Bowers Harbor Inn

The Bowers Harbor Inn is a restaurant located at 13512 Peninsula Drive in Peninsula Township, Michigan. It was constructed in 1928 as a private house, the Stickney Summer House, and renovated into the restaurant in the late 1950s; it now houses the Mission Table and Jolly Pumpkin Restaurants. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.HistoryCharles Francis Stickney was born in 1868 in Groveland, Massachusetts, the son of Charles Stickney and Julia G. Noyes. He married Genevive (Jennie) E. Worthen in 1891. By 1900 the couple had moved to Chicago, where Stickney made a fortune in the steel and lumber industries. They soon began travelling to the Grand Traverse area, likely taking advantage of the Pere Marquette Railway summer trains that ran from Chicago to Petoskey, Michigan.In 1920, the Stickneys purchased this property, then a typical Old Mission Peninsula farm with a rather large orchard. They continued the farming use of the property and canned preserves from the orchard harvest, offering them for sale. In 1928, the Stickneys hired Jennie Stickney’s nephew, Kenneth B. Worthen, to design a new summer house for their property. Worthern was at the time a principal of Bentley-Worthen Architects in St. Paul, Minnesota, and had made a name for himself by designing many large Twin City residences, many in a distinctive storybook English Cottage style. Worthern designed this 26-room Arts and Crafts, Storybook style house for the couple. The house was built at a cost of $175,000, and the Stickneys dubbed it the We-Gwa-Se-Min Ranch.