Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane.

When Joe and I took our weekender to Traverse City in October, Joe said he wanted to visit the old state mental hospital.   He regaled tales of sneaking in as a teenager...climbing over and under barbed wire, lighting torches to see, creepy, dark, abandoned.  So, I assumed we'd be climbing over some fence and sneaking around.  But then, a few other people (people that had not climbed through the barbed wire) told me how lovely it was and that we should stop by.  Joe's auntie said that his great grandmother worked as a social worker there for many years.  And so we went.  And here is it's tale...

In the year 1885, the two state mental hospitals in Kalamazoo and Pontiac were getting full, and it was deemed necessary for a third to be built in Michigan.  Lumber baron Perry Hannah, the "father of Traverse City," secured the location in his home town.  The hospital grew and flourished over the next century, finally closing it's doors in 1989.

At the turn of the century, during a time when other state mental hospitals were employing horrifying methods of drug therapy, constraints, electroshock, and even lobotomies, the Northern Michigan Asylum for Insane was employing other methods.  The first superintendent, Dr. James Decker Munson, believed in "beauty as therapy."  Patients were treated with kindness and all comfort measures were administered.  Straight jackets were forbidden.  Greenhouses on premises grew flowers year round and each patient's room was beautifully adorned with fresh arrangements daily.  They also believed in "work as therapy" to encourage a sense of self fulfillment.  The asylum was completely self sufficient, housing its own animal, fruit, and vegetable farms, furniture making studios, canning and preserving operations - all patients encouraged to participate wherever their heart felt at home.  This warms a music therapist's heart!!!   Conventional medicine is not always the cure - music, art, compassion and kindness go a long way in this world.

After the hospital closed its doors in 1989, someone had the brilliant idea to develop the property - in a historically appropriate way.  "The Village at Grand Traverse Commons" was born.  There are posh restaurants, sweet little boutiques, coffee shops, bakeries, wineries...you name it.  The upper floors are apartments and condos, and all are beautiful stripped down to the original brickwork, the arches that separated room from room still intact down every corridor.

We strolled in on a Monday afternoon.  The air was warm and beautiful for late October.  There was a farmers market on the main green, and a lovely girl playing guitar and singing.  We found a winery and grabbed a tall glass of hard cider and piece of carrot cake from the bakery, and just took it all in.  This is the stuff that dreams are made of for me.  

And then...we wandered around the grounds and took pictures!!

Crate after crate of the Merlot harvest had just come in off of the trucks.  So beautiful!

The main buildings are renovated, but many are still in their original state.  What lovely architecture and details!  And, what a lovely day with my dear one.

xoxo, e.