​The last decades of the 19th century, profits from the lumber, furniture, and fruit industries created a larger leisure class looking for ways to stay cool during the hot West Michigan summer season. A group of prominent Grand Haven citizens realized the nearby sand dunes overlooking Lake Michigan, long inaccessible and thought to be good only for cemetery land, were also ideal for summer cottages to catch lake breezes. In 1886, the group leased the dunes to the southern Grand Haven city limit (the north Stickney Ridge/Indian Village border) from the city of Grand Haven and formed Highland Park. The new Highland Park Corporation sold shares and raised $5,000 to create a lakeside resort community. The group parceled the land into buildable cottage lots anchored by a newly built Highland Park Hotel.

​Traversing the sandy, unpaved roads from town was difficult in good weather and nearly impossible in bad. Travelers to the new Highland Park followed unpaved Lake Street, previously used only as the trail to nearby Lake Forest Cemetery. In 1898, a street railway was laid from downtown Grand Haven along the path of today’s Harbor Avenue and down the beach all the way to a loop at the edge of what would become Stickney Ridge. (Note the “Loop Avenue” street address that remains to this day.) During the summer season, the open streetcars used steam power and later electricity to ferry passengers to and from the Grand Haven railroad stations and steamer docks, or all the way to Grand Rapids or Muskegon via electric Interurban cars. The streetcar to the lake became popular for a day of swimming and entertainment at the beach. The crowds were drawn to the newly built Highland Park Pavilion (later Hyland Gardens, then the Bil-Mar restaurant, and today Noto’s at the Bil-Mar) where they could rent swimsuits, get an ice cream cone during the day and dance to live bands at night.

Above Map: from Grand Rapids, Grand Haven & Muskegon Railway brochure c1910

​With streetcar access and the lively Highland Park summer social scene nearby, the land owned by the Stickneys just to the south was ripe for development. A few families had already purchased subdivided lots and established summer homes in Stickney Ridge along the lakeshore at about the point where Stickney Ridge Road ended at the lake. Willard Stickney, son of original owners Leonard and Charlotte, was a builder by trade and began to develop the area in the model of Highland Park. He built many of the cottages still standing today beginning around 1900. When automobile travel became the standard via new Michigan concrete highways built in the first decades of the twentieth century, Willard Stickney built the car barns at the end of the Stickney Ridge Road and later added a small store and other facilities. Cottages continued to be added to the community through the 1920s until the Great Depression halted development. Note: There was also another George Stickney who was a banker in Grand Haven and a founding member of Highland Park, but doesn’t appear to be involved in Stickney Ridge.

Photo above courtesy of Tri-Cities Historical Museum, Grand Haven, Michigan.

Beach in front of Stickney Ridge with streetcar loop in background.

The speed of life must have seemed dizzying to turn-of-the-century Ridge summer residents. You could jump on the streetcar to dance at the Pavilion, take it downtown to pick up fresh food or other supplies, or even connect to an overnight steamship to Chicago or board a train to Detroit and beyond. The convenience of electricity and plumbing was becoming common, even at your summer home on Lake Michigan. The iceman delivered a block to keep food fresh and your trash ended up in the dump gully behind the south garages. But even in the days when the family stayed June to September, residents were lulled to sleep with the same sounds of the waves on the lake we hear today.

As families expanded, and successive generations were introduced to Stickney Ridge, a community developed. Ball games were organized on the beach, card games played in the evenings, and children had the run of the dunes with whistles around their necks in case they got lost in the woods. Neighbors knew neighbors for generations as they shared party-line telephones or a ride into town to pick up a roast for dinner. There was always a set of eyes looking out for each other or a familiar dog stopping by for a treat.

Above photo: Stickney Ridge Beach group c1920

Original caption: "Mr. W.G.B., Mr. E.H., Miss M.S., Miss M.H., Mrs. R.P.J., Mrs. W.G.B., Bobby and Mrs. H.E.D., Mr. H.P.McG., Miss C.S., Mrs. S."

Long after the last streetcar traveled the beach in 1928, Stickney Ridge owners realized that they needed more formal organization to maintain the walks, garages and roads and provide services like water and insurance coverage. After World War II, the Central Highland Park Association was formed to take care of these details. Up to that point, the Stickney family still owned the common elements and rents were paid to Helen Stickney for use of the garage slots. In 1954, the association purchased the garages and other common elements for $5,000.

