TIMBERS

HOMEOWNER TED GREENE ASKED ARCHITECT LOU DESROSIERS TO FUSE MID-CENTURY MODERN STYLE WITH LAST-CENTURY TIMBER FRAME STYLE. THE RESULT IS A MASTERPIECE.

- ELIZABETH EDWARDS

Stories bout how families discovered their special Up North vacation spot abound—especially around the much-loved Crystal Lake area. In Ted Greene’s case, it was his grandfather, a schoolteacher in Cleveland in the 1920s, who first brought his family to Crystal Lake after his school’s principal invited him to spend the summer helping him build a cottage on the lake. As Greene says, “Anyone who spends any time on Crystal Lake is hooked.” And so it was with his grandfather who first purchased lakeshore property there and brought his young family to camp on it for many summers in a row. When Greene’s father was in high school, he designed a cottage for his parents’ property in drafting class and the first Greene family cottage on Crystal Lake was built soon after.

Later, Greene’s father built his own cottage on the lake, a mile from Greene’s grandparents’ cottage. Needless to say, Greene was as in love with Crystal Lake as his forebears. Among the many things woven into his memories of those childhood summers was the clubhouse for the nearby Crystal Downs Country Club, home to a famous Alister MacKenzie-designed golf course. The clubhouse was designed by J. Alexander McColl, a Michigan architect whose work was also well respected in the last century. Although McColl prided himself on his ability to design in many genres, he was especially drawn to the timbered Tudor style—a style he used for the Crystal Downs Clubhouse. A century after the clubhouse, with its impressive white cedar truss system, was built, the members, says Greene, “are almost as proud of their clubhouse as they are of their course.”