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Gerts Cottages, Whitehall, Michigan S.077 – Mary Gerts
Cottage, 5260 South Shore Drive S.078 – Walter Gerts
Cottage, 5270 or 5292 South Shore Drive (see narrative) Ethel Gerts
and Laura Gale (S.088) were
sisters. Their husbands Walter and
Thomas purchased a tract of land on White Lake near Lake Michigan to build
summer cottages. The Gale section
produced four cottages – one for the Gales and three rental cottages. Walter and Ethel Gerts
built a simple single-story cottage on their section (S.078), and Walter’s
mother Mary built a spectacular ode to nature on the adjoining lot
(S.077). S.077 has a bridge over Birch Brook,
which flows into White Lake. I was able
to visit during rainy season, and the current owner told me there was twice
as much water flowing as would normally be expected. The bridge was once open to the elements,
and Wright had designed the roof to extend only halfway across the
bridge. Subsequent owners enclosed the
bridge and extended the roof to roughly the three-quarters mark. Added weight has caused the need for
supports below. The original design was a
single-story structure. The second
floor was added early in the cottage’s existence and encloses a porch that
had been located on that end of the building. Photographed on April 28, 2016. Project numbers: T.0202
(S.077), T.0203 (S.078) |
S.077
S.078
represents the Walter Gerts Cottage. It was far less spectacular than Walter’s
mother’s cottage (S.077), and Prof. Storrer reports
that very little of the original structure survives after more than a century
of renovations, resurfacing, and enlargements.
Storrer shows the street address as 5270,
while Thomas Heinz (Frank Lloyd Wright Field Guide) shows it as 5292. 5292 matches
more closely to the Google Maps setting.
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New
05/07/2016 Revised
05/17/2018 |
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