22 MyNorth.com Northern Home & Cottage FEB 16 NHC23

A CRISP FACELIFT, A SERENE PALETTE AND CAREFULLY CHOSEN ANTIQUE PIECES TURN A DATED COTTAGE INTO AN OASIS OF RELAXED STYLE.

glenn beach

TEXT BY KRISTI ZIMMETH // PHOTOS BY BETH SINGER

time at

Northern Home & Cottage FEB 16 NHC25

It all started with a clock, says Vee Mossburg,

the lead designer at Cottage Company, a design-

and-build �rm in Harbor Springs—the antique,

light blue Swedish Mora clock that is tucked into

a niche in the front hall of this gracious home on

Little Traverse Bay, to be speci�c. �e home’s

owner, Linda Orlans, a Birmingham-based entre-

preneur and lawyer, had long coveted 19th-cen-

tury Mora timepieces and knew she wanted one

to serve as the centerpiece of the renovation of

the vacation home she calls Glenn Beach.

“I was calling antique dealers all over the

world,” Vee recalls. She eventually found just

the right clock in Texas and had it shipped to

Northern Michigan. “Once we found it, every-

thing else fell into place,” she says. �e home-

owner and designer went on to develop the

home’s color scheme from the clock’s creamy

blue palette, mixing it with crisp o�-whites and

other soft tones for an easygoing elegance. �e

color can now be found in varying amounts in

each room of the renovated house. “We wanted it

to be casual, but it had to have a certain level of

sophistication,” Vee says.

With its enviable Lake Michigan site, the

home, built in the 1980s, was inspired by the

area’s Victorian resort vernacular. When Linda

bought the furnished house in 2010, however,

its room decor had never been updated and

was weighed down by the heavy �oral draper-

ies, printed upholstered furniture and intense,

saturated hues popular three decades ago. �at

eye-popping interior was enclosed in a mauve,

faux-Victorian exterior. 4

THE FORMERLY MAUVE FAUX VICTORIAN NOW SPORTS A CRISP, TIMELESS SEASIDE STYLE. THIS PAGE: A SERENE PALETTE—INCLUDING CREAMY WHITE PAINT ON THE ORIGINAL DARK WOOD PANELING—FRESHENS THE ROOM KNOWN AS THE STUDY.

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Northern Home & Cottage FEB 16 NHC27

�e home’s cloying attitude didn’t deter Linda.

“It was love at �rst sight,” she says. “�e moment

I walked through the door I knew it was right. �e

neighborhood is great, on the water and walking

distance to town … the bones of the house are

well thought out and the quality outstanding.”

It also had “big gathering places and amazing

light,” and “windows in all the right places, so the

light streams through the house from morning to

night,” Linda continues.

With such great bones, the renovation path

and palette was clear. “People today want cleaner

lines,” Vee says. “�ey come up here to escape,

so they want a place to calm down, a place of

sanctuary.” To accomplish that forward-thinking

style, Vee looked backward. In the late 19th

century, cottage owners seeking for a similar

escape from their busy lives eschewed the fussi-

ness of Victorian cottages for the more clean-

lined Shingle architectural style. Taking her cue

from history, Vee, working closely with Linda,

exchanged the home’s mauve exterior for a

crisp navy-and-white color scheme, replaced the

conventional roof shingles with natural cedar

shingles, swapped the sunburst motifs over the

windows for shingled awnings and lost the gin-

gerbread in the eaves.

With the backdrop set, Vee went to work �ne-

tuning the interior. While the only major struc-

tural change was enclosing one of two waterside

porches to make a sunroom, every room was

treated to new variations of beadboard, wain-

scoting, elegant trim work and moldings painted

in creamy colors. Vee also changed the function

of several spaces, including converting the formal

living room into a dining/library area. Furnished

with an antique table set in front of the �replace,

the room can be a place for casual meals as well

as intimate dinner parties. With built-in book-

shelves and cabinetry, the room doubles as a cozy

spot for snuggling in with a book. 4

THE HOMEOWNER CLOSED IN ONE OF TWO OUTDOOR PORCHES TO CREATE A FABULOUS THREE-SEASON ROOM, COMPLETE WITH A NEW FIELDSTONE FIREPLACE.

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Northern Home & Cottage FEB 16 NHC29

CLOCKWISE: THE STIFF DINING AREA WAS TRANSFORMED INTO A COMFORTABLE SITTING AREA (WITH A FABULOUS VIEW) OFF THE KITCHEN. WHITE PAINT, MARBLE SURFACES AND FURNITURE-STYLE CABINETRY TRANSFORMED THE HOMELY AMERICANA KITCHEN. PALE BLUE BEADBOARD ON THE WALLS AND CEILING IN THE MASTER BEDROOM CREATES A DREAMY SETTING. BEFORE ITS MAKEOVER, THE MOST MEMORABLE ELEMENT OF THIS BATHROOM WAS RED-AND-GOLD PLAID WALLPAPER.

28 MyNorth.com

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