The Bay View Experience

Babs Young, Betty Jo Hudson and I—along with leventy-gazillion other people from the Township—made our way to Petoskey on Saturday to attend the premiere of a ballet.  Babs writes:  The picture below is of The Terrace Inn in Bay View.  It opened in 1911 and is still open year around. I loved the dining room and will have to come back to eat here soon. The inset is of the front of the hotel where Gerry Sell is about to enter.

We had to explore the Inn.  We simply could not resist it.  We had to do a good deal of exploring, what with one thing and another.  The Bay View enclave is as large as some college campuses.  The classic summer cottages were built in 1875-1900, when lake steamers and passenger trains brought their owners to Petoskey to spend the summer.  Like the Inn, they define an era.

But Bay View is not just about gingerbread and verandas overlooking Little Traverse Bay.  It was founded by Methodists as a Chautauqua community, and the commitment to cultural events and stimulating speakers persists to this day.  That brings us to the ballet.

You have met Betty Beeby in these pages, and you may remember that she found a packet of letters from a mother to the son she gave up for adoption when he was born.  The letters were Betty’s inspiration for a series of nine lithographs, which in turn inspired composer Lynn Palmer Warren’s symphonic piece, The Peterboro Letters.  This year the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra commissioned choreographer Heather Raue to set a ballet to Warren’s music.  That was the ballet we had come to see.

It was a great success.  The young Pre-Professional Dancers from the Crooked Tree Art Center are gifted.  The audience was appreciative.  Betty Beeby her ownself tossed white roses onto the stage.  Satisfactory.

Then it was time to go home.  We stopped to look at the sunset from several pleasing prospects.  We stopped again to have just a dab of chocolate ice cream.  It is, after all, summer.