Inside a Rare Roger Hummel-Designed Home in Cedar, Michigan

Hey, before we get started about this home, you're wearing a happy hour, Fisher's Happy Hour Tavern hat. You're kind of a feature at the happy hour.

Yeah.

And people, I think, have always gotten the wrong impression that you're there at the bar drinking, but you're a teacher. A teetotaler.

Right. Yeah.

When's the last time you had a drop of alcohol?

Oh, I don't even remember.

No, but you, so you live right around the corner from the happy hour off Jelinek Road. Did Roger Hummel, the same architect who designed this home, did he provide you the design for your own home?

Yeah, he did primarily the design for my house. Everything.

One of the things that really struck me when I learned that you built this home and I got the chance to look on the inside was this detail right here of these stumps, for lack of a better term.

They're cherry wood blocks, sweet cherry trees.

Sweet cherry trees. And you told me a story, apparently the Kolarik brothers were involved in that.

Yeah, Pat and Tom worked for me at the time. We went out to orchards where they were trimming the trees and stacking There's a brush pile. We picked out the ones that were the right size.

You actually went from cherry farm to cherry farm to find trees that had been recently cut down.

Yeah, they did. They all put you in a brush pile. You cut out the pieces, the lengths we could use, and we ended up taking them to the kiln. And then we drilled holes in the side of the blocks and put 8-penny common nails in there as a reinforcement when we glued them to the floor. We put a rough grout in the bottom of regular cement, then this is white Medusa cement, and I forgot where we got the stones. I think we sneaked down to the beach and got the stones off the beach because Roger wanted these stones in there. But before we grouted the cement, we sealed the tops of all these with a sealant so the mortar wouldn't stain the blocks.

The stairs down from this main level that we're on down to the lower level You mentioned that crafting that was some of the more challenging work you've done.

Oh yeah, because you had to cut, stop septum, you had to notch it and get the face down to the lower part. And then like I said, we put all these little stones in. And the owner, he came up when we were doing this and he was quite a guy and he got right in there and busted dirt and sanded with us. Yeah. He was a heck of a guy.

And you brought kind of a treasure.

Yeah, I got the original blueprints.

All right.

Yeah.

Let's take a look at them.

So here they are.

Yep. All right.

It shows you all the areas. Yeah. It shows you all the details of the cabinets and everything was custom made. We didn't buy any cabinets or anything like that. Everything was made on— we made all the stuff on the job site here.

You made all the cabinets?

Oh yeah, we did all that here on the job site.

Then this right here, the building right outside here, this was originally not just a storage building. It was a— it says right here, tow house.

Well, yeah, he was going to have a tow house so he could ski down off the Sugarloaf. Sugarloaf down to the valley and you have a tow rope down to the bottom of the hill and so you could come ski over to there, grab the tow rope, get towed right home, and tow it up to home. But Sugarloaf wouldn't let them go because it ended up on Sugarloaf property if somebody came down and got caught in the tow rope or—

I see.

Because of the slope right there.

So even though he was one of the original investors of Sugarloaf, he had to live by that rule, huh?

There was 5 original investors. He was one of them. Yeah. Yeah. They wouldn't let him put it there. So it became a storage building, what it did.

Yeah.

Roger was a very detailed architect. And you really had to follow details or you got in trouble with the overall picture.

Well, and that's something that's characteristic about this house are the little details. I mean, that's really what it comes down to about a distinguishing factor of this home. Yeah, because you can see all the details here just for the windowsill.

With all the details.

And there are some details that are evident to the casual observer like me, like the pulling in and out of the bar stools. You had mentioned the detail here that I found to be interesting, that Roger Hummel actually designed this light fixture.

Oh yeah, he designed them. If you move the table, you can move the light over with the table either way, left or right, or forward and back.

These right here, these notches— So they can move the table that way, you could move this that way, or if the big table goes closer to there, you can move this to the other side that way. And the same thing with the light fixture once we transition into the living room.

That was supposed to be a game table to play cards or whatever.

And that can swing.

