Felt Mansion is a stunningly restored piece of history used for photo-ops and celebrations year-round. But two decades ago, you’d be lucky to walk through the house without being bitten by a raccoon.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of an occasional series, Old Haunts of Holland, that will spotlight businesses that once held a special place in the heart of Hollanders and now hold a permanent place in our local history.
LAKETOWN TWP. — Felt Mansion is a stunningly restored piece of history used for photo-ops and celebrations year-round. But two decades ago, you’d be lucky to walk through the house without being bitten by a raccoon.
That’s how the story is told by Patty Meyer, executive director of Friends of the Felt Estate and overseer of operations — including restoration, tours and public events.
“We’re not an event center that happens to be a historic home,” Meyer likes to remind visitors at the beginning of her tours. “We’re a historic home that doubles as an event center to keep the doors open. We are about history.”
Meyer came across the estate in 2001 while hiking in Saugatuck Dunes State Park on her wedding anniversary.
“We hiked the dunes and we came into this park, and my husband pointed at the house and said, ‘Look at that dump.’ And the minute he said it, he was sorry,” Meyer said.
“I looked up and the heavens parted and that shaft of light came down and the angels sang, and I knew it was my life’s mission to save this house.” The invention of the comptometer
Meyer is speaking hyperbolically, but not by much. It was clear, as she showed more than three dozen visitors through the mansion during a Saugatuck-Douglas History Center event Thursday, Aug. 5, that Felt Mansion is truly her life’s work.
The estate’s namesake and builder, Dorr Felt, was born in March 1862. He grew up on his family’s farm in Wisconsin, but left to work in a machine shop when he was 14. When he was just 23 years old, Felt invented the comptometer — the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator.
Felt’s first prototype was made from a macaroni box, meat skewers, rubber bands and spare tractor parts. His invention was a boon to women, who quickly learned to operate comptometers and obtained coveted positions in bookkeeping and accounting.
Felt married Agnes McNulty in January 1891. In 1919, the couple purchased hundreds of acres along Lake Michigan and named it Shore Acres Farm.
“In their retirement years, they decided to come up here from Chicago,” Meyer said. “This whole area from New Buffalo to Traverse City was known as the Midwest Riviera, because if you were anybody and you had any type of wealth, this was where you wanted to be.“They didn’t have air conditioning back then. If you were living in huge cities like Chicago and Detroit, you wanted to escape in the summer. That’s why we have these large homes all along Lake Michigan, and Felt Mansion is one of the […]
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