Charles & Martha Treat Farm

Charles & Martha Treat Farm is a historic farmstead on the Lake Michigan side of Sleeping Bear Dunes, reached on foot from Norconk Road near Tweddle Farm. The old road leads about half a mile through maple-beech woods to the buildings. The farmhouse and other structures are an exterior visit; public access to interiors or tours isn't confirmed. Leashed pets are allowed.

Stop at the farm buildings. The park warns that the bluff west of them is unstable and prone to landslides, so don't continue toward the shoreline.

The approach climbs through woods before the canopy opens near the top of a hill and the farmstead comes into view. From the farmhouse porch, fields spread out in front, with an orchard behind the house. The restored barn, the round concrete garage and the small root cellar set into the slope make this more than a farmhouse stop. For a photo, include the house or barn with one of the concrete buildings so the farm's unusual mix of wood and homemade concrete comes through. The surrounding woods are known for spring wildflowers, with fall color later in the year.

The Tweddle family built the current farmhouse around 1880. An earlier log cabin may have stood here around 1840, but no trace of it remains. Charles and Martha Treat bought 220 acres in 1912 and farmed the sandy, depleted soil into the 1930s. They grew asparagus, apples, beans, plums, potatoes and raspberries; corn and hay fed the livestock. The family called the house “the Senate,” kept chickens, and milked about a dozen Jersey cows by hand twice a day.

Charles Treat was a farmer and an engineer. He bought the barn near Detroit, had its pieces numbered and dismantled, then shipped it north in two rail cars. A horse-drawn team moved it the rest of the way, and Treat put it back together on a foundation he built. The barn was restored in 2004.

Treat built a rounded concrete root cellar into the hillside and a dome-shaped garage with reinforced walls about four inches thick. Its concrete roof is only about two and a half inches thick; he poured it bucket by bucket around spiral steel reinforcement, over a cedar frame.

The farm also had a clever answer to its water problem. A well about 300 feet deep clogged with sand, so roof gutters fed rainwater into a buried cistern, then a pump sent it to the kitchen. The rainwater system can still be seen behind the house. Treat also made hinges and woodworking tools in a forge under the porch, mostly for the family's own use.