The Story of Granot Loma
"I don't really view myself as an owner. I take care of it. It's going to outlast me. It is so solid and so unique it has its own aura. It's not like this is Tom Baldwin's house. It's Granot Loma."
Granot Loma is a National Historic Landmark begun by Louis and Marie Kaufman in 1919, restored to its former grandeur in 1987 by Tom Baldwin. Its heritage is the rich legacy of powerful men who control and influence people and events. Gerald Ford intended to transform Granot Loma into his Western White House. Louis Graveraet Kaufman finalized plans for the Empire State building and creation of General Motors in its Great Room. Muhammad Ali attempted to buy it in the early 70's. And Tom Baldwin runs a financial empire from it today.
It's the real thing, an American castle, superbly executed by 22 architects and 400 Scandinavian craftsmen. Its Great Room chandelier is the entire root system of a white pine Kaufman played under as a boy. Mrs. Kaufman selected rocks for the fireplaces from Lake Superior's crystal waters, and divers retrieved them. Logs were handpicked in Oregon, wrapped in burlap, shipped to Michigan and constructed over an iron frame embedded in six feet of concrete.
Architectural Digest, "The International Magazine of Fine Interior Design", featured Granot Loma in its May, 1995 edition with these words: "The name may sound vaguely Continental, but Granot Loma, rising majestically from the south shore of Lake Superior, is as American as a great American house can be. One of the country's most important examples of rustic architecture, Granot Loma is a 26,000-square-foot log palace, an extravaganza of wood and stone. Begun in 1919 by Michigan banker Louis Graveraet Kaufman, it has fifty rooms and luxurious appointments, and it appealed to guests from Hollywood to New York, including George Gershwin, Fred Astaire, Cole Porter and Mary Pickford."
The Lodge is perfectly appropriate in size and scale for its granite point setting on the south shore of Lake Superior, earth's largest lake containing 10% of the planet's available fresh surface water. With no land in sight on the horizon, Lake Superior has a limitless dimension, the true feel of an ocean, America's North Coast. The great lake cools the air in summer and tempers the cold of winter. Northern Lights flicker above in the night.
For all of that the Upper Peninsula's largest city, Marquette, is close by with the regional hospital, regional seaport, and regional airport. Sawyer International was once a B52 base for the U.S. Air Force and has a 12,000' lighted all weather runway. Marquette is home to Northern Michigan University with an Olympic Training Center and Division I sports (hockey). The area boasts championship golf, a ski area with some of the longest, best-groomed ski runs in the Midwest, endless snowmobile and cross country trails, summer stock theater and an active arts community.
There are museums, 21 parks, many fine restaurants and hotels and here in the Midwest the unexpected, something you thought was gone: true wilderness, deep and wondrous forests, two tracks and trails, lakes, rivers, streams, granite mountains and sand beaches on this largest lake of all, Superior.
Inland this is the spine of the Huron Mountains, which once reached as high towards the sky as the mountains in Tibet. Countless glaciers from the north with ice up to two miles thick have ground the mountains down over the eons, but granite outcroppings still dot the land. Behind the Lodge, Garlic Mountain rises 320' above lake level. From its crest most of the land you see for miles is part of the property. Garlic Island stands sentry in front of the Lodge, just off shore.
Three structures near the Lodge are preserved, awaiting restoration. Up the road Loma Farms has fields, houses, barns, stables, 13 structures in all, each with trademark Granot Loma flourishes. 250 people once worked here. Today there is a staff of two part time and many of these buildings are used for rainy day activities. There's a batting cage, an archery range, and more.
In total the property includes 7.76 square miles, with 3.64 miles of frontage on Lake Superior, including 1.1 miles of fine sand beach and the private island. The Little Garlic and Big Garlic rivers, the former a nationally known steelhead trout stream, flow down from the hills with rapids and cascading waterfalls on the upper reaches. Four fifths of the land is forested. Maple, yellow birch, hemlock and pine predominate, some managed for timber, some preserved as remnants of the great old growth forests that covered North America.
