The Summer Cross Village Got Its Village Back
July 16, 2026
July 16, 2026
For one strange, unrepeatable season, the two things that pull outsiders to Cross Village have both been interrupted. The road is broken. The legs are down. Anyone who has spent more than a few summers up here knows what that means, even if they haven't put it into words yet. The village has quietly reverted to the version of itself that residents already knew was there.
This is not a lament. It is a description of a summer that will not happen again, and a small argument about what it reveals.
The short version is that a culvert failed. The longer version is more interesting, because it tells you something about how narrow the margin was between "scenic drive" and "impromptu dam."
On April 13, a culvert south of Division Road failed overnight, taking part of M-119 with it between Good Hart and Cross Village. Heavy rain and rapid snowmelt had overwhelmed the drainage system. Water found a path through the roadbed, and a familiar stretch of the Tunnel of Trees became impassable.
Then came June 29. An estimated five to seven inches of rain fell within a matter of hours, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation. New damage appeared at Middle Village Road, Devil’s Elbow and north of South Lamkin Road. The earlier closures near Division Road and West Stutsmanville Road remained in place.
This was no ordinary seasonal construction inconvenience. MDOT described some of the damage as beyond what its engineers typically encounter in the northern Lower Peninsula. Washouts extended for hundreds of feet in places, and certain repairs may require specialized engineering.
Yet the practical message was less dramatic than the photographs. Cross Village remained accessible. The route from Harbor Springs was no longer continuous, but posted detours continued to lead residents and visitors to corridor businesses. State Road, C-77, and Levering Road, C-66, became part of the summer vocabulary.
That distinction matters. A road can be interrupted without a community becoming unreachable.
Cross Village was still there. The change was that reaching it required intention rather than momentum.
At nearly the same moment, Legs Inn looked strangely incomplete.
The cast-iron stove legs that give the building its name had been temporarily removed from the roof. They were not lost, discarded or redesigned. Doyle Roofing needed to cover the full roof as part of major reconstruction, and removing the legs was the responsible way to protect a structure approaching its centennial.
That distinction matters, too.
Preservation is often most visible when something familiar disappears. A roof comes apart. Historic details are cataloged and set aside. The building briefly loses the silhouette everyone recognizes. Then the work beneath the surface can begin.
George Smolak was direct about the philosophy behind the project. The deteriorating roof required substantial intervention, but maintaining the building’s history remained the priority. Modern materials and techniques could not simply be applied without regard for the original character.
For anyone interested in architecture, that is the real story. Legs Inn is valuable because it cannot be reduced to a style. Its timber, stone, driftwood, carved forms and improbable roofline are specific to Stanley Smolak’s hand and to the people who helped build it. Preservation here means protecting irregularity rather than polishing it away.
The work also arrived during a generational transition. George and his wife had been involved in operating the inn for roughly 40 years. Their sons, Christopher and Mark Smolak, were preparing to carry the business forward. The roof restoration was therefore more than maintenance. It was stewardship made physical.
Legs Inn remains open for its 2026 season through October 18, with Tuesday closures and no dining reservations. The building may be the visual landmark, but the continuity of the family behind it is what gives that landmark meaning.
Cross Village is often described from the perspective of arrival. It is the end of the Tunnel of Trees, the place where the road opens toward the lake and a celebrated restaurant appears on the bluff.
That description is accurate, but incomplete. It treats the village as a scenic conclusion rather than a place with its own daily pattern.
Summer 2026 has made that pattern more legible.
The Village Mart is the clearest example. It operates year-round, providing fuel, groceries and homemade food. This spring, it began its fifth year in business. Its posts move easily between pizza Mondays, pasties, broasted chicken, fresh-cut fries, ice cream and community fundraisers.
Those details may sound modest. In a small rural community, they are infrastructure.
A general store saves a separate trip for fuel. It offers dinner when plans change. It is where a seasonal resident checks what is open, where someone hears about a local fundraiser and where a road washout becomes a sticker before it becomes a memory. The Village Mart does not merely serve Cross Village. It helps Cross Village behave like a village.
A few doors away, Peninsulas gives the commercial core a different layer. Robert and Sherri Jameson’s seasonal shop carries Michigan-inspired home goods, apparel, accessories and gifts, many made in the state. Its point of view is distinctly design-conscious, rooted in place without relying on generic lake-house imagery.
