My partner and I are away on a working vacation of sorts at the Chalfonte House. We were charged with the tasks of laundry, bringing up a carload of food and other items for campers next week, getting measurements to replace furnace filters, wash the furniture coverings and clean all of the floors. Aside from these chores we are free for a week to enjoy the house and town. We're out of the city and close to wineries and farmers markets, orchards and of course the water. Detaching from life in the city is like quitting a really bad habit, you know you want to and need to but the only way it seems to be coming about is giving you the fits.
The Chalfonte House was built in 1881 and purchased by Father Meyer (Jimeyer as he is called) in 1977. It's located in Elk Rapids, Michigan and is situated on what used to be the main street in town before the waterfront was built up. The old schoolhouse is next door. It's a beautiful Victorian with thick carpets and hardwood floors, oak trim and very stately choices in furniture. There are three bathrooms, one with a clawfoot tub and separate walk in shower with sauna, two kitchens, five bedrooms, two living rooms, an upstairs solarium, a den, a wine cellar and an attached two car garage. Although it is Jimeyer's personally owned home his foundation, the Chalfonte Foundation, uses it as a retreat home for underprivileged youth from inner city Detroit as well as for children with Cystic Fibrosis. The house is a very loving place full of great memories and good intentions. There is a clothesline for laundry strung up between the aged trees with deep bark grooves. Picnic tables await diners in the spotty shade. It is two blocks from Grand Traverse bay and a lovely beachfront park.
Elks Rapids, like most little lake towns is sublime in the summer. The cottage gardens are popping with all sorts of varietals of brightly colored flowers. Not many vegetables. Some quite impressive dinner plate dahlias adorned a prized spot in one yard, an explosion of shasta daisies in another, a marvelous display of French lavender stretching the entire expanse along a lightly traveled thoroughfare. It's all so lovely that it's ease of existence is foreign. Vacationers are out early in the lukewarm air under a cloudless sky. I take note of the kitschy decor of beach life, lake life, fresh water no sharks, the town's name and the towels hanging on porches and fences. The groundskeepers are busy mowing the lawns and emptying the public waste receptacles. Marigolds happily line the park's sidewalks. I make my way down to the bakery but it's closed on Monday. I head to the town's coffee shop and end up paying $7.50 for a breakfast bagel which completely dismays me.
The charming qualities of the town dissipate as I see a for rent sign and giant pink hydrangeas the back drop for a woman eating breakfast on a patio. All this has a price, it's for rent, for sale, and you too can buy into it. I think of buying a dozen eggs, cheese and a pack of bagels at the grocery store for the entire $8 I spent already. It angers me. I try to think of the serenity of the bay, the strength of ages in the water, the pretty stones on the beach and the scraggy brush that grows along the water's edge. Children are out riding bikes, most of them wearing helmets. Their helmets annoy me. I'm going to need a few more days before I can shake my cynicism and hardened city attitude. I probably need some local ice cream, take in some antiques in the amazing antique shop here, go swimming and turn off my phone. I'm definitely one of those people that has a hard time vacationing.
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