Campbell-DeYoung Farm

About this property

The Campbell–DeYoung Farm is a farmstead located at 9510 East Cherry Bend Road in Elmwood Charter Township, Michigan. It is currently operated as a recreational area by the Leelanau Conservancy, and known as the DeYoung Natural Area. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. Henry Campbell purchased an 80-acre parcel of land on this location in 1855. Campbell constructed the Victorian house about 1860. In 1885, Campbell purchased additional property bordering Cedar Lake. In 1904, he sold the property to his son Julius. The Campbells constructed most of the other buildings on the property before selling to Dr. Marc Kroupa and his wife Myrtle in 1919. The Kroupa's daughter, Iris Lucille, married Louis DeYoung in the early 1920s; in 1925 Louis and Iris purchased the farm. However, Louis and Iris soon divorced and Louis married Esther LaVerne ("Verney") Stolcenberg in 1929. The couple had two children, Ted and Patricia. Verney died in 1968 and the following year Louis married a young Danish immigrant named Elly Fibranz. Louis DeYoung died in 2004, but not before exploring ways to preserve his farm from the rapidly encroaching suburbanization. His son sold the farm to the Leelanau Conservancy in 2008. The 1860 farmhouse is a two-story Upright and Wing style Victorian frame house on a fieldstone foundation and clad with clapboards. It may have been originally constructed as a single-room house, with the upright portion added at a later date. A second story was added to the top of the original wing at some point early in the 20th century; a porch fronting the wing was added at the same time. The exterior of the house looks substantially the same as it did at that time. The carriage house/garage was constructed in about 1880. It is a simple two-story, wood-framed structure with a large, open first floor and a loft area on the second, connected with an internal stair. The exterior is covered with vertical board and batten siding and the roof is shingled. The hay barn, located across the road from the main complex, was constructed in 1884. It is a timber-framed English barn on a dressed stone foundation with a silo at one corner. The front has double wood sliding doors in the center. The interior space was used for hay storage, with an additional area for cows. The upper barn, set back from the road and the main complex of buildings, was constructed in 1886. It is a timber-frame construction on a fieldstone foundation and gable roof. A series of ornamental lightning rods line the ridge of the roof; there was originally a cupola at the top, which was removed in 1935. The basement level contains stalls for animals, while the main level was used for equipment and hay storage. Partitions are installed in the loft, likely used for migrant quarters.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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