Then there is Three Pines Studio & Gallery, a working studio and gallery devoted to Northern Michigan artists. Paintings sit alongside ceramics, fiber, jewelry, sculpture, blown glass, linens and woodwork. In June, Traverse magazine’s 2026 readers’ poll named Three Pines the top art gallery in the Petoskey, Harbor Springs and Straits region.
The recognition is welcome, but the studio’s local role is more interesting than the award. Three Pines gives people a reason to make something, meet an artist and remain in the village after lunch. Its workshops turn the commercial center into a place of participation.
As of July 15, its published 2026 calendar includes Jacob Keshick’s five-day quill-box workshop from July 27 through 31 and a chalk-art workshop with David Zinn on July 30. August brings painting workshops with Louise Pond and Heidi Marshall, along with another quill-box session with Keshick. Dates and availability should be confirmed directly before making plans.
None of these places is large enough to carry a town alone. Together, they create the reason to move through it slowly.
On July 5, Cross Village held its Independence Day parade. RFC Fire and Rescue scheduled a book sale at Town Hall for the same day. Residents, local organizations and businesses gathered along the village streets even as M-119 remained fractured farther south.
The importance of the day was not its scale. It was the way the pieces connected.
Town Hall became a gathering place. The road became a parade route rather than a passage to somewhere else. The local fire and rescue organization raised support. Shops and restaurants gave people somewhere to go before and after.
This is the accumulation behind the title of this piece. Cross Village did not receive a master-planned center or a singular grand opening. Its village life became visible through repeated use.
That is a useful lesson for anyone who cares about place. A community’s strength is not always measured by how many attractions it can advertise. Sometimes it is measured by whether the store, studio, town hall, restaurant, church, waterfront and volunteer organizations still relate to one another.
Any suggestion that Cross Village simply “came back” in 2026 requires historical care.
The community is among Michigan’s oldest continuously inhabited places and has deep ties to the Odawa. It has been known as Waganakisis, Old L’Arbre Croche and La Croix. That history is not a picturesque preface to the current village. It is the foundation beneath it.
The present commercial center is also much smaller than the town that existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Cross Village historic walking tour describes a settlement with more than 50 houses, three hotels, three churches, two schools, a post office, bakery, meat market, grocery and hardware stores.
On September 28, 1918, fire swept through the main street and left approximately 300 people without homes. The influenza pandemic and the decline of the lumber industry followed. Cross Village never returned to that earlier commercial scale.
The summer of 2026 is therefore not a restoration of some idealized former town. It is a reminder that community can persist in a smaller form. The village is held together by continuity, memory and a handful of places that continue to be used.
For a deeper account, North Central Michigan College has scheduled The Place of the Prayer Tree: The Historic Importance of Cross Village for August 11. The 1.5-mile walking tour will be led by Eric Hemenway, an Anishnaabe and Odawa historian from Cross Village who serves as director of repatriation, archives and records for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. Registration details are available through the college’s current events calendar.
Begin near the large white cross and the historical marker. Follow the township walking route past Redpath Memorial Presbyterian Church, the Museum of L’Arbre Croche History, Holy Cross Catholic Church, the old schoolhouse and community center, Town Hall and Legs Inn.
Stop at the Village Mart for something practical. Step into Three Pines to see what local artists are making. Visit Peninsulas for a more edited expression of Michigan design. Then turn down Waterfront Drive near Legs Inn and descend to the Port of Cross Village, where the village meets Lake Michigan.
That sequence is compact, but it contains nearly everything this unusual season has revealed. History, commerce, art, food and the waterfront are not separate categories here. They are parts of one small civic pattern.
Before setting out, check MDOT’s current road information, follow posted detours and confirm business hours directly. Do not attempt to pass closure barriers. The detour is part of the route this year, not a suggestion.
Perhaps “got back” is not quite the right phrase. The village was never gone.
What returned was attention to the right things.
A landmark was being preserved instead of cosmetically updated. A family business was preparing for another generation. A general store was doing the daily work that makes rural life possible. Artists were teaching in the center of town. Residents filled the street for a parade. The lake remained at the bottom of the hill.
The broken road did not create that version of Cross Village. It simply made it harder to miss.
If Cross Village is part of your own Northern Michigan story, I am always glad to share what I am seeing, from the character of a property to the quieter patterns that shape long-term value. Genna Hill Evashevski, @properties | Christie’s International Real Estate.
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