When we first started small business life, we were in our Michigan Honeymoon phase. Fresh from the city, suddenly living in the woods. Everything smelled like cedar and pine. The farm fresh tomatoes were incredible. We would walk to the water every night, arms around each other and wistfully declare, “We did it.” Even though it was the same Lake Michigan we had lived on for 20 years, just on the other side. The side that had sushi, but no sunsets. We went from a city of 3 million to a town of 800 and I’m gonna be real…It was amazing. It felt like everything stopped and there were only birds and stars now.

Eight years later we have made a home here and something worth sharing. The Michigan we came for, is so different from the Michigan we found. We came for Oval Beach and a town that sounded like it should be in The Hamptons. But we fell in love with Swans on the Bayou and a town that sounds like the name of your Dad’s best friend. It wasn’t just the lake. It was the country roads, the orchards, the river, the green EVERYTHING. Did I mention THE BIRDS?! THIS is the Michigan we found, brought to life in photos by the incomparable Emma Quinn, photographer extraordinaire and the only person I have seen capture The Pearl of the Midwest the way we see it. Not as a screen saver of a Lake and a Lighthouse, but the gauzy air, the sparkling water, and the little moments that are everywhere here.

If you are still reading, thanks for being here! We discovered this place on a long weekend and this little store in the small town of Douglas on the Big Lake is our love letter to this place.