The current owners of this Tudor Revival home describe their contributions as “minor cosmetic changes.” In the strictest literal sense, this is probably the case, since no walls have been removed or rooms added since their arrival two years ago. However, “minor cosmetic changes” hardly describe the success they have had in making the house their own.

A good example is the large living room to the left of the entry hall. It is festooned with large stained glass windows that the owners salvaged from a demolished house in Rogers City, MI. The great amount of light that permeates all of the house intensifies the feeling that these pieces were born in their current location. The owners also applied a great deal of imagination to the room’s painting—including an almost imperceptibly different color in the window wells to make them seem lighter. In the dining room, they made the draperies and hand-painted the vertical stripes on the walls. And they challenge visitors to find the one stripe that is 1/16 of an inch wider than the others.

The owners also did a great job of customizing a thoroughly unique space to the left of the living room. This star-studded, barrel-ceiling room actually is an old breezeway that originally connected the house with its “twin dwelling” to the north. Although they look quite different, the two homes—built for a lady and her daughter around 1906—are mirror images inside. Shortly after their construction, the two homes were connected. The breezeway attached to the neighbor’s home has since been removed, but 2197’s still exists, extending right to the property line.

Journeying up the main staircase, one is struck again by the amount of light—this time streaming though a giant arched window on the landing. This tends to make the second floor even brighter than the first.
Throughout the second floor, imaginative “cosmetic changes” are again in evidence: songbird wallpaper in the hall, “sky & star wallpaper in the guestroom, a faux punched-tin ceiling in the master bedroom and a Queen Anne style sink in the master bathroom. At one time, the office was shrunk to create more room for the master bathroom, although this is one alteration for which the owners cannot take credit.

Lastly, few homes have a garage worth visiting. This one does. Clearly a carriage house with a horse stall at one time, the heated structure has seven rooms. Visitors should take note of the original carriage doors to the left which, in all likelihood, made it possible for the original residents to bring their vehicles (buggies, carriages, etc.) in through the side and avoid having to turn them around before exiting through the front.

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