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Breezy Acres History
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Breezy Acres' history begins in Chicago and the far reaches of Michigan's north on the
Keweenaw peninsula. Mary Claire, Maria's and Anne's mother, was born to Jarvis and Mim
Doucette in Hubble, Michigan, early in the twentieth century. Her brother William had
preceded her by two years and Tom and Terese trailed a few.
Beyond being tough as hell, Jarv, a cavalryman who followed General Pershing into Mexico
pursuing Pancho Villa and was later gassed in World War I, revealed himself to be a
sagacious man. With mining in its death throes on the Keweenaw, he knew the future
lay to the south. He consoled his eldest son, William, to become a draftsman, realizing
technology was changing faster than a man could keep up and knowing the world was going
to need draftsman to put all the new ideas on paper. He advised Mary Claire to learn
secretarial skills, then booted them both out of the house and sent them to Chicago.
Mary Claire, who had become an exceptional typist, had no difficulty finding employment
in the big city, although she related that the first time the phone on her desk rang she had
no idea how to answer it, having never encountered one before. She calmly observed the
secretaries around her to see what they did and did the same. As a beautiful young woman,
Mary Claire also had no difficulty finding Thadeous Droz, recently discharged from the Navy, now employed designing and
installing store front displays downtown Chicago. Ted and Mary Claire were soon married and starting a family.
William, Uncle Bill to all of us here
at Breezy, had also listened to his father and applied himself to the task in the single minded
manner of his that left anyone who knew him in awe. He hired into Nacy
Automatic Fire Protection in Chicago as a young draftsman, more or less analogous to an engineer in modern
terms. He took a brief sabatical to be a pilot in the Air Force during World War II, then returned to Nacy.
Under
Bill's command the company installed the original plumbing in the Buckingham Fountain in
Grant Park on the lakefront in Chicago. Bill also presided over installation of the fire suppression system in
the John Hancock Center, the plumbing in countless fireboats in the Chicago river, and all manner
of other projects.
Bill eventually retired as president of Nacy, a fairly young man in his mid-fifties and very comfortably
well off. He moved up the west shore of Michigan
to just north of Pier Cove, purchasing the incredible Weed estate, a 19th century stage stop
and boarding house sprawling on acres of bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. He spent the next many years
single-handedly restoring the massive two story home with it's countless bedrooms, two kitchens, and
huge ornate barn. Backed up to the bluff, the barn had one of the best views out a barn window to be
found anywhere in
the world.
One day in 1952, on a foray into Douglas just a few miles
north, Bill noticed a little motor lodge for sale just south of the city limits. Apparently
Bill was aware that his brother Tom shared a desire with Ted to get out of Chicago because Bill immediately
called them and said, you need to buy this place. They came up and checked it out, and did just that.
Mary Claire and Ted held a 75% interest while Tom and his German bride, Dorchen, held the remaining 25%
of the only lodging available in Douglas at that time. They christened it Breezy Acres, a name
inspired by the ever present lake breeze.
Breezy Acres was a motor lodge with fourteen cabins and two houses on twenty acres of the old
Plummer estate. The Plummers had also hosted a stage stop and the stone step and hitching post are still
in their original place. With the families installed in the houses the woman and kids took care
or the motel while Tom plied his carpenter trade locally.
Ted continued working in Chicago during the week, returning on weekends to pitch in with the work required
to maintain fourteen cabins. In addition, Tom and Ted hatched a plan to combine the tiny cabins to create
nine larger ones, make the place more attractive to tourists. Of course, with Ted in the mix,
there weren't going to be any encumberences such as building permits, so the work had to be done
in the dark of night on the weekends.
The motor lodge office was right up near the edge of the
old Michigan Pike, now Blue Star Highway. Ted hand dug a partial basement, well back from the road, then
dragged the small one story house back across the course grass lawn onto new foundations. You can still
see the grass of the field under the house, and his precisely sculpted earth walls.
Around this time Maria was born, following an older brother and sister by around eleven years. She had the
distinction of being among the last babies born in the old Douglas Community Hospital in the Kirby House,
now yet another high end eatery.
