Keeping it Old School at a Renovated Frankfort Farmhouse

Just weeks before the stock market crashed in 1929, Alexander Grant Ruthven, then a zoology instructor at University of Michigan, was named president of the prestigious institution. For the next 22 years, Ruthven guided the university through the Great Depression and then World War II. When he needed relief from the pressure, he escaped to a farm in Frankfort where he kept Morgan horses on a large parcel of land until his death in 1971.

The farm has several dwellings on it—one said to have been lived in by Ruthven’s daughter. Over the rest of the last century, that farmhouse sat empty and was rumored to be haunted. Eventually, it was turned into a summer cottage and upgraded with insulation and a new roof. But still, there was much to be done when Chicagoans Mike and Barbara Perry purchased it. With deep ties to the Frankfort area and its history—Barbara has been summering here since she was a child—the couple set out to convert the old cottage into a year-round home.

The Perrys hired contractor Darryl McNiff of Platte River Construction to oversee their project. McNiff and his team had built a home for their family friends nearby, and had renovated a section of Barb’s family cottage in Crystal Downs—with rave reviews from both clients. But finding an architect proved harder, as each one they called was booked out for many months. That was when McNiff suggested Keith Campbell, a commercial architect in Chicago and former client of his who has a second home in Benzie County. The Perrys tracked Campbell down and found their taste was a perfect match. “It was a great gift, in a turbulent time of our lives, to have Darryl suggest that we might work with Keith,” Barbara says. Both were in transition—Keith had just retired from his career as a commercial architect, and the Perrys were packing up their house of 35 years outside of Chicago.

Updating the antiquated kitchen was an equally complicated endeavor. “It was a nightmare,” McNiff recalls. “When we opened the walls up, the framing was almost non-existent—the walls had two-by-fours holding everything up.” As with any work in an old structure, there were surprises, including the charred evidence of a chimney fire that made the Perrys and their contractors wonder how the clawfoot tub directly above it managed not to fall through the ceiling. A newspaper buried in the old lath-and-plaster walls and dated 1893 was another enlightening discovery, placing the home’s construction date to that year or before.

Working within the small existing footprint, Barbara led the way in the design of a perfectly functioning kitchen outfitted with Wolverine cabinetry and new appliances. Mike, meanwhile, re-harvested pine wood once used in the kitchen walls to make a lovely banquette nestled in one corner.