Whoever said that a house
has to be serious?

By Lori Hall Steele
      At Pat and Chip Denison’s Crystal Lake home, it’s Picasso meets Alice’s Wonderland: whimsically classic and blatantly fun.
      The ranch-house-turned-artists-haven is an eclectic jumble where wooden parrots preside over a dining room wall, where a Murphy bed hides on a screened porch, and where a library ladder rolls along a wall. In this secluded home, you’re greeted by a blowsy sculpture-filled garden and Chinese-restaurant-style lions at the front door. Inside, a real-live parrot flies free through fanciful rooms that wed ’20s, ’30s, ’40s finds with the Denisons’ millennial imagination. Windows everywhere—85 of them, to be exact—provide lake, garden and meadow views from anywhere.
      The Denisons—high school sweethearts who married in 1970—came here by accident. They may have been the only people in Michigan who didn’t have an Up North dream to begin with. The Detroit-area artists, several years ago, feeling suffocated by “wall-to-wall houses,” envisioned moving to any one of six states, each south of Michigan’s border. They came North to visit a pal, Donna, and ended up playing and playing. “We kept saying, ‘this is such a nice place for Donna because … This is such a nice place for Donna because …’” Pat says. “Finally, we said, ‘well, gee, it’s pretty obvious that this is a great place for us.’”
      They started scouting for property. “And if you can throw in a swamp, I’d be happy,” Pat told the real estate agent. And voila: 30 acres in the middle of nowhere, on 600 feet of Crystal Lake’s shore, abutting national park land. And indeed, it did include a swamp. “It’s really pretty sweet,” Chip says, “about as perfect as it gets.” Cows moo nearby, and from a dune ridge over Crystal Lake, they can see Lake Michigan and the Manitou islands. Eagles, beaver, loons are spotted here. Songbirds trill from the thickets.
      The Denisons were sold, despite the so-so white ranch house there. No problem: Chip is a licensed builder. The house slowly evolved into an Arts-and-Crafts-style bungalow, with a cottage look that blends with old-school Up North shoreline homes, and the low profile melds with the meadows and woods.
      Fun spills throughout the 3,500-square-foot home. Chip’s bathroom is filled with frogs, dragonflies, turtles. The home seamlessly incorporates beloved objects and found items: art deco light fixtures, entry doors from the old home, old stained glass. Chip built the living room with 9-foot ceilings to accommodate the rolling library ladder. It was a “fantasy item,” Pat explains. “At the Mount Clemens library, they wouldn’t let you up on the ladders. Now I have my own.”
      The Denisons have made loads of friends, including a number of artists in the area. Once, they hosted a sculpture-making party, and guests went home with “200-pound party favors”—cement garden statues with rebar hair, prettified with quirky tile chips and bugles. Chip ended up having to deliver and install all of them.
      Most summer nights, except when it’s raining sideways, the Denisons sleep on a fold-out Murphy bed on a screened porch, amid the sounds of peepers and frogs. One morning, they awoke to the sight of a cougar in the nearby marsh. “We had a heart attack,” Pat says. Turns out, it was a stuffed animal, a neighbor’s prank. Just like the stuffed rooster once found in the long driveway.
      During renovation, the garage became wide-open studio and exhibit areas for Pat’s renowned ceramic tile work. The Denisons work full days, listening to music and mixing glazes to paint dancing vegetables and kooky mermaids, building winged cabinets, packing up orders.
      After lunch, they take time to stroll the beach, kayak or ride bikes wherever they fancy. They could expand the art operation, hiring an employee or two, but won’t. “Then it would be work,” Pat says. “Then we couldn’t go on our bikes when we wanted.”
      Chip nods. “I don’t know how people with real jobs stand it,” he says.

Published in Northern HOME.