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Durance Farm

Durance Farm is a family-owned and operated Michigan Centennial Farm established in 1889 by George and Mary Isabel (Cook) Durance. It is located in northwest section of Michigan’s lower peninsula in Charlevoix Township adjoining the city of Charlevoix. Lake Michigan is one-half mile north of the farm, and Lake Charlevoix is about a mile south of the farm.

Strawberry farming was the principle crops from the early 1900s until the 1980s when William Durance’s son, Edward, and his family planted a registered hardwood plantation of 8,000 trees on most of the acreage in 1985. In recent years, deer, badgers, woodchucks, skunks, raccoons, rabbits, birds and other wildlife flourish in the re-forested green space amidst the residential and industrial development surrounding the old homeplace of George and Mary Isabel Durance.

The present house is the result of a 1996 remodelling undertook by William’s granddaughter, Diane Durance and her husband Scott Ewen. The old porch area was enclosed for a living room, and a large wrap-around porch added to three sides of the house. Many interior improvements and redecoration were added at that time also. The house can comfortably serve as a Durance family reunion site over the 4th of July summer gatherings.

 

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