Where Time Slows Down: Suttons Bay, MI

It took a determined captain to leave the open waters of Lake Michigan, thread the treacherous Manitou Passage, cross Grand Traverse Bay, round the Leelanau Peninsula and enter the Sheltered waters of Suttons Bay.

At the turn of the 20th century, most of the grand passenger steamships from Chicago and other Great Lakes ports bypassed the village at the end of Suttons Bay for larger or more convenient resort destinations. Steamers like the Petoskey and Charlevoix did drop off passengers heading to the few tourist hotels in town. But the docks of this village that at one point was platted as “Pleasant City” were busier loading cordwood, vegetables and later the abundant fruit harvest from the orchards that still shape the surrounding hillsides.

Today, agriculture and tourism have blended into a perfect match. Vineyards have joined the orchards, tasting rooms line the peninsula, and visitors arrive seeking wine, farm markets, beaches and that slower pace that attracted those who ventured before them. Boaters can even walk to dinners of farm-to-table cuisine crafted by talented chefs drawn by the same microclimate that has given the county’s wineries increased international notoriety.

Yet there is still a hidden oasis feel as you motor or sail past vineyards on one side, a wide sandy beach on the other, and tuck into that temporary home on either side of the Suttons Bay Village Marina. The municipal marina offers transient and seasonal boaters everything they’d need for a stay in Suttons Bay, including gas, water, electrical hookups, pump-out service, restrooms and showers.

There’s a sense of timelessness here, too, especially if your slip is on what’s affectionately still called the “coal docks” side and you pass one of the two- or three-masted schooners run as school ships, research vessels and public sail fun by the Inland Seas Education Association. That feeling persists as you head just a block or so toward St. Joseph Avenue, duck into a shop run for 150 years by the same family, and experience the town’s then-and-now in one general store turned high-end shop.

A family tradition

At one time, you’d have caught a whiff of lutefisk here, you may be told, that wafted into the general store from the apartment above what’s now Bahle’s. Michigan’s oldest continuously operated family department store is 150 years old, and amid the polos, Patagonia garb and Irish sweaters, the current owners have preserved the past with signs from the original general store, orchard ladders, even a model of the OM Bahle, a circa-1882 schooner that Norwegian immigrant and original store founder Lars (L.E.) Bahle built on the town’s waterfront to carry forest and agricultural products to port.

The store, like the town, has gone through several evolutions — the Bahle family remaining part of it all. Lars was the first postmaster. He also built part of what’s now the main marina dock, and when the railroad faltered, he went door to door to get money for the community to buy and run it. His grandson, Otto, added the vibrant colors that has put the village on frequent lists of “perfect Hallmark towns.”

“Dad liked the colors of Bergen (Norway) and other parts of Scandinavia,” says Karl Bahle, part of the fourth generation to have run the store, “and he wanted to bring those bright primary colors here.”