You can swing over and move this way.

That's something builders typically do now is they're not building light fixtures.

They don't do it. Not today.

Yeah, and when I briefly spoke with Roger on That was one thing that he really complimented you on was that you were eager to take on the challenges that were inherent in his designs.

Oh yeah.

And so you built 2 of the first 3 homes in the Sugarloaf Resort.

Right, there was the original home up on the hill which is the ball that was—

Ball, B-A-L-L, whereas this is bowl, B-O-L-L.

Right. Robert Balls was the second house up here, and I built that. This is the third house that was built up here. There's 5 investors originally, I was told, and they all had to build a house within the first year. Okay, so I built 2 of the first houses.

You know, Roger Hummel also designed the Falling Waters Lodge in Leland, the COVID in Leland, right?

Yeah.

You didn't build either one of those?

No.

But how many other other projects did you work on with Roger other than these first?

I don't even know, it's quite a few.

Yeah, well, there was something else earlier off camera you showed me in the kitchen. You had mentioned, number one, that you were in the middle of working on this— is GenAir, right? Right. Something was wrong with it, and so you re—

Well, they couldn't get a Jenn-Air at the time. The original Jenn-Air were bad, so they bought a different downdraft.

Now, when you say downdraft, what does that mean?

Well, you don't have a hood. It sucks the air down this way, and it goes down and out.

Oh, instead of having a hood, this is a downdraft.

It's pretty unique. It works good because the pots are there, and it just sucks it right down. Yeah, these are great stoves because like I say, you don't need a hood in it, and you have no— if it's on, it just sucks it right in before it gets any distance away.

Oh, and there's one more. Let's go back over here. So you mentioned that John Bull called you out to build that box around the electric meter because he would lose his appetite when he saw the meter going. So he didn't want to watch the electric meter going because that was money getting thrown away as far as he was concerned.

So we had to put a box over it.

So you built a box over it. Yeah, that's fun.

But it's not that bad, but it's—

No, no, but it shows his—

When you're eating your dinner to have a scene of that.

But it also shows that, you know, he was never a wasteful—

Oh no, he was pretty frugal. Pretty efficient. He was a great guy. His wife's really a great woman. She's still living. Every Christmas she sends me a Christmas gift.

Yeah, she was a Radio City Rockette dancer. Radio City Rockette dancer.

Yeah, and he said he beat all the big shots.

To win her hand, he beat out the big shots.

Yeah, he was a heck of a guy. He was a great guy.

Yeah, I actually bought his book. He wrote his memoir and read it. It's quite a story.

You got it?

I do. I have a copy. I want to borrow it. No, you can borrow it.

I've read it 3 times. Yeah, I want to read that.

This is that other light fixture you talked about that was designed by Roger and built by you that allows for the mobility of this table. You can push it over here and then you simply swing it over here. Yeah.

Or you can swing it out this way by moving the pins up there. It's easy to swing this way.

So you can move it out even?

But you got to move the pins out, which is more— a little bit more— it's a little bit more work, but you can move it out that way.

Oh, these pins right here?

Yeah, you pull that out, you drop the cord down, and now you can move it.

I see. It actually looks like those are almost like the same kind of thing that's on Farm Band.

But behind there, I think, is something to hold the cord.

And then up here I see a lot of little holes in the wall or the siding there, and I imagine those are for speakers.

Oh yeah, the speakers. There's two there and there's two on the other side for speaker system. Yeah, I think the speaker system is— I think it's all in behind there. Yeah, see, there's the stereo down there.

Okay, so here's the stereo, games, family time stuff. A little attention to, or a lot of attention to, little detail.

Well, yeah, Roger was very detail-oriented, and everything, basically everything we did, it usually worked out. Yeah, if you followed the drawings.

All right, so let's take a quick walk up stairs here. And this is one of the things that really struck me about the home that I think is, is unusual. I mean, I, I haven't seen this before, and that is this bed here halfway up the stairs.

The kids loved it.

And so what— this was intended for one of the kids?

Well, they all crashed here.

