Walloon Lake
Association
Walloon Lake
Trust and Conservancy
The
VOLUME XLVIII | NUMBER 1 February 2019
Wallooner
Devoted to the preservation and betterment of Walloon Lake
WALLOON’S FIRST LAKEHOUSE
Submitted by Danny Fellin
Membership Committee, Chairman Communications + Outreach Committee, Chairman
Photo provided by Wally Kidd
The Lake can be a fun place even in the winter but moving a not as solidly. As Murphy’s Law would have it, the house being house across the frozen lake isn’t on the fun list, or even the smart moved passed over one of the spring areas. list. It was removed from both of those lists a few years ago. The Neither the owner of the house or the moving company was last time this was attempted, the house became a true “lakehouse.” present during the move. The Petoskey News-Review got wind of In the winter of 1994, a plan was hatched to move a house over the story and put it on the wire services. When things go wrong, the frozen lake. Sounds simple. The homeowner was planning to they go wrong. CNN picked up the story and reported it. Both the build a new home, so he agreed to move the house (2,800 square homeowner and owner of the moving company saw the story on feet) to the a lot further down the North Arm, rather than tear it CNN before they could be reached - no cell phones in 1994. The down. A professional home mover was hired to accomplish this feat. owner of the moving company was attending a conference for home movers at the time. The move was all set and ready to go on a cold February morning. A frozen lake, a professional house mover and just a short distance down the lake, what could possibility go awry? Well if something can go wrong it just may, and in this case, approximately 50 yards onto the ice, the ice started creaking - creak, crack then splash. That’s how you have a true lakehouse.
The house did not completely sink, it was stuck in approximately 8 feet of cold icy water. The DNR requested, or demanded, the house be removed as soon as possible. So out came the chainsaws, it was the DNR approved way to get the house completely out of the lake.
How did it all go so wrong? In the narrows, a few underground springs exist that feed water into the lake. Those areas freeze but
The next time you boat by the narrows on the North Arm, just know, for a short period of time, an actual lakehouse resided there.
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