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Lake house signs offer glimpse of stories, lives

By Julie Riddle 5 min read

ALPENA -- Driveway signs and lakefront dwellers go together like sand and flipflops.

"Really, it's just to help people find your house," said Eric Lawson, one of many residents along U.S.-23 South whose homes are marked by catchy names and quirky images.

Hunting for a fun name for their home, Larson and his family rearranged the first letters of the last names of family members who have lived in the home until they came to "GROWL," and the name stuck.

A relative designed the "six-legged, fire-breathing wolf" that now adorns the sign that sometimes confuses package delivery workers, who think Growl is his last name, Larson said.

Lake dwellers' signs give glimpses into the homes, families, and stories they represent, Larson said.

"And if you can have a little fun in the bargain, that's good," he said.

* * *

"You're walking into a boat," neighbor Dan White said, offering a tour of the namesake of his driveway sign that reads, "The Bantam."

In 1966, White's father built a Rhodes Bantam sailboat, on which White in his youth mastered "the fine art of nautical partying," he said.

Sold out of the family, the boat was returned decades later, its bottom rotted out. White and his wife, Yvonne, cut off the rot, stood the boat on its end, and used it as a doorway to a beach house behind their lakefront home.

The boat's parts became shelves, a table, and a corner bar, its mast and boom intersecting overhead to hold up a ceiling made of sails from his dad's sailboats.

Most summer evenings find the couple inside their revisioned boat, sometimes hosting friends.

The sign out front is only up when the beach house is open, "Which means come on down," Yvonne White said.

* * *

A little farther north, tucked up close to a patch of trees, a small iron train tops a sign reading, "the McClays."

Born shortly after the turn of the 20th century and proud owner of a standard gauge train set in his youth, homeowner Phil McClay's dad was fascinated by the trains so important to the nation in the early 20th century, McClay said.

McClay grew up in the house, built in 1951. He moved away, but his parents stayed, his train-buff dad filling the home with train decor.

With the nearest child living half a mile away, the beach "was a great, big playground" in McClay's youth, when most neighbors lived downstate and only came up for weekends.

Now, McClay comes when he can to visit the house where a black locomotive marks the driveway, a reminder of the toy that sparked his dad's imagination some 100 years ago.

* * *

A golfer in full swing and a spinning crown mark the home of a golf champion who dubs himself the "Polish Prince."

There's no special meaning behind the whirligig atop the roadside sign bearing his name.

"We just put it out there," Don Szymanski said. "My wife used to do all that stuff."

Now, he decorates driveway pots with silk flowers his wife would like if she were still living.

In his basement, a dozen plaques bear tangible evidence of his skill with a golf club and love of the game.

His kids bring him golf balls, mementos of their travels and tributes to their golf-loving dad.

A family friend gave him the golfer silhouette, which he figured he might as well set out front for passers-by to enjoy, Szymanski said, making his way down a hallway lined with faded photos of his kids, his grandkids, his mother, his wife.

* * *

Troy and Lori Bowers had to wade through hip-high overgrowth a decade ago, when they first toured the property they eventually marked with a mischievous mermaid.

Dotted with small cottages at the time, many properties along that stretch of U.S.-23 have since been sold, new and magnificent homes springing up in their place.

The couple named their property "Bowers Beach" and borrowed an image from a New Jersey bar to decorate their sign.

"She's my mermaid," Troy Bowers said, teasing his wife as she laughingly waved his comments off.

They should have outlined the sign in white so guests can see it better when looking for their house, the couple agreed.

Slow down at the lighthouse and hit the brakes at the tooth, they tell visitors, offering other signs along the road as landmarks.

* * *

Mens' voices burst in a laugh from the back porch of a home marked, "Northern Therapy."

"This is the therapy session," said K.C. Bray on the porch, holding a can aloft with a football game droning in the background.

For years, downstater Ron Pouncey, the home's owner, has been coming north almost every weekend to unwind after a hard week's work.

A hand-built tiki bar on the beach, complete with thatched roof, gives him a place to entertain neighbors at the home he chose in the 1990s, when he kept traveling north until he found the best beaches.

The sign out front fits the lake home "because it's our therapy," Pouncey said. "We come up, chill out, and enjoy Alpena."

* * *

Along the road, other signs catch a passerby's eye.

Skis and hockey sticks. A manatee hanging from driftwood by a bit of chain.

"Capatina" and "Shire by the Shore," names evocative and mysterious.

A rampant bear and a crooked flower.

A little red truck; a long red fish.

A Batman symbol and swirl of keyboard.

Behind them, inside the homes, the signs' stories wait to be told.

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