Anne trailed along a few years later. Ted had added two bedrooms and a bathroom to the back of the
house and, on the northwest side, a cathedral ceiling
kitchen and veranda built with hand hewn beams salvaged from the
old barn which was blown down in the 1956 tornado that also destroyed the old light house out at the oxbow.
Maria was just old enough to remember him standing shirtless, stirring concrete in a wheel barrow with an old
Army pack shovel which we still have. He poured all the sidewalks, the porch under the veranda
and, after installing the brick wainscoting all around the house, he poured
the concrete ledges that cap it off.
Ted wasn't the only one putting sweat equity into Breezy. Maria and Anne well remember being put
to work in those days. Among other projects, they dug the trenches for the pipes when
Breezy upgraded from septic tanks to city water and sewer. Even now, don't expect an easy arm
wrestle with either of those two.
Ted was now working at Chris Craft in Holland and various surplus boat artifacts made their way home
with him. They are now to be seen woven into the Breezy fabric
throughout the cabins, ranging from door hardware, the teak flooring in Anne's kitchen, and the
mahogany used for wainscoting in Corsair and Little Gen to the Corsair emblem from which Corsair Cabin draws its name.
About this time Tom and Dorchen decided to get out of the motel business. Maria and Anne were
in their late teens and Mary Claire thought it would be a good idea if they were to buy their aunt
and uncle's 25% share in Breezy Acres. When Mary Claire thought something was a good idea, her
children knew it was a good idea to think so too. So the girls bought into the operation.
After decades on the lake shore, Uncle Bill headed to civilization and bought a barn in Douglas
that had housed a huge pipe organ. He remodeled it into a wonderful house which he designed and where he
lived until he died at age 93, having gained that vantage with great dignity and sharpness of mind, but having
never completely gotten over the death of his wife, Bonnie, decades earlier.
The only time in Maria's and Anne's lives that they have not lived at Breezy Acres were the
years they spent in college in Albuqurque, New Mexico. Upon abandoning the halls of academe,
Anne and Maria returned to their roots, taking up residence
once again at Breezy, helping Mary Claire with the apartments, Ted having passed. As side jobs, Maria founded
Lakeside Cleaning while Anne pursued a career in education, waitressing to fill the idle
hours (Waitressing runs in all the girls blood. Another sister co-owns Everyday People Cafe
with her son). Both now turn their attention more and more to Breezy, Anne waitressing a few
nights a week to keep her hand in and Maria down to one employee and a handfull of favored
customers.
As the years, and Ted and Mary Claire, have passed, Anne and Maria have placed less emphasis on
Breezy Acres' traditional role as a motor lodge and converted most the cabins to full time
rentals with tenants who have been here so long as to nearly become family.
As a side affect of the Breezy bunch's inveterate garage saling, each of the cabins exhibits
a part of Anne's and Maria's eclectic accesories, spanning, but not
confined to Victorian, art deco, and the '50s. No two cabins are alike, each with it's own
personality.
Anne's husband, Dave, does most of the remodeling and upkeep of the cabins. You will see his
signature weathered barn wood and shaved cedar logs inside and on various buildings
all around Breezy. He has cleared paths throughout our twenty acres to allow long strolls
through the peaceful woods and his incredible organic garden is a major attraction in the
summer, both to residents and the local fauna.
Chuck, Maria's husband and the only one among the cast and crew who lacked the apptitude
to be self, or at least alternatively, employed, fills in the gaps; fixing a furnace here,
tending to the lights there, building the occassional garage and maintaining this website
when he rememebers to. Retired from near forty years in the aerospace industry, he can now
generally be seen skirmishing with the aforementioned fauna or puttering about on the tractor
holding the flora at bay when he's not lying beneath a vehicle, tools in hand.
Monk, the head cat, takes his job very seriously, making the rounds of the decks ensuring
everyone has a reliable supply of cat to pet. The chickens, gregarious and eternal favorites
of our resdents, diligently inspect every sqaure foot of the grounds proper, muttering amongst
themselves while making certain everything is up to their standards, raking
leaves out into the open where ever they discover we've overlooked a spot.
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Last updated January 1, 2023
Email (site issues only please):
mechanique at wmol dot com
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