Bay Harbor, Michigan

Bay Harbor is an unincorporated residential and retail development in Emmet County, Michigan, United States. It is a partially-gated, master-planned community.

Bay Harbor is in a sheltered bay on the south shore of the Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan. It is on U.S. Route 31, with Petoskey, immediately adjacent to the east along the harbor.

In the late 1800s, a lime stone quarry was opened on property that is now Bay Harbor. Around 1917, Petoskey Portland Cement incorporated with the purpose of manufacturing cement. For over 80 years, Petoskey Portland and Penn Dixie provided jobs for hundreds of workers. Mining operations and a massive cement plant operated over 1,200 acres and five miles of Lake Michigan shoreline on Little Traverse Bay. Ceasing operations in the 1980's, the cement plant was abandoned, leaving a landscape of chromium brick, asbestos, coal and 2.5-million cubic yards of kiln dust.

In 1993, several parties joined together to undertake what would become the largest reclamation in North America. In 1994, simultaneous explosions demolished the cement plant smokestacks. Eight months later, the barrier between Bay Harbor and Little Traverse Bay was removed, and water rushed in at the rate of one-million gallons per minute. Within 24 hours, over 2.5 billion gallons of water formed Bay Harbor Lake.

Bay Harbor's town center, the "Village at Bay Harbor", has boutiques and restaurants where the former cement plant once stood. The Village is the center of the community, featuring such public elements as a marina, public observation platform and walking trails. Nearly one mile of Michigan shoreline and 70 acres of prime land were donated as public parks by Bay Harbor Company and are connected by five miles of non-motorized public nature trails.

Bay Harbor has over 1,200 acres, 25 neighborhoods and five miles of Lake Michigan waterfront. Three nine-hole golf courses line the shoreline and woodlands and have been rated eighth in the nation by "Golf Digest". Ninety acres of sheltered harborage offers protection for 120 public boat docks and another 128 private "dockominiums". Bay Harbor is a four-season luxury resort community and has a world-class deep water harbor, the Olympic caliber Bay Harbor Equestrian Club, and the 27-hole Bay Harbor Golf Club, designed by Arthur Hills and hailed by "Golf Digest" as "The Pebble Beach of the Midwest."

References

External links

*http://www.connectnorth.com/connect-north-areas/BayHarbor.html