[Honor MI] Our friend PK has a rather unusual house here in Honor, Michigan. He calls it The Sandcastle, and he designed and built it pretty much by himself. Friends and others pitched in or were contracted to help with certain tasks that were beyond one person's capabilities, such as the foundation and the digging of the pond. But most of the work came from this one guy.
Tom, my dad and I were up for a visit, and I haven't been by for about two years. Naturally, there are improvements and additions, but the basic house remains the same. Ground was broken in 1983, and when my dad asked when it was finished, PK told him, "It isn't."
Indeed, it is a work in progress.
When PK (his name is Peter King, but nobody calls him that) first envisioned the place and bought the property in 1978, he began with maybe 15 acres. By the time he brought in a cherry-picker so he could take in the potential views from a proposed 4th floor, he had already added to the land, and these days he has bought up about 80 surrounding acres in total.
Built primarily of cinder block, and hopefully someday clad in a mirror-like material, the layout is rather functional. The ground floor is only accessible from the outside from the west, where a garage door opens to where he keeps his 1964 Lincoln convertible. The second floor holds the kitchen, an entry way, a half-bath, and a dining room with a massive 25-floor dining table... with a throne at the east end. The thrid floor has three bedrooms and a full bath that doubles as a laundry room. The fourth floor is a single open space, with incredible views to all four points of the compass. On clear days, one can look out over Lake Michigan, which is within two miles of the house.
In addition to this one-of-a-kind home, the Sandcastle has beautiful grounds, mostly still the way they were before anyone even farmed in the area. What was a cherry and apple orchard is now open fields and a man-made but quite well integrated pond. The flower garden is of botanical center quality.
To be sure, when one first comes upon this place in rural northwestern lower Michigan, one is usually moved to ask "What the hell is that?" But if you are lucky enough to have a tour, you'll be saying, "I want to live here."