They all crashed here. Yeah, yeah, because this was a ski house, as we mentioned before.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you mentioned this little—

that was for the boy. He had a room in there.

Yep, and he would climb up that.

He'd climb up the railing going in. He had his nook here, nook, hold, what do you want to call it?

Little nook in there. This wood siding, and you had mentioned that you crafted that and then treated it with—

We sanded it to get the rough, because you can feel it's not real rough. This is rough stone cedar to start with, and we sanded it down. Then it was hand waxed with a chemical type of wax. It was all wax. All these boards were waxed.

So why wax?

So Rod wanted, and that's what he wanted to get the tone. Yeah, we didn't, you don't want any finish on it. It's all wax.

Now you had mentioned the waxing took place where?

In my dad's garage. Took the time, and because it was rough sawn cedar, it was sanded. It's basically fairly smooth now.

And you did all that in your dad's shop?

Yeah, my dad's garage. We stacked it, they waxed it, and they restacked it.

First thing that I notice is this right here, Ralph. This does not seem to be needed for a purpose.

No, Roger didn't like stuff flush, cut flush. He always ran stuff beyond or short. You see like those little beams there, how they're not butting against the wall?

Oh, right above the bed there, they're not right up against the wall.

That was his details like that.

To create a visual effect.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

That's the way he was. I mean, that's the way he wanted them. If we'd have cut that off, we'd have been in trouble. But that's the way he was. And you know, like this room here, it's just a bathroom, but still the mirror is cut into the wall. It's not just hung on it.

You built this as well.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

This flip down—

It's not a Home Depot vanity by any means.

Because you couldn't put a drawer in it, you have to flip. Then this comes down, storage behind there.

So not, not any wasted space, right?

They use cubbyholes and everything.

So here's another little cubby area, right?

Yeah, it took up, it took up a dead space. Yep. But that's it right there. See, it's basically hidden except for the handle showing up right there. Yeah.

You come on in what, what is in effect a master bathroom. So you had mentioned this.

Yeah, this guy that did this is very talented. The guy was one of the best tile vinyl guys you ever worked with. He cut all this out laying on the floor in there, and he said, "I knew I was going to be here for a while." And I said, "Yeah." He said, "Okay, I'll call you when I'm ready." So I come up here and he had this all cut and all fitted in that corner like that. A lot of vinyl guys can't make a corner like that. Down there in the corner, or it all comes up like that. This guy was really talented.

So you're saying this is all one piece because there's no seam right here?

Right, it doesn't.

This is kind of a little bit rounded.

Yeah, it comes down and comes— I don't know how far it goes, but to get in the room was the hardest part, because once you got it up in the wall, you know, it's all glued. Once you got it there, you could shift it a little bit. But yeah, look at it, it's a perfect corner. The guy was really great. Yeah, but if he came out of the job and told you he's going to do your tile work, you'd say Get the hell out of here.

Now there's something, there's another unique thing right over here.

Here's the clothes chute that goes down into the shower downstairs.

Laundry chute, yeah.

Yeah, Roger, he'd catch all these little nooks and corners in designing them.

And even this, this light right here is an interesting design choice.

Yeah, that's a, it worked out good. You got light in the tub this way. Yeah. Then he's like that. He didn't put a straight sill, it had to be a curved sill. Yeah. And of course you got to shade it. When you take a shower, they pull the shade down. Yeah. For privacy.

Oh, right here.

Yeah, for privacy and also to keep the water off of the window.

Yeah.

It should go back up. Got it.

So here's the master bedroom, right? Or primary bedroom, I should say. This— these are unique closet. Closet. Yeah, so they're more lean-in closets than walk-in. Yeah, yeah. Putting in this glass for these windows must have been—

Yeah, my deal was on that, we almost got in trouble because I think we made a slight little mistake. We wanted to keep the project going and to order glass took quite a few weeks, so I got them rough framed and we gambled. We measured the glass so then when we got the glass, you had just to make a couple places, just slight modification, but it worked out good. But that way we were that much farther ahead in the game. Yeah, we didn't have to wait 6 weeks or 4 weeks to get the glass. Yeah, we got the window all framed and we took it off the print. Yeah, and so I had to make sure I got it exactly as the print showed. It was a couple times I did have to fudge on, but yeah, but we made it work.

