While rendering lard on an old-fashioned, wood-fed cook stove, Susan Odom types an email over wireless internet.
Though that dichotomy between old and new may seem strange to some, Odom is used to it. In fact, she calls it home. Odom owns Hillside Homestead--which is, as she likes to call it, a farmstay inn in Suttons Bay. Guests at the inn experience turn-of-the-20th-century life with period-specific rooms and meals. And while you won't find a television or radio anywhere on the property, the inn features modern amenities like wireless internet and updated heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
So you could say Odom lives two lives--one in the early 20th century and one in the early 21st.
"I offer historic dinners and lodging and events and occasional classes. I might even start offering dessert as a way for people to experience the farm who can’t do a whole dinner. I have created an authentic 1910 experience," she says.
Odom's knowledge of the early 20th century comes from her many years working for museums. For seven years she worked at a living history farm at
Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn. During her time at the museum she became somewhat of a food historian.
"I picked up my first historic cook book in about 1997--the
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping. I was hooked. I have around 300 historic cook books now. They are a great source of recipes. Also magazines and newspapers of the time. I also have some local historic recipes from diaries and journals and even some local historic recipes from an early inn in a little town, Omena, just a few miles from here," she says.
The inn's menu focuses on seasonal and local foods with homemade cakes, breads, pies, jams, jellies and pickles. Breakfasts prepared on the cook stove include escalloped eggs, bacon, ham, egg toast, graham gems, cinnamon rolls, fresh season fruit and more.
While she cooks a lot of food on the cook stove, she also has use of a modern kitchen and amenities.
Those guests so inclined are encouraged to help prepare the meals or they can play croquet on the lawn, rest on the porch swing, stroll the grounds or enjoy the inn's parlor amusements, pump organ, phonograph and other games and activities.
Odom says the house was likely built sometime between 1900 and 1910. It was built by a man named Joe Reicha and his wife, who were in their mid 40s when they built it.
"I think they had some money and knew what they wanted. It is a bit bigger and nicer than some other farm houses in the area," she says. "For example, the bedrooms upstairs are large, for the most part, and the slanting roof lines don’t infringe on your head space. Down in the cellar the ceilings are about 7-8 feet tall."
Odom also keeps a small-scale farm on the property with over 20 chickens. She hopes to add several pigs next spring. She said the animals on the farm have to be heritage breeds and the kinds of animals typical on a Leelanau County farm during the early 20th century.
"I hope to get a mix of Yorkshire, duroc and Hampshire (pigs) because I have this great picture from about 1900 of a neighbor to the Reichas who had those kind of mutt pigs," she says.
Sometime in the next couple of years she hopes to add a milk cow to the farm, not only for small-scale milk production but also to let the guests try their hand at milking.
For more information, including rates and policies, visit the
Hillside Homestead website.
Christopher Diem is a freelance writer who was born and raised in Michigan.
Photography by Brian Confer
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