What do you think?
Rate this book
Timeless: Inside Mackinac Island's Historic Cottages
Step Inside Mackinac Island’s Timeless Historic Cottages
“TIMELESS serves as a time capsule of the historic cottages of Mackinac Island, providing a glimpse of how they have been preserved 100+ years after they were built.”
— Rick Neumann
Architect & a Michigan Historic Preservation Network
Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
“TIMELESS serves as a time capsule of the historic cottages of Mackinac Island, providing a glimpse of how they have been preserved 100+ years after they were built.”
— Rick Neumann
Architect & a Michigan Historic Preservation Network
Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
- GenresNonfiction
272 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2020
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 5, 2020
This is a gorgeously photographed book of Mackinac Island's "cottages". Yeah, these aren't the cottages that I've stayed in on my trips Up North. These are primary or second homes to some very wealthy people who have...interesting taste in decor. I mean, most of the homes really are lovely inside and out, but boy, it's a whole different world. I'm going to do my own coffee table book highlighting real "Up North" cottages with cobwebs in that one window that just won't open, floors gritted with sand, mismatched dishes, the sofa bed that the loser of the coin toss has to sleep on, and the deck of cards with 3 cards missing from it.
Read
June 3, 2022Anyone who has been to Mackinac Island has likely been impressed and overawed by the gorgeous antique cottages all around the island. From the West Bluff to the East Bluff and throughout the interior, wealthy Gilded Age Midwesterners built their Summer homes on this island on land leased from a state park. Earlier small buildings were replaced or added on to around the turn of the century and since then their silhouettes, built in the styles of the time like Carpenter Gothic and Queen Anne, have been frozen in time. “View From the Veranda” describes their development, “Historic Cottages of Mackinac Island” gives histories of many of them, and now “Timeless: Inside Mackinac Island's Historic Cottages” lets you take a peek inside them as they are today.
This profusely illustrated book has ample illustrations of the living rooms, bedrooms, and porches of 33 Mackinac Island cottages. Brief text gives some details about the history of the structures, the current owners, and sometimes what changes have been made, but this is not a book of history or design, it is a coffee table book in which you can pour over what the contemporary insides of these cottages look like. Because of the habit of keeping the cottages in a family for a long time or including the furniture in the purchase when they do turnover, they look surprisingly similar on the inside with lots of beadboard walls, wicker furniture, and rather spartan beds and dining room furnishings. At the time they were built, these homes were used in July and August and not any other time of year, so they are laid out to serve a Summer stay and lack insulation, basements, and attics. They do often have stables to accommodate the popular mode of transportation on the island: horses and carriages.
This is a wonderful addition to the bibliography of Mackinac Island and fills a gap that will be of interest to many. These cottages pique the interest of many tourists with their strikingly beautiful exteriors and whet an appetite to go inside but unless you know someone who lives in one, or take Bob Tagatz’s tour of a few offered by the Grand Hotel, the insides are inaccessible. Lucky for us readers the authors and photographers of this book persuaded 33 owners to let them in so they could show us the beauty, history, and decoration inside these historic cottages.
This profusely illustrated book has ample illustrations of the living rooms, bedrooms, and porches of 33 Mackinac Island cottages. Brief text gives some details about the history of the structures, the current owners, and sometimes what changes have been made, but this is not a book of history or design, it is a coffee table book in which you can pour over what the contemporary insides of these cottages look like. Because of the habit of keeping the cottages in a family for a long time or including the furniture in the purchase when they do turnover, they look surprisingly similar on the inside with lots of beadboard walls, wicker furniture, and rather spartan beds and dining room furnishings. At the time they were built, these homes were used in July and August and not any other time of year, so they are laid out to serve a Summer stay and lack insulation, basements, and attics. They do often have stables to accommodate the popular mode of transportation on the island: horses and carriages.
This is a wonderful addition to the bibliography of Mackinac Island and fills a gap that will be of interest to many. These cottages pique the interest of many tourists with their strikingly beautiful exteriors and whet an appetite to go inside but unless you know someone who lives in one, or take Bob Tagatz’s tour of a few offered by the Grand Hotel, the insides are inaccessible. Lucky for us readers the authors and photographers of this book persuaded 33 owners to let them in so they could show us the beauty, history, and decoration inside these historic cottages.
June 14, 2021
This is a beautiful coffee table book (although I'm glad that I was able to borrow the book - the price was a little steep for me to purchase.) I wish there had been even more information and photos on each house, and even more featured "cottages" (granted, that would have required cooperation from even more owners.)
I will point out that there were a couple of typos: on page 119, for example, the phrase "right-of-passage" [sic] was used. Later in the book, the correct spelling of "rite" was used in the same phrase. Still, simple grammatical/spelling errors aside, this book is certainly worth a read for anyone who's daydreamed about living in one of those beautiful houses on Mackinac Island. (I've always been partial to East Bluff, myself - too bad I'm not wealthy!)
I will point out that there were a couple of typos: on page 119, for example, the phrase "right-of-passage" [sic] was used. Later in the book, the correct spelling of "rite" was used in the same phrase. Still, simple grammatical/spelling errors aside, this book is certainly worth a read for anyone who's daydreamed about living in one of those beautiful houses on Mackinac Island. (I've always been partial to East Bluff, myself - too bad I'm not wealthy!)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews