Inside a Quaint Glen Arbor Cottage That was Once a Train Depot

This article first appeared in Traverse Northern Michigan. Find this story and more when you explore our magazine library. Want Traverse delivered to your door or inbox monthly? View our print subscription and digital subscription options.

Three years ago, Cynthia Briggs biked to her favorite gift shop, Wildflowers in Glen Arbor, to buy a present for her mother—and came out sold on purchasing a train depot. The diminutive, ornate depot had been built in Thompsonville in 1891, moved down the tracks to Copemish in 1917 and in 1965 finally landed in Glen Arbor, where it was tucked behind the shop then known as The Country Store and used as an accessory building. Over the decades, The Country Store became Wildflowers and the little depot, with its charming Victorian-era corbels and finials, was shrouded in landscaping tools and other paraphernalia. So shrouded that Briggs, despite her many trips to the store, had never noticed it.

Briggs, who has a long history in Glen Arbor, was renting a summer cottage at the time—though just beginning to consider purchasing her own home. Wandering into the small building, she learned that the old depot was for sale as the site was being cleared to make way for condos.

As a lover of vintage design who had already restored four 19th-century homes, she remembers thinking: “My God, this whole building is for sale, I can’t believe this!” Then Briggs jumped on her bike and “rode like a lunatic” to get her three young-adult children to see it. When they’d gathered at the building she said to them: “Okay, I want you to imagine something. What if we moved this and made it into a cottage?” The boys were skeptical until they went inside: “They said, ‘We have to do this. How can we do this?’”

Briggs, who was going through some major life changes at the time, rolled up her sleeves and dove into the project—never imagining the full import of what the small structure would end up meaning to her and, especially, her youngest son. She purchased the perfect piece of property on a side road in Glen Arbor and hired an experienced house mover, Tim Newman, to move the 700-square-foot structure, taking care to pull out the original windows with their wavy glass to re-install later. Briggs had the old station, which she christened Wildflower Depot, set on the new site precisely the way it would have sat along the tracks.

That floor plan became the blueprint for the Briggs’ home: The waiting room on the far left of the building is now the living room; the middle of the building, which had housed the ticket booth and the room where the conductor could look for incoming trains, is the bar and dining room; the former luggage room is the kitchen. An addition in the back houses two bedrooms and bathrooms and a loft.

Architect Robin Johnson, who had worked on other projects with Briggs in the past, helped her through the maze of ordinances required by the township and county while ensuring that the restoration was authentic. Among those accurate touches were restoring windows (original wavy glass and all) and doorways that had been changed over the years to their original locations, as well as ripping out wall-to-wall carpet in the living and dining rooms to expose the original flooring, which was stripped and refinished to a driftwood gray. The addition is outfitted with reclaimed doors, one from a circa 1700 home in Newport, Rhode Island.

Briggs went on to add her own distinctive decorative style, working with what she terms a “mixed metal, industrial and nautical theme.” Mermaids surround the candleholders in the French 19th-century brass chandelier, for example, while the brass “fish lip” sconces over the beds came from a fishing boat. In the kitchen, two insulator lights hang near railroad pin hooks purchased from a company that recycles old railroad hardware.

As what was supposed to be a simple project dragged on for three years, Briggs’ two older children were too busy to be very involved. Consequently, Briggs’ youngest son, Benet, became her right-hand man for painting, sanding and more—work that forged a special bond between them. In the end, throwing themselves into redoing their depot became much more than just a restoration project. “I was going through a chaotic time in my life,” Briggs says. “How can I say this eloquently? But the train station kind of saved us.”

Home Resources

• Real Estate Agent: Rob Serbin
• Architect: Robin Johnson
• Site Work & Relocator: Tim Newman
• Carpenters: Robert Fahey, Joe Rodriguez, Bob Laetx, Jason Gothard
• Insulation: Superior Polymer, Kurt Johnson
• Appliances: Max’s Service
• Electrical: Bluewater Electric

More Northern Home & Cottages:

• A Nest-Like Birdhouse Cottage at The Homestead in Glen Arbor
• Inside a Sanctuary-Like Home on Elk Lake with Good Energy
• 8 Tips for Building a Long-Distance Dream Home