Looking Forward to 2023

Happy New Year from the beautiful Village of Glen Haven! We have a lot to look forward to in 2023 and the most significant for us is the long awaited re-opening of Sleeping Bear Inn. Although we are not quite ready to accept reservations or firmly commit when rooms will be ready for guests, folks receiving this newsletter will be the first to know so please stay tuned.

A few weeks ago we closed on our $1,380,000 loan through Oxford Bank and the USDA Community Facilities Guaranteed Loan Program. This funding required a $460,000 match from BEAR and we are grateful for our generous donors that have contributed to that match including most significantly, a $100,000 gift from Marcie Meditch and John Murphey. We absolutely have room for additional donors as our loan funds and match fall short of covering all our expenditures. There are still a few days to make a 2022 year end donation and of course, we will welcome those 2023 donations as well. As the saying goes, or if it isn’t exactly how it goes, we feel it fits: It takes a village to rebuild a village!

On January 12th…

We will be sitting down with Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore leadership to present our Landscaping Plan for the Inn and the 4.25 acres leased to us. Many thanks to landscape architect Frank Clements for creating a beautiful plan that honors the Inn and harkens back to its 1928 era of historic significance. Frank is an Empire resident and has volunteered on many worksites within the Park. Many of you may recognize his past landscape work on the Glen Lake Library as well.

Once the final plan is approved, we will be happy to share it with all of you through our newsletter.