stand, and also sold beautiful jewelry. As her vision for her village grew, she wanted to preserve the Eastport Inn and have it as the centerpiece of her budding business.

Mary Morse discovered that moving the inn the three miles down the main road to Brownwood would be next to impossible, due to the telephone and electric lines. So, she hired a truck driver and had the house put up on skis. They waited until Torch Lake was frozen over, and then, on March 11, 1957, the truck began the journey over the ice, towing the house behind it.

The truck crossed the lake and was within 300 yards of shore on the other side when disaster struck. Ice broke and down into the lake went the truck with the building on skids behind it. The driver and his assistant were able to scramble to shore, but there sat the old house, one story submerged in eight feet of water, the top story poking out of the ice.

Word of The House That Fell Through The Lake quickly spread on radio, television and in many newspapers nationwide. Soon folks who had come from far and wide gathered on the shore, looking out at the forlorn old inn, now in the water for two days.

Dessie and Maud stood on the shore and cried, watching as people debated the fate of the inn. Some said that Morse should burn it, while others clamored for her to save this iconic building. She was determined to save it, and had workmen go out and bring the top floor in, piece by piece. Once the top floor was removed, the rest of the old house floated up and was saved as well.

The building was dried out, put back together and completely restored by Morse and her family. Brownwood Acres grew and the building became the Country Store. Mary Morse’s daughter Mary Lou (Mar) Morse DeTar, and her son Stephen DeTar and his wife, Dana, ran a tea room and restaurant in the building for several years, and Steve started making jam in the basement. Soon, you could buy jams, jellies and their famous Kreme Mustard off the shelves of the old inn.

And somewhere along the way, Mar DeTar started making donuts.

MY FAMILY

When I was born in 1962, I had four grandparents, five great-grandparents and one great-aunt still alive. Many Sunday afternoons of my childhood were spent driving up north to see my Great-Grandma Dessie or my Great-Aunt Maud, who lived in a magical fairy cottage near Eastport. I was the first girl born into the family in 70 years, and by the time I was 8 years old I was taught to play euchre and other card games by those two fabulous old women, who called me their “great girl.”

Any time we traveled up the east side of Torch Lake, my parents would make a pilgrimage to Brownwood, to see The House That Fell Through The Lake. My father would always take us upstairs and reminisce about spending nights at his grandmother’s house, how the rain sounded on the roof, and how the smell of the plum buns that his Gramma Evans used to make would wake him in the morning, wafting up under the rafters. We would each pick out some penny candy as we headed out the door.

As I grew up and had children of my own, I always told the story of The House That Fell Through The Lake around the campfire. Over the years I kept the tradition alive and took my children to see the photos of the days the house spent in the lake that are plastered on the walls in the back of the Country Store. I always stopped and had a conversation with Mar, daughter of Mary Louise, and we always enjoyed the bond of love of our shared history.

One fine Sunday morning in the late summer of 2015, I was working on a movie called Camp Manna, being shot at Camp Hayo-Went-Ha, about a mile south of Brownwood. I decided to pay Mar a visit and hopefully get some donuts. Mar was in her early 80s then, and stood on her feet for hours every Sunday as she labored make her famous fried dough.

She invited me into the kitchen where the donuts were made, and she showed me the process she used to make these delectable little pillows of heaven. She noted that the machine she used was old and would someday need repairs, showed me the extra parts she had just scored on eBay.

As I watched from the porch of the Jam Kitchen building, biting into a chocolate-covered donut, car after car of summer people pulled up, looked at the photos of The House That Fell Through The Lake, and then stood in line to get some donuts, most still warm on the inside.

I will never forget Mar saying to me, “Show up in your bathing suit or your Sunday best, does not matter. Here, everyone is happy. How can you not be happy when you can eat one of these donuts?”