Photo Above: Car Barns c1955. Note additional barns in background no longer standing today.

During the early 1950s another change was happening along the beaches courtesy of Mother Nature. The wide beaches that shoreline cottages were built upon began to disappear under higher lake water levels and changing currents that resulted in sand erosion. Cottages that were originally built with a few steps down to the sloping beach were now on the edge of cliffs. Stairs, walks and water lines in front of the cottages fell into storm-driven waves with the cement block foundations of many cottages not far behind.

Three cottages, called Kumagin (marked A in photos on this site – the current cottage numbering system was put in place later), Laffalot (B), and Journey’s End (C), were undermined and lost to the lake in a March, 1952 storm that made national news. Kumagin, Laffalot and Journey's End were located just south of the beach stairs at the garages.

read front page Grand Haven Daily Tribune, March 24, 1952

The 1960s brought formal incorporation of the Central Highland Park Association, and efforts to make the $5,000 loan payments with garage rents and other fees. The water system was put in the hands of the association with a single meter and bill to be paid to Grand Haven. The old dump gully was also a continuing issue until outside garbage pickup was put in place and the dump closed. But the largest danger was the lake pulling more sand from the beaches. Lot borders were blurred as the Lake Michigan Park, once a wide strip of sand separating the association from the lake was fully underwater. Efforts to hold back the lake were constant as seawalls were built to save the remaining sand dunes and the cottages perched on them.

The seventies were difficult for Stickney Ridge. Seawall construction and maintenance were constant and unfortunately losing battle with storm-driven lake waves. North end cottages as well as others near the long stairway were undermined and lost in 1973-75. Lake levels and beach widths changed for the next ten years and kept the waters in front of Stickney Ridge unfit for swimming with cottage debris and remnants of seawalls littering the shore. For a time the old streetcar rails even reappeared out of the sands at the north end of the beach. Storms in the winter of 1985 took additional summer homes around Indian Village and the front section of the landmark Sea King cottage. The last remaining shoreline cottages were saved only through heroic efforts to build new foundations and move whole structures back from the water’s edge.

Stickney Ridge Cottage Falls into Lake - Grand Haven Tribune, April 24, 1974

Lake Residents Try To Outwit Mother Nature - Muskegon Chronicle, November 5, 1985

Storm Swamps SL, Sends Cottages Crashing - Grand Haven Tribune, December 2, 1985

20 Years Later: Fierce December Storm - Grand Haven Tribune, December 2, 2005

From the late 1980s for the next 25 years, the shoreline beaches underwent another amazing transformation. Beaches build up sand and widened, and new mid beach dunes with whole trees formed hundreds of feet from the old waterline at its worst. In the 2010s new plans to rebuild cottages in their old locations hundreds of feet from the water’s edge.

The early 2020s saw another cycle of high water that took back the dunes deposited just a few years earlier. Successful efforts to again secure Indian Village cottages from the waves were made through another round of modern engineering.

The constant on the beach is change. Once the temperatures start to rise, a spring ritual is taking at walk down to the beach to see how the landscape has transformed itself again for another summer season.

The Central Highland Park Association history page is never complete! Please email CHPAgrandhaven@yahoo.com if you have stories, photos or information to add!

Photo Above: Wide Indian Village dune on the beach, 2012

• Most lost cottages were destroyed in winter storms when the lake washed sand out from under their foundations in 1952, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1985.

• The cottage marked "D" is thought to be lost in a fire in the 1940s. If anyone has more concrete information about this incident, please let us know.

• Number 13 was a storage building. It is not known when it was removed.

• The original cottage 42 was rotated 90 degrees sometime in the late 1940s. Note changed orientation in photos. The new cottage 42 was constructed in 2011 on the same location.

• The number 37 was reused after 1973 when the new #37 was constructed in the 1990s.

• Cottage 40 was rebuilt during the winter of 2012-13 in the same location.

