In The News
Cottage Home Development Transforms Area Near South Haven - Kalamazoo Gazette
LakeBridge isn't the first Lake Michigan shoreline development for Brian Bosgraaf and his Holland-based residential development company, Cottage Home. But this development, just south of South Haven in an area known as Deerlick, was a commitment to both the environment and to the local community.
It's hard to believe while standing on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, just feet away from one of the five homes already built on the seven lots that make up the development, that just a couple of years ago you couldn't even see the lake from the spot. The 750 feet of beachfront were intertwined with bramble and 34 earth-mover tires.
LEED-Certified Homes Gaining Popularity - WZZM 13
Grand Rapids has nearly thirty "LEED" or leadership in energy and environmental design certified businesses, such as the new art museum, the YMCA and the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan. Homes with the LEED certification are growing in popularity as well. WZZM 13 took a look at one home being built to these tough environmental standards.
Cottage Home is one of several "LEED" certified home builders in West Michigan. Its home along the lakeshore is built to a high standard for environmental quality both inside and out and energy efficiency.
Three from Cottage Home Awarded Certified Green Professional (CGP) Designation
Brian Bosgraaf, Jeremy vanEyk and Steve Kloosterhouse of Cottage Home recently became part of the select group of professional builders, remodelers, and other industry professionals nationwide who have earned the Certified Green Professional (CGP) designation, identifying them as individuals with knowledge of the best strategies for incorporating green building principles into homes.
The CGP program is administered by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) University Housing and sponsored locally by the Home & Building Association of Greater Grand Rapids.
The CGP curriculum incorporates a variety of information tailored to green building and business practices. The CGP curriculum incorporates training by leading building industry practitioners and academics on a range of topics, including strategies for incorporating green-building principles into homes using cost-effective methods of construction, and how green homes provide buyers with lower maintenance and good indoor air quality. Techniques are also discussed for competitively differentiating your home products with increased indoor environmental quality as well as energy and resource efficiency.
CGP program graduates are required to maintain their designation by completing 12 hours of continuing education every 3 years, a portion of which pertain to green building activities.
Cottage Home Announces Completion of Holland's First LEED Certified Home
Local builder Brian Bosgraaf, and company Cottage Home, recently finished the first LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Certified home in the Holland area. This home, which was LEED Certified at the Silver level, was built for their clients who recently moved to the area from Switzerland. It demonstrates a number of unique energy efficiency, sustainability and environmentally responsible features.
One such feature is a full geothermal heating and cooling system. The Lake Macatawa home utilizes 2,700 feet of closed loop tubing which was placed into the lake for this purpose. From that point, heat pumps were installed to capture the natural heat of the water, which passes through a series of coils, providing radiant heat into the floors of the home. In the summer, the home is cooled in a reverse manner, as the heat is extracted from the indoors and passed outside.
Other features that led to this high level of certification include: advanced insulation materials and techniques, low water usage plumbing fixtures, appliances and irrigation systems, low electric usage features, an intricate native and zoned landscape plan, and a number of indoor air quality assurance measures.
Cottage Home has just begun construction on another green home in its lakefront community of Suequehanna (Glenn, Michigan), which will be a model of sustainable design and LEED building practices. The home was completed in August.
Cottage Home Receives Quality of Excellence Awards
Holland, Michigan... Cottage Home, designers and builders of well-appointed beach houses and cottages, has added 3 more awards to the company's growing portfolio of achievements.
The Home & Builder's Association of Greater Grand Rapids, Sales & Marketing Council presented Awards of Excellence to Cottage Home for Best Exterior Design $500,001 - $650-000, Best Exterior Design $1,000,001 +, Best Green Built Home $1,000,001 + and Best Owner's Suite $500,001 - $650,000.
The awards were presented for recently competed lakefront homes in Holland and South Haven, Michigan.
