Lobdell?s summer home on Black Lake is 100 years old
One of the oldest, if not the oldest, standing landmark on Black Lake is 100 years old this year. The Comfort Lodge, built sometime between 1902-1905 by EJ Lobdell Sr., is a massive log cabin, which has been a summer home for the family for generations.
On July 30, Don and Jane Pynnonen welcomed a lifetime of family and friends to their lakeside retreat for a centennial celebration. More than 130 people gathered at the two-story structure on Bonz Beach Highway on the south shore of the lake.
The lodge is constructed from tamarack logs, a type of pine that is found in wet, swampy areas. At the turn of the century, these massive giants were plentiful, and Lobdell (1859-1925) owned more than 30,000 acres of timberland, which was purchased to provide lumber for his growing manufacturing business, which included a new factory in Onaway.
He and his wife Grace built a home in Onaway close to their new business, so they wouldn’t have to endure the several day train commute from their home in Greenwich, Connecticut. A few years later, he built a summer home and called it the Comfort Lodge.
IN 1918, the cabin was given to Edward James Lobdell (1895-1966) Jr., and his wife Gladys as a wedding gift from his parents. The family had manufacturing companies in Onaway from the early 1900s until fire destroyed the factory in 1926.
Most well known is the American Wood Rim Company, which manufactured wooden steering wheels, bicycle rims, fenders, chain guards, as well as many other carriage stock parts.
The centennial celebrated the cabin’s heritage, with pictures from Onaway’s early 1900s lumbering and manufacturing days, to photos of family and friends at play at the cabin and on the lake.
In honor of the Lobdell’s contribution to bicycle history, family members took part in a centennial bike ride. It started at Menominee and traveled along the upper peninsula to Black Lake. The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Department escorted the 20 cyclists the last 10 miles of the 248 mile trek.
THE CABIN long has been a gathering place for a host of celebrations, the earliest of which there is a photograph dates back to the Fourth of July 1906. In the 1930s, a tennis court was built next to the cabin and in the 1970s the family hosted tennis tournaments. There have been mini golf tourneys, many boating adventures and stories, and most recently, the establishment of the Black Lake Olympiad, which has been held every four years since 1984.
Jane Lobdell Pynnonen, who celebrated her 85th birthday this week, represents the third generation at the Comfort Lodge. Born in Onaway in 1920, Jane has been a principal source of historical information. Jane has spent every one of her 85 summers at Black Lake. In spite of recent illness, Jane presided over the festivities beside her husband of 55 years, Donald.
CONSTRUCTION OF the lodge began just down from the hotel owned by Charlie Bonz. The tamarack logs were most likely floated over to the site across the lake or pulled by teams of horses.
Jane Pynnonen said it took just a few weeks to frame out the main part of the cabin, using horses, pulleys, and other devices.
The lodge was built with open-air porches and a foundation of wooden footings. Heavy canvas curtains were used on the front porches to keep out the wind and weather. These were later replaced by the first screens, and later the porches were enclosed with windows, and a fireplace was added in the late 1920s.
An especially brutal winter brought ice up and under the main structure of the cabin and a stone foundation was finally added in the 1930s to provide stability. Shifting of the foundation created some rather uneven floors in the cabin, particularly upstairs.
IN 1987, Don Pynnonen did a major renovation, leveling the floors by using hydraulic jacks, cables, pulleys and years of civil engineering know-how. This was not an easy project.
Cables were attached to the main log center beam. Plaster was chipped out below the main beam, and the massive 14-inch diameter, 40-foot long log supporting the second story was dropped five-and-a-half inches to bring the upstairs floors into level .
Next, jacks were placed under the house; chains were then placed on the logs to keep the logs from shifting while the floors were cut off at the exterior log walls. The interior walls downstairs were temp
Disaster was averted in the early 1950s when a chimney fire was quickly put out by the fire department. Smoke was seen on the roof and crews were summoned to the scene.
The fire department was able to quickly contain the flames because they were able to use the large water tank in the pump house building, a unique structure which still stands, to quench the blaze. Fire got the best of Onaway’s industrial park area, and changed the economic climate of the town, but it couldn’t do in the lodge.
LINDA SANDVICK, Don and Jane’s daughter, has visited resorts around the world, but has found not place she longs for more than the Comfort Lodge. For generations the Lobdell family has gathered at the cabin to create traditions, celebrate accomplishments, and to make memories –something that isn’t expected to change at the onset of a new century. (Contributing to the story was Linda Sandvick)