Crystal Highlands
By Susan Koenig
Current Contributor
High on the bluff above the Glen Eyrie community, on the North Shore of Crystal Lake, sets a 500-acre development that stretches north to Long Lake and east to Rogers Road. Crystal Highlands—formerly known as Crystal Highlands Orchards, Inc., and prior to that as the Kimball-Willard Corporation, or “K&W”—is linked with Glen Eyrie not only geographically, being adjacent to one another, but also historically. Both communities were developed by ardent Congregationalists from Oak Park, Illinois, who first came to Benzie County to live as summer residents among kindred souls.
What began as a couple of families’ hobby-farming project has since become a hillside development consisting of 64 families owning 72 lots, of which 36 have houses and 24 are occupied full-time year-round. The Crystal Highlands Owners Association (CHOA) maintains recreation facilities that include three beaches, boating facilities, a tennis court, picnic and playground area, and a network of walking trails for the enjoyment of its members. In addition, CHOA encourages a sense of community through social activities and civic endeavors—neighbors enjoy meeting on the trails and serendipitous gatherings at the beach, as well as planned picnics and other events.
Early Times
In 1904, Sydney Strong—a minister from Oak Park, Illinois, who had been attending meetings with the Congregational Summer Assembly (CSA) since the 1890s, even before the CSA made its permanent home on Crystal Lake—bought 29 acres with 1,700 feet of shoreline for $350, and this became Glen Eyrie. Meanwhile, both Dr. Willam G. Willard and Frank Kimball, fellow Congregationalists and Oak Park residents, purchased property in Glen Eyrie in the early 1900s and built cottages for summer living.*
By 1918, the two had decided to buy the acreage on the hills above Glen Eyrie, as well, forming the Kimball-Willard Corporation (K&W). They cleared about 150 acres of the land and planted apple and cherry trees, using the cut lumber to build a farmhouse and large traditional-style barn, whose cupola had a view of six lakes: Crystal, Upper Platte, Lower Platte, Loon, Long, and Lake Michigan.
Since farming was more of a hobby for the highly educated doctor and the prominent Chicago Board of Trade member, the two hired local residents to run the farm and harvest the crops.
Frank Kimball’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Warner, recalls what her grandmother, Anna, quipped about her husband’s pastime: “The only good thing that came out of the orchard was the meeting between [their daughter, my mother] Lois and her future husband [my father],” referring to Harold Jacox, who had come to the farm with a group of YMCA friends from Flint to pick fruit during the summer. Warner adds that there were “a lot of girls” summering in Glen Eyrie, and dances were held at the K&W farm on Saturday nights for locals and summer folks to get together.
When Kimball died in 1922, Dr. Willard bought the Kimball family’s share of the business, and his one son, (William) Dayton Willard (1901-1984), who loved growing fruit, acquired the property when he graduated in 1925 from Michigan State University.
The Kimball-Willard 500 acres became Crystal View Orchards, and Dayton married Leora Keatts (1902-1991) in 1933, when the couple moved permanently to their home on the hill above Crystal Lake and Glen Eyrie. Besides farming, Dayton had manifold endeavors, such as raising turkeys (most became victims of foxes); making jams, jellies and juices; and later cultivating dahlias (some readers may remember “Dayton’s Dazzling Dahlias”).
From his mother Anna [Marchant] Kimball’s 1948 obituary: “The Kimball family’s interest in Benzie County began in 1908, when they joined the Glen Eyrie group of early summer cottages on the north shore of Crystal Lake. The Crystal Lake Orchards and the Kimball-Willard Orchards were an outgrowth of a development idea, established by six friends of the [Glen Eyrie] Colony, including the Kimballs. These were among the first of the large-scale fruit growing ventures in the region and are now combined in the one large fruit farm, Crystal View Orchards, operated by Dayton Willard.”
Other Families
According to a 1986 article by Tom Northway in the Benzie County Record Patriot, “other entire families of local townspeople and folks from as far as Mesick and Copemish worked the orchards in the 1920s. Some camped, others commuted, and some resided in the farmhouse.”
In the 1930s, a wave of Southern white and black migrant laborers followed harvests to Michigan, followed by Mexican and Jamaican labor in the ’40s. In his article, Northway describes locals such as Bob Martin, Bill Boal, Bert Rayle, and Joe Stormer, who provide anecdotes and observations from their days as employees who lived and worked on the Willard farm—apparently, Dayton was a taskmaster, to say the least, and did not tolerate shenanigans. (To learn more about the farm’s later history, read Northway’s article, now housed in the archives of the Benzie Shores District Library in downtown Frankfort.)
Dayton and Leora, despite their city backgrounds (she was a college graduate with a music major). managed to raise their daughter and enjoy a life of relative isolation on the farm. None of their immediate neighbors were winter residents, but Dayton’s nephew (Harold Case) and various relatives lived in Beulah; the Willards and Cases all attended the same church, and Leora gave piano lessons, in addition to making her jams and jellies. Their house still stands, on a promontory off Highland Drive, overlooking Crystal Lake.
Although the couple lived in their house on the hill until they died, after 45 years of farming, in 1969, Dayton sold the property and farm equipment to summer neighbors Jack and Marj French and Jim and Eileen Kelly, who retained the “Crystal Highlands” part of the name, but later dropped the “Orchards, Inc.” when their focus for the property became real estate development. The sale included the beach at the bottom of the two-track (now Highland Drive), and subsequently the Frenches and Kellys bought additional beach frontage at the bottom of another trail, now Spring Valley Road, from Chet Cutler, a local car dealer, and his wife, Gertie Bell. (The Frenches and Kellys later donated the beach to the Crystal Highlands Owners Association.)