Off The Beaten Path - Detroit Free Press
Builder Blends Secluded Custom Cottages Into Lake Michigan Dunes
In a housing market begging for buyers, builder Brian Bosgraaf has found a niche immune to the downturn.
It's nestled along the Lake Michigan shoreline, in places like Holland, Glenn, Douglas, South Haven and Benton Harbor, tucked among secluded and state-protected dunes.
Building permits are hard to come by and vacationers who value the privacy and the western Michigan lake culture are willing to pay a premium to claim a slice.
Bosgraaf -- a design buff with a penchant for living naturally in natural settings -- created Cottage Home in 1999. The eight-person company based in Holland, custom builds seven to nine lake cottages a year on sites that most builders would consider difficult, such as dunes or isolated spots with no access roads.
Still a Dream Come True
Custom Built Cottages Offer Upscale Summer Living Along Southwest Michigan's Shoreline
Brian Bosgraaf tells the story of a couple that walked the entire shoreline, from the Indiana border to Grand Haven, in search of the perfect lakefront property. They drove two cars, parking one up the road and then walking off their research on foot, getting a first hand sense of the land, the lake and the opportunities. After many weekends and a hundred plus miles, they knew where they wanted their summer home - the Cottage Home LakeBridge community, just outside South Haven, Michigan.
"Our clients tend to be particular," said Brian with a smile, "they've done their research and they know what they want." As president and designer of Cottage Home, builder of beach homes and lakefront cottages, Brian and his staff have helped clients from as far away Switzerland make their dream cottage come true.
Lake Michigan Shore
Eco-Built - A Geothermal Family Home in Holland
Martha and Urs Waldvogel have just moved from Switzerland, Urs' native country. Into the nearly 5,800-square-foot home they built on the northern edge of Lake Macatawa, in Holland, Michigan. Urs had long yearned to live on a lake. "That was always my dream," he says. They considered building on Lake Tahoe, in California, but chose, finally, to settle closer to Martha's family in the Midwest. They looked long and hard before choosing the Holland property. The next step was to find a builder.
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Cottage Home Receives Two Awards,
Breaks Ground on 'Green Home'
Holland, Michigan... Cottage Home, designers and builders of well-appointed beach houses and cottages, recently added two awards to the company's growing portfolio of achievements.
Brian Bosgraaf, company president and designer, received the Custom Builder of The Year award from the Home & Builder's Association of Greater Grand Rapids. Brian was cited for setting professional standards for others in the industry, achieving excellence in new construction and maintaining active roles in educational and advisory councils.
Reason To Retreat - Cosmopolitan Home
On the shores of Lake Michigan, LakeBridge offers residents luxury homes in a natural setting.
A new South Haven beachside development will offer cottage owners much more than a room with a view.
Brian Bosgraaf, award-winning builder and designer at Holland- based Cottage Home, is the mastermind behind LakeBridge, which covers 10 1/2 acres and offers homeowners 750 feet of private beach frontage and 1,000 feet of back frontage on Dearlick Creek.
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Cottages At Summer's Gate - Cosmopolitan Home
Almost a century ago, a drive along Lake Michigan from the city of South Haven would have taken you down the well-known "Doctor's Row". Through the trees, you would have glimpsed elaborate cottages belonging to the elite of the day - an awe-inspiring cluster of homes marked by stone pillars and gated entryways. Today a similar jaunt down "Doctor's Row" and you will witness the resurrection of this history. Behind the gated entrance emblazoned with "The Cottages at Summer's Gate," construction has begun on a prestigious residential community that infuses the luxuries of modern living with an aura of the past.
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Pacesetter Award Winners - Custom Home
It makes sense that Cottage Home, a company designing and building summer homes on the shores of Lake Michigan, would come up with a marketing scheme that includes a vacation. "We wanted to have a permanent model," says president Brian Bosgraaf, "but I thought it was a waste for it to sit empty." Plus, most people drive two or three hours to get there, so a logical solution was to let clients inhabit the model for a few days.
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