Felt Estate, Part 1
During the same trip that I visited the Grand Rapids Public Museum, I took a holiday tour of Felt Estate in Holland, MI. This three-story, early 20th century estate was home to the Felt family, led by self-made millionaire inventor Dorr Felt. The tour covered two floors of the three-story mansion and was festively decorated for Christmas. Both the story of the property and its decor are fascinating, so I am dividing the blog into two parts. This post will cover the history of the property, and the next post will cover its design.
At the beginning of the tour, the guide gave the detailed history of the house and its residents. Felt invented many devices, but his bestseller was the Comptometer, a precursor to the modern calculator. Several Comptometers were saved in the house, including directions for house to use them. Felt’s abilities to invent were especially remarkable considering he did not have a formal education, instead learning by working in machine shops beginning at age fourteen. By the end of his life, he had forty-six patents in the United States and twenty-five patents in other countries. However, perhaps the most important decision of his life came in 1891 when he married Agnes McNulty, who would be his wife of thirty-seven years. The couple had four daughters and based on home movies shown at the mansion, they seemed to be a very happy family.
Since the family lived in Chicago, Dorr wanted a private vacation spot away from the city. He bought about a thousand acres in western Michigan developed a private park for his family, which they called Shore Acre Farm. The highlight of the estate was intended to be Felt Mansion, a three-story stone house, which was constructed beginning in 1925 until June 1928. Dorr and Agnes moved in, perhaps expecting a happy retirement, but Agnes died six weeks later on August 19. Dorr’s health apparently suffered, as he died of a stroke two years later. Their daughters, sons-in-law, and children continued to use the property until 1949. By then, youngest daughter Dorothea and her husband John High Noyes had died in the 1942 Coconut Grove nightclub fire in Boston, MA, leaving their two children orphaned. With American culture changing after World War II, the family decided to sell the property to the Catholic church.
The first Catholic organization to use the full property was The Saint Augustine Seminary High School. The organization ran between 1949 and 1977, constructing multiple buildings and providing education to boys who were interested in becoming priests. The most famous of the students was Robert Francis Prevost of Chicago, who is now Pope Leo XIV. His portrait hung on the landing between the first and second floor next to a brightly lit Christmas tree. Enrollment in the school peaked during the Vietnam War, as this was a guaranteed means to avoid the draft, but declined steeply when the war ended. Beginning in 1968, cloistered Augustinian nuns lived in the mansion. The fancy woodwork and wall sconces conflicted with their beliefs, so they hired a local carpenter to rip them out. Fortunately, the carpenter lovingly hid these pieces in storage, and all were returned to the mansion many years later during its restoration.
The last phase of the property was usage as Dunes Correctional Facility run by Michigan State Police, as the Michigan prison system was over capacity. The mansion was used as an office space, with its floors divided into cubicles. This stage only lasted from 1977 to 1991 when the prison closed and Laketown Township bought the property for only $1. While the prison buildings were torn down in 1996, the township had no plans for the mansion itself. It would have decayed into oblivion if not for Patty Hoezee Meyer, who rediscovered the mansion while on a hike with her husband, dean, and quickly assembled a group of like-minded volunteers to purchase and restore the building. By 2007, no visitor would have guessed that Felt Estate was ever abandoned.