Boathouse Museum Restored at Les Cheneaux

Michael Miller and Lyle Nordquist of the Les Cheneaux Historical Association survey the extensive renovations, including new pine siding, that brighten the outside of the Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum in Cedarville. The front door of the historic boat house was corn blasted to reveal the bright, clean wood underneath its weathered exterior. Perhaps the best thing about the Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum is the fact that it's built around a boathouse. While not a particularly fancy structure, compared to some of its local cousins designed to resemble stately summer cottages on the water, the former O.M. Reif boathouse does have a storied past that made saving its weathered wood all the more important to local historians.

The boathouse now resides on M-129 in Cedarville, where it has served the community as a maritime museum for more than a decade. A large addition was built in 1992 to provide more space and opportunities for the museum, which was gathering a growing collection of boats, maritime paraphernalia, books, and other items crucial to telling the story of the Les Cheneaux Islands' boating past. Before the 1940s, when a highway system started serving the community, the main access to the islands and waterfront communities of Hessel and Cedarville was by water. Whether by canoe, ferry, or pleasure boat, many got their first glimpse of the Les Cheneaux Islands looking over the bow of a boat.

The Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum in Cedarville was dingy looking and sagging before more than $60,000 in improvements strengthened and improved the aging structure. That is why planners decided the idea of saving an old boathouse to make it a new house of local history was so important, and why the Les Cheneaux Historical Association has been trying so hard to find the means to maintain the failing structure. Undaunted by its failure to secure grants to renovate the structure, the Historical Association continued with its plans to repair, until help came in the form of $12,000 in donations. The renovation project will cost approximately $65,000 by the time

it's finished.

Improvements included a new sill plate around the perimeter, which was one of the most critical improvements because the plates were rotting and causing the building to sag, said Historical Association Secretary Mike Miller.

"When the building was jacked up, they also found they had to replace the support posts and mezzanine," Mr. Miller said, adding that the Association hired a professional firm to estimate the extent of the building's failure and propose some remedies for bringing it up to code. "It not only has a new look from the outside, but also from the inside as well."

Otto M. Reif, a Pittsburgh industrialist, purchased what became known as Reif's Point, and later Connor's Point in Cedarville, where he built a home, gardens, caretaker's house, and the boathouse. He also established the Woodland Park Subdivision, which remains at the end of Park Avenue. Mr. Reif was a longtime seasonal resident, a charter member of the Les Cheneaux Islands Association.

The current renovation of the structure revealed the date "1921" and names of Chris and Tom Erickson carved in the rafters, proving the building is more than 80 years old. The structure was first built over the water, serving as protection for vessels. According to the Historical Association, the building was moved to its present location from Reif's or Connor's Point at the end of Woodland Park. The structure reportedly was dragged over the ice from the point, because it was the easiest way to move buildings in those days, said Les Cheneaux Historical Museum Curator Annegret Goehing. The building may have fallen through the ice on its way over, she added, but was recovered intact and finally set on the mainland, near downtown Cedarville. It has since been a storage building, an ice house, and a phone company storage building before the Historical Association acquired the property in the 1980s.

"The whole idea for the Maritime Museum came from the (Les Cheneaux Islands Antique Wooden) Boat Show Committee, and the idea that with the boat show like ours, we should have a place to store the boats and antiques that tell the history of our area and the reasons why there is a maritime culture here," Mrs. Goehring said. "In fact, our bylaws state that our history is based in the maritime heritage and travel by boat. In the 1800s, when the first settlements were recorded, the people came here by boat. There really were no roads coming here."

Grants, financial gifts, and the efforts of nearly 200 volunteers and donors helped make the vision of the Maritime Museum a reality. The addition included a library, and a two-story, soaring museum building tall enough to accommodate sail boats and a upper level display area. One side of the upper level was built with windows that look down into the large boat shop, where spectators can watch the construction of the Historical Association's annual boat raffle projects, classes in action, or other events. Huge, wooden sliding doors on the front of the building resemble the traditional boat house door on the original Reif boathouse.

As could be expected with an 80year-old building, the Reif boathouse has fallen into disrepair, prompting the need for renovations. Following the recommendations of the engineer, the building's siding has been completely replaced with pine, the original siding material. A few of the structural two-by-sixes in the walls were replaced, as were some windowsills. The frames around all windows on the east side of the building were also replaced because the building was sagging on that side. The east side of the building will also be graded to prevent water run-off from promoting rot, by moving water away from the building.

The building also received a new, red-shingled roof to match the roof on the 1992 addition. The roof was paid for by an anonymous donor who pledged $10,000 to the project specifically for the roof. Forty-two

rafters were replaced to eliminate rotting and sagging areas. Contractors removed two layers of roof, including the original cedar shake roof that had been topped by metal. The roof was fit with pine boards to again replicate the building's original construction.

"We wanted it to be just the way it was as much as possible," Mrs. Goehring said.

Mr. Miller added that the organization was pleased with job and felt "it was very well done." Greg McLeod of McLeod Construction was awarded the bid for the renovation job, and also corn blasted the large boathouse door to reveal the lighter colored wood beneath, thus matching it with the new siding. Contractors began work in January, and most of the work that remains includes clean-up and reorganizing displays within the museum. Historical Association members and museum workers plan to reconfigure the inside of the museum to make more room for activities and events. The museum is planning a musical program Monday, June 19, to kick off the season. Details will be announced closer to the date.