A web of two-track roads and trails winds through the forest, connecting the meadows and fields where riding horses and prize cattle once grazed.
With a large, protected land area and diverse cover of forest, fields, marsh and swamp, hunting for whitetail deer and black bear is exceptional. Half a dozen blinds, carpeted, with T1 Internet, are scattered about the center of the property. Hunting for ruffed grouse and woodcock is also excellent. In the spring large numbers of steelhead, rainbow trout that live and grow large in Lake Superior, run these rivers. Salmon run in the fall and there is a resident brook trout population year round. Lake Superior is home to large Mackinaw trout. This place is a dream come true for a hunter or fisherman, snowmobiler or showshoer, mushroom gatherer or birdwatcher, four-wheeler or hiker... writer, artist, performing artist or historian. There is so much to do, so much enjoyment in the doing.
Global warming is terrible for the earth but so far has been kind to the Upper Peninsula giving longer, drier summers, shorter winters, fewer bugs. You don't believe in global warming? Think of the blistering heat and abnormal rain that covered most of the country last year. Remember the unusually powerful hurricanes sweeping in off the Gulf. What if that's the new reality? Hedge your bet by thinking of the Upper Peninsula in a new way. At the turn of the century young men looking to make fortunes in timber, land, banking, copper and iron heeded Horace Greeley when he said, "Go west, young man, go west." He was not referring to Montana: Greeley had a copper mine on the Keweenaw, here in the U.P. Perhaps a new era of discovery and settlement is beginning for the U.P., this time based on of all things, the weather.
The Lodge is built on a steel frame of concrete and log construction.
It has random width oak flooring and a slate roof. On the lakeside, in due respect for the power of the lake, the concrete is six feet thick. The Great Room, a space for once worthy of the name, is 23' wide by 62' long with a towering, 24' high open-beamed ceiling and a stone fireplace built so large men can walk into it carrying 4 foot logs. The 18 foot long mantle is a timber thrown up by the lake from the wreck of the Independence, the first propeller-driven ship on Lake Superior.
This is a room built to feel like the prow of a ship cruising Lake Superior. You should see it when the wind rises from the North and the Great Lake is alive, rolling, powerful. Imagine dinner at this great oak table set for eight with English china, English silver, French crystal, all of them one-of-a-kind patterns designed for this place. George Gershwin chose the grand piano and played for dinner guests. Those echoes linger. You feel history. 30 stone fireplaces, all of different design, fittings made in a blacksmith shop on the property, his-and-hers wine cellars... the list goes on and on. You'll leave Granot Loma with regret knowing there is so much to see.
Granot Loma is an occupied first home and the main office for a large financial business operating over high-speed Internet connections. Privacy is one of its cherished assets and it will be shown only by appointment and only to financially qualified purchasers.
Granot Loma has been aptly described as "Michigan's Biltmore Estate". Men thinking large created this Adirondack style lodge scaled to Lake Superior, a lake the gods entrusted with 10% of earth's fresh water. Maps, video, and text we have provided here are intended to describe and explain, but above all we hope to convey a sense of this place, the vision, larger than life. Come see it. Words and pictures fail to portray the whole, a place you must experience to understand.
Granot Loma awaits a man or woman who can grasp the opportunity, and carry on the dream.
Read even more in Granot Loma: In Depth.
Maps of Granot Loma
If you have the Google Earth program, you can view the Granot Loma property boundaries and also a Granot Loma "flight" path.
Download maps of the Granot Loma land in a variety of views by clicking on these links. Some browsers will allow you to view the PDF online, and note that you can enlarge PDFs to see more detail:
- Overhead
- Three Dimension (topography exaggerated 3x)
- Close-up Granot Loma & Loma Farms
- Property Lines
- Tax Map
- Slopes in color and rivers
- Wide panorama
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