All right, let's walk up these short steps. I'll make sure you don't fall over backwards. So this is another unique space. Yeah, built-in. I see. So you built this too?

Oh yeah, we built that whole thing. It's all built.

Yeah, speakers looks like.

Yeah, they're inside the wall. And same If they go bad, if they're going bad, you got a problem.

I saw on a social media post, like on Facebook, on Instagram, something like that, where they're putting speakers behind the drywall now. And so this just demonstrates another thing about Roger being ahead of his time. Way ahead of his time, yeah. And so this, this right here is chimney is the chimney.

Yeah, see, we did for the, for the roof, this, we had these, uh, the ridge cap custom bent by the metal company of Traverse City. It's copper.

The ridge, the ridge cap is copper.

Some metal company in Traverse City bent them for us and made it because you couldn't buy it like that.

And I noticed that, that there's, there's copper gutters too.

Yeah, that was We ordered that. I don't know who Bennett was.

And I imagine this helps keep it warm. You know, heat rises, but this—

It does, it's chimney block, but it's a pretty thick— I think it's made out of block, so it's not going to get too much heat through it. Okay. After the fireplace is going for a while, yeah, then it's going to warm up because the chimney will warm.

Yeah.

But it's going to take a while.

Well, let's take a look downstairs. And these are the steps that you had mentioned were one of the most challenging things.

Well, yeah, because they got it— they're kind of knocked and then it goes down in the front. It's hard to explain it because you can see how the front is cut, then it's got to go down inside because we had to build a step like that. It was, it was a, it was a tricky situation.

Yeah. And you had mentioned no, no handrail here, but but that's pretty much an easy fix because this is concrete.

Yeah, well, you can put in no problem. Yeah, yeah.

This is to come take your ski boots off.

Yeah.

And there's one of those in the entryway. This is, you know, like a mini kitchen. Ralph, this sort of to me is indicative of a lot of the house. This is the— this must be the original stove down there.

Oh yeah, yeah, I'm sure it is.

And so much of this is— I mean, they've done— this family has just maintained the interior in this home, and it's just absolutely immaculate.

Refrigerator, refrigerator, the pantry's behind me, dishwasher. Sander Scott did drawers.

And you built those?

Oh yeah, we did all these.

We've got a little living room, dining room area here.

Sliding door for a deck. Yep.

And we didn't really show that, but there's a deck above here, and then this is a little deck/patio. This is an interesting detail too, that this is electric baseboard heat. And yet this, this is built.

Well, yeah, it's made so the warm air goes up and it pulls the cold air up through it.

Yeah. So this is one of the bedrooms downstairs, one of two.

Yeah, see what they did, that's so that if they had stuff in there from the family, they could lock it and still let somebody use it.

Oh, that's what this is right here.

Yeah, they could put padlock on them. If somebody was using the house, they wanted to park the bid down here.

He's got some golf clubs in here for the— which the golf course is still in operation, so.

He thought that, you know, because he's a businessman and his people, you got to be a golfer. And they just didn't—

No, he was a skier.

I don't think he ever golfed that much.

So really, same thing here. Yeah.

You can lock that one if you want to.

Yeah. So this is the full bath downstairs still, and very unique thing here that will stand out to anybody is what's behind this little latch.

You see they got a towel rack here, but they had to have a place for a water softener. So this opens up, and you got to climb over the stool See, that's the storage room and water heaters and water softener in there. This is— well, this is the entrance. To hang all the clothes, put the boots over there.

They take their ski boots off.

Yeah, yeah.

Let everything dry in the water.

And of course, this is to hang all the clothes up here because there's heat coming out of here, so The way up there, that's a big fan. Put that fan on a hot day, you open those windows on that side of the house, it just cools the whole street down.