In The News
Off The Beaten Path
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.
The homes are true to what he calls the local Lake Michigan vernacular -- steep gabled roofs, clapboard siding, open decks and shake-style shingles. The one-of-a-kind, all-season cottages cost between $1.2 million and $2 million.
"We don't have boom-and-bust cycles," Bosgraaf said. "They are not making any more lakeshore. You can't sprawl into cornfields and make more supply."
Cottage Home has three current developments and the projects are booked a year in advance.
"We have seen revenue growth without having the number of starts increasing," he said. "I believe we can sustain our growth, without having more starts."
About a third of his business comes from his developments, a third from existing cottages that owners want torn down and replaced, and the other third from people who buy lots and want a cottage built from scratch.
Bosgraaf adheres to green building practices. His homes have Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certifications and he uses Energy Star-rated products and appliances.
He takes his green practice a step further by avoiding any disturbance of the environment during the building process and landscaping only with plants native to the area.
"The reason people want to be there is because of that beauty and lakefront environment," he said.
Building on sand
Clients Paulette and Harvey Grotrian of Ann Arbor bought a lot they fell in love with on a private beach in Holland and held on to it for more than a year while looking for a builder who could work with the challenges of the site.
"As we looked unsuccessfully for a builder, it started to become more and more of a concern," said Paulette Grotrian, humanities department chair at Washtenaw Community College. Eventually, someone referred her to Bosgraaf.
"He had to build on sand and preserve a critical dune," she said. "The lot was past two other houses, out on the beach without road access."
Bosgraaf bought an all-terrain vehicle and rigged it so that lumber and other supplies could be hauled in.
"When the concrete was poured for the foundation, he pumped it in hoses through the woods," she said. "He fit the house in beautifully. It looks like it's always been there."
The cottage is a three-story 2,000-square-foot, four-bedroom and three full-bath home that Paulette Grotrian describes as "kind of nautical and kind of Victorian."
It is oriented toward Lake Michigan with a view of the Big Red Lighthouse at Holland State Park. It has a 40-foot screened porch, a deck and an entertainment center with built-in bookshelves on one side and a fireplace on other. It has an outdoor shower and covered porch on the dune side with a porch swing facing the back woods.
The home has sliding doors on the lake side, a dining room, living room, master bedroom, a three-sided gas fireplace, a walk-in pantry, an eating bar in the kitchen and a first-floor laundry. A staircase to upper bedrooms has beadboard paneling, cherry newel posts and step lighting. The home also has Canadian beech hardwood floors throughout.
Bosgraaf is proud of the service his company provided during and after construction.
Updates by e-mail
During building, customers are sent photographs and updates regularly via e-mail, an asset for those building from far away. Customers include owners from Chicago, Detroit, Massachusetts and as far away as Switzerland.
Construction manager Jeremy vanEyk goes to sites with his laptop and sends clients images of each major phase of the construction.
After construction, Bosgraaf offers a for-fee concierge service that lasts as long as customers want it.
Grotrian, whose cottage is finished, continues to pay for it. Bosgraaf's staff puts up and removes storm windows protecting her screened-in porch.
Clients from afar alert him of their summer arrival dates and Bosgraaf's staff gets the house ready, the heat turned on and windows open.
A client from Massachusetts building a house that's now in the paint stages and will be done June 15 has visited once.
"We are receiving furnishings and blinds," Bosgraaf said. "Our staff is setting it for them. Each year, we have clients who ask us to furnish the whole place for them."
Head start in housing
The 41-year-old Bosgraaf's initiation into building began as a child.
His father was a land developer and his mother was a real estate agent. The two started a family business while Bosgraaf was still in college. He has a degree from Calvin College in economics.
In 1998, his dad passed the business on to his children. Bosgraaf sold his part to his siblings and went to work for a nonprofit, running the Inner City Christian Federation in Grand Rapids. The federation builds affordable housing for low-income families.
The experience helped him become an expert at working through bureaucracy and taught him the virtue of patience, he said.
"I didn't have a lot of patience, but with community block grants, there is lot of paperwork, regulation and oversight," he said. "We worked with sites in the inner city that were purchased for a dollar and had so many issues with cloudy title claims, and at any given time 40 home sites were in the process of getting cleared."
The patience is paying off now, he said.
"After the experience at the nonprofit, I was ready," he said, to tackle the challenges of Cottage Home. "There's critical dune legislation and it's a high-risk erosion area. There are health department regulations because these are rural sites that don't have water and sewer. There are old associations, and township restrictions. Then there's logistics. Some areas don't have streets."
Paulette Grotrian said she initially was afraid of the building process.
"A lot of people say how horrendous it was to build a house, that it's divorce material," she said.
"But Brian is an easy guy to work with. The house really reflects our personalities. People who come here immediately say "Wow, this looks like you." "
"That takes talent on the part of the builder," she said. "To get to know you well enough to know what would reflect who we are."
Click here to view the Detroit Free Press link with photos.