At that juncture, the Highlands “neighborhood” wasn’t really a ’hood, until the second residents moved in to the original farmhouse on the hill. Yours truly and my husband, Roland, arrived as newlyweds from New Jersey—bag and baggage and dogs—in between blizzards in February of 1971.
Roland was hired to manage the property under the tutelage of Dayton Willard, and so a continuation of the “pioneer days” ensued: the only road was a two-track and wildlife was abundant, but—apart from the Willards, whose only previous employee had recently run amok with the tractor and absconded to town, never to be heard from again—there were no other (human) inhabitants. (I am not counting the deer, racoons, porcupines, and wild turkeys, who were smarter than Dayton’s domestic ones, thus able to out-fox the foxes.)
Undaunted, we proceeded to raise chickens, pigs, goats, and a horse named Ginger, housing them in the classic old barn. That summer, we hired a large and amiable Mexican family to pick fruit, and they lived in a trailer near the quonset, where the heavy equipment was stored. Roland learned about fruit farming under Dayton’s tutelage and through the help of various agencies and farmers in the county, and I learned about everything that isolated country living has to offer!
Divvying It Up
By 1973, the Kellys and Frenches had built 2.5 miles of roads throughout the property, including Highalnd Drive, Spring Valley Road, and White Birch Trail. They originally platted 61 lots and built a water system to service the eastern portion of the community. Later, they added Orchard Lane and platted 11 lots on Summit Place and Sleeping Bear View—the 72 lots of Crystal Highlands were then finished.
The last fruit harvest was in 1975, and now residents have to content themselves with harvesting the small, bruised fruit that continues to grow on the few existing apple trees. The once-abundant wild berries have, for the most part, yielded to development, but leeks and morel mushrooms continue to be found in varying quantities.
The current Highlands residents do not necessarily interact a great deal with Glen Eyrie below, but relations are cordial. Relics of the “olden days” are few and far between, except for one original outbuilding at the farm location and some remains of a barn on the east side of the development, including two “picker houses,” later renovated to a level that is unrecognizable from their former incarnations.
With the formation of the Crystal Highlands Owners Association on July 15, 1975, and the donation of the Crystal Lake beach frontage to the association, Crystal Highlands was complete, for the time being, though the Kellys and the Frenches continued to make changes and improvements. (For instance, they sold 27 acres in the area of Long Lake to a group of developers who created Long Lake Heights plat of 17 lots.**) The Association’s mission was to oversee the property interests, but also to promote social and recreational activities that would enhance the welfare of the group.
In 1986, CHOA leased 150 acres of the land that was eventually donated in 1993 for recreational use, subject to a conservation easement. This land included the recreation area on Highland Drive, where the tennis court is located, and the 300 feet of beach on Long Lake, accessed from the turn-around on Orchard Lane. Not long afterward, CHOA deeded a conservation easement to the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, for a portion of that acreage, including what is known as “the bowl,” for creating a “natural state in perpetuity.” This parcel is located below the lots on the ridge of Sleeping Bear View and cannot be developed.
Additionally, in 2002, the CHOA voted to purchase a 35-acre parcel, which is situated northeast of Highland Drive, across from the Recreation Area, from Jim Kelly. The land, know as the “meadow,” is to be used as a permanent Natural Preserve and Conservancy, with a network of walking trails throughout.
After Jack French died n 2004 and the property was divided between the two families, the Kellys began a new farming venture, with the construction of a beautiful barn and the installation therein of the popular Belted Galloway cows, often referred to as “Oreo Cookie Cows,” because of their distinctive markings. The farm became a popular tourist stop, as people came to admire the herd. Al Cline, then property manager, has retired to write poetry and novels, and the cows retired, as well—at present, the land is home to the ubiquitous deer (no hunting allowed!) and transient sandhill cranes. (As of the writing of this article, the future of the farm is unknown, but rests in the capable hands of the Kelly family.)
In The Present
The first annual meeting on July 31, 1976, of the Crystal Highlands Owners Association was held at my home (the original farmhouse) with 16 people present. By the last meeting, held at Grow Benzie this past July, our number had grown to 52 attendees.
The CHOA community, still growing, remains dedicated to neighborliness, maintaining the beauty of the surroundings and enhancing the well-being of all residents. The original motto—“a home where you know your neighbors, but you can’t see them”—has not been adhered to as much as we might wish, but it is a lovely, peaceful, and congenial place to live, as is Glen Eyrie below.
The Willards and the Kimballs are, we hope, proud of what our two neighborhoods represent.
Susan Koenig has lived in Crystal Highlands since 1971.
*Interestingly, the Kimball Cottage was designed by John Shellette Van Bergen (1885-1969), also an Oak Park resident and architect of note, who worked in Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio in 1909. Van Bergen’s style, like that of Wright’s, was to blend homes with the environment surrounding the structures. The lumber for the house in question, and the huge stones for the massive fireplace, were brought to the site by barge across Crystal Lake, since there was no paved road to the area at that time. (This is the same “cottage” referred to in Beau Vallance’s article as the “clubhouse” in the Glen Eyrie lawsuit from the 1970s.) This year is the 100th anniversary of the construction of the Kimball Cottage.
**In 1998, Eileen Kelly purchased 40 acres on the south side of Highland Drive, near the recreation area, and platted 21 lots. Crystal View Commons and Jack’s Way are the access roads/paths to this development. This area is known as “The Preserve” and, like the Long Lake Heights development, is not part of the Crystal Highlands Association area, but homeowners in these areas can join as associate members, in order to access the recreation area and trails and to participate in CHOA activities.
Featured Photo Caption: A barn and open field overlook Lake Michigan in the background. These are the last vestiges of rural farm life in the Crystal Highlands development. Photo by Susan Koenig.
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