PENTWATER STORIES

A smaller building erected in 1869 was expanded in 1871 to hold lumber offices. By 1874, the building was the home of the local newspaper, the Oceana Times, and by 1880 was the home of the Pentwater News.

The Verbeck Tavern, once located on the current site of the post office and Pentwater Village Hall, played an essential role in promoting the Lake Michigan shoreline as the nation's summer playground. Tavern guests spent their days at the beach and went on berry-picking and boating excursions organized by the hotel. Read More: Verbeck Tavern

Link here to read the whole story. In 1887 Thomas Collister built the largest and only three story building in the village and by 1888 had sold it to Charles Mears who operated several businesses there. The exterior of the building is the famous yellow Pentwater brick, manufactured at the Middlesex Brickworks owned by Mears. Charles Mears was a Mason and turned the third floor into the Pentwater Masonic Temple. The Masons actually owned the third floor and it still retains its separate staircase, carved wooden newel posts, tall windows and massive doors with colored glass transoms. The shades and etched images depict the different orders of the fraternal organization which directed the members entry into the main rooms. A distinctive feature on the building’s exterior is the Mason’s terra-cotta keystone known as the "Isle of Man.” In the 1960’s when the estate of Charles Mears’ daughter Carrie’s Mears was settled, the Masons sold back the third floor and moved to a smaller building next door. The story continues…

Link here to read the whole story. In 1921 brothers W.F. and Charles Bouga and their cousin Ms. Tillie D. Nichols hired John Graham to erect a large one-story cement block structure on the former site of their father John Bouga’s livery stable established in 1889. It had large doors on the front and on the back of the building. The Big Maple Garage, named for the large maple tree in front of the store, was a Texaco Station with two pumps right at the curb on Hancock. Each pump had a picture of the Texaco Fire Chiefs’ red hat and a Texaco Star on the top glass globes. This was a boom time for automobile ownership and the shop also sold Hudson-Essex automobiles. Read the whole story here…

The Gardner Building was built by F. O. Gardner, a lumberman whose fortune was made when word of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 reached the eastern shores of Lake Michigan and the cost per board foot of lumber jumped to $17. Thanks to the lakeshore lumbering in the towns of Grand Haven, Muskegon, Pentwater, Ludington and more, the Windy City was rebuilt anew and more beautiful with the the fabulous structures we see today designed by the firms of Sullivan & Adler, Burnham & Root, and Holabird & Roche. This beautiful red brick building was the location of the Garden General Store. More about that coming soon. Today it is the home of the popular Green Isaacs Coffee Shop and Jillys Gallery. More history coming soon!

Willy Lenert made a brief but historic mark on Pentwater and the Aviation world with his short-lived Lenert Aircraft Company. Born in Copenhagen and raised in Chicago, Lenert, who had just a sixth-grade education, had mastered early airplane building by 1926. That was eighteen years after he was a vaudeville "slack-wire performer" in 1908 at the short-lived Grand Rapids Airdome. In 1909, he was a balloon ascensionist. Over the next eighteen years, Lenert developed a revolutionary all-metal plane—"all-metal but the tires"— with a price tag of $2,500. He claimed the Lenert metal aircraft weighed the same as the wood and cloth planes, but according to a Grand Rapids Press article, it had the advantage of being fireproof. To build that plane, Lenert moved in 1925 to Pentwater and set up a workshop on the shores of Pentwater Lake at the south end of Hancock Street. By 1926, his new metal plane was a hit at the Detroit Airshow. By 1928, he established the Lenert Aircraft Company in Pentwater. (Link here for more of the story).

190 S. Hancock is opening in 2023 as Linens & Lace. In 2022, it was the Reed Photography store, and before that a restaurant, a sport shop, a personal residence and a pet supplies store. The early history began when German-born immigrant William Klingbell put down his roots in the village of Pentwater and offered tailoring services until about 1905. According to Pentwater Home Tours, there is a three-foot tree stump in the crawl space. To find this store, just look for the big boulder at the corner of 2nd and Hancock with the bronze plaque “G.A.R.” or Grand Army of the Republic,” placed there by the Women’s Relief Corps who were wives of Civil war veterans. F.O. Gardner, a Civil War veteran, (see Gardner Building) was instrumental in getting this marker designed to recognize the role that Pentwater residents played in the war.

Read the whole story here. On April 25, 1875 that original frame church caught fire and the building sustained over $4,700 in damage and there was no insurance. Consider that amount in 1875 dollars! On June 3, 1875, the Pentwater Methodist congregation broke ground on a new church, after the first building sustained over $4,700 in fire damage the previous April. The new building was designed by Grand Rapids architects Barnaby and Robinson in the iconic cream brick manufactured at the local Middlesex Brick and Tile Company. Although the new building was far from complete, the congregation held the first service on December 26, 1875 and the church at the north side of the Pentwater business district was finally completed and dedicated on July 13, 1879. That day, the congregation raised over $1,300 toward the building debt. Today the beautiful old church is still at use in its original location on Hancock Street at the north end o the business district. Read more…

In 1883, the brick and frame two-story plus basement for partners W.B.O. Sands and E.G. Marshall for their lumber offices and mercantile business. Built of Pentwater yellow brick. This building and a second building to the north were described as a double building with two entrances on Hancock. In 1900, the north building became a bank. In 1920, the north building with the bank and general store caught fire and were a total loss. The surviving building was sold for a nominal sum to the village to be used as the community center, and the Pentwater Women’s Club raised the money to renovate it.

Read the whole story here…In 1883, the Grand Rapids businessman, William Hodgson, built this Pentwater brick block of stores with the two store fronts separated by an east-west common wall. The stores were rented by Charles Mears from 1887-1888, before he purchased the south end of the building. In 1898, at the time of the fire at the Pentwater Bedstead Company, Moses Girard, a former Pentwater mayor and successful businessman, bought the building. But first he lost his fortune after his produce business run with two other businessmen failed. Read on…

Read the whole story here…For over 100 years, this was the location of a pharmacy that changed hands a number of times before 1995. In 1891, pharmacist Frances W. Fincher owned what was then called the Corner Pharmacy. He rebuilt the building in Pentwater brick following the disastrous village fire of 1889. Read on…

The Hancock Building began as the Miracle Theatre which opened on July 12, 1930 on the former site of the Valleria Hotel, often referred to as the White Elephant (see the Valleria story). The 1930s advertisement proclaimed “all talking” movies. In the 1950s, the promise was one big screen and a “crying room” for moms so they didn’t have to miss the move. The manager was William Jonkman who was also very active in the village, including as Village president. The high school band as well as the high school theater group used the building for concrete and plays and the high school graduation exercises in 1930READ MORE.

Story in process. Check back soon.