• 1 - Unknown - Storrs (lost in '74 storm)

• 2 - Unknown - Danhof

• 3 - "Log Cabin" - Achterhoff

• 4 - Unknown - Zaagman

• 5 - Unknown - Reinger, Smitter

• 6 - Unknown - Socha, Stager, Harz

• 7 - Unknown - Kuesterer, Marquaardt, Wickman

• 8 - "White Caps" - Cornelius, VanSledright, Fuerst, Kozak

• 9 - "Gulls & Buoys" - Grinnell, Crawford (lost in '74 storm)

• 10 - "Ship Ahoy" - Williams, Nyland, VanderWert (lost in '74 storm)

• 11 - "The Ritz" - Sonneveldt (lost in '75 storm)

• 12 - "Ber-Lo-Ruth" - Tannis, Brown (lost in '74 storm)

• 13 - Storage Building (unknown when lost)

• 14 - "Poplars Three" - Oliver, Harrington (lost in '73 storm)

• 15 - "Haeck's Hideaway" - Hyland, Haeck (lost in '74 storm)

• 16 - "Willa Villa" - Hansen, Jones, Haeck, Rowe (lost in '74 storm)

• A - "Kumagin"

• B - "Laffalot"

• C - "Journey's End"

• 17 - Unknown - Plumb, Shapero

• 18 - Unknown - DeBruyn, Heidenga, Kluck

• 19 - "Owl's Nest" - Bender, Guy

• 20 - "Air Castle" - Rowe, Bean, Podimatis

• 21 - "Forest Lodge" - Rowe, Bean, Hinchman

• 22 - "Bott Cott" - Bottema, Reisinger

• 23 - "Stone Crest" - Stewart, Stone, Allen, Rubie, Van Dam

• 24 - "Little Pantlind", "Bowen Aire", "Baldwin Aire" - Armstrong, Bowen, Baldwin

• 25 - "Silver Dollar Lodge" - Welsh, Timpson, Reisinger

• 26 - "Roweswood" - Rowe, Bean, Blowers

• 27 - "Surf Side", "Sea King" - Hunting, Bottema, Buckley, Rizzo

• D - Unknown - Matheson (lost)

• 28 - Unknown - Hatton, Newman, Maier

• 29 - Unknown - Newman, Maier, Droste

• 30 - Unknown - Hatton, Kirchgessner, Rothwell

• 31 - Unknown - Bottema, Minnema, Kolman

• 32 - Unknown - Bottema, Batterson, Kolman, Burgess

• 33 - "The Steppes" - Bottema, Pett, Kobel, Smith

• 34 - "Lake-A-Vista" - Clark, McLaughlin, Hock, Vaughan

• 35 - "Pair-O-Dice" - Beaumont, Carbary

• 36 - "R-D-Lite" - Davis, Borg

• old 37 - "Wampa" - Branson (lost in '73 storm)

• new 37 - Unknown - Newman, Kinder

• 38 - "Tekonsha" - Hanson, Devine (lost in '73 storm)

• 39 - Lake View" - Carlson, Visser (lost in '73 storm)

• old 40 - "Anna" - Bottema, LaDoucuer (lost in '85 storm)

• new 40 - Unknown - Wingard

• 41 - "As I Like It" - Ridler, Bottema, Proudfoot (lost in '85 storm)

• old 42 - " 'Twill Do" - Ridler, Bottema, Hill, Kobel (lost in '85 storm)

• new 42 - Unknown - Austin

• 43 - "Charlotte" - Giblin, Nash, McKiernan, Semrow

• 44 - Unknown - McWilliams, Darnell, Bradford

• 45 - "Dew Drop Inn" - McWilliams, Secord

• 46 - Unknown - Kirwin, Hart (lost in '85 storm)

• 47 - Unknown - Jastrzembski, Gantos

• 48 - "Segoguin" - Barclay, Bessert

• 49 - "Wau-De-Na" - Dewes

• 50 - Unknown - Williams

• 51 - "Man-I-To" (pronounced Man A Toe) - Kirby, Monckton

• 52 - "The Florence", "The O'T" - McElwee, Tate, O'Toole, Dunn, Atkinson

• 53 - Unknown - Kirby, Moran, Butz

• 54 - Unknown - Harris, Van Noord, Olsen, Bessert

• 55 - Unknown - Jastrzembski

• 56 - Unknown - Jastrzembski

• 57 - Unknown - Sanford, Pett, Bosgraaf

• 58 - Unknown - Stinebower

• 59 - Unknown - Van Haaften, Lamar

• 60 - Unknown - Wingard