After 50 years, an iconic Leelanau County Inn that dates to the Civil War will once again house guests – and those guests are signing up as fast as management can book ‘em.

It’s only been a few weeks since the Sleeping Bear Inn in historic Glen Haven announced that reservations are available online, and they’ve already had more than 200 bookings. The inn, which last operated in the early 1970s, will reopen the last week of July with eight double-occupancy rooms.

“People are just so excited, which is wonderful,” says Maggie Kato, president of the nonprofit that rehabilitated and is running the inn. “We’ve had people who spent their honeymoon here and wanted to come back, or people who had taken their senior pictures on the porch.”

And although plenty of people with specific experience at the inn are eager to return, there are just as many (if not more) who have gazed at the long-shuttered inn that’s only a stone’s throw from Lake Michigan and envisioned saying there.

“I think there’s also a fair amount of excitement stemming from the novelty of it,” Kato says. “Those people who have always dreamed of staying, who walked by and said ‘Wow, that’s a beautiful place, I’d love to stay there.’”

Park records show the Inn was built in 1865, though a sign on the building says 1857. Either way, the building is steeped in history and lore. It’s the oldest hotel in the National Park system and has long been a focal point of Glen Haven’s historic charm. Efforts to bring it back to life began in 2013, when Sleeping Bear Dunes officials first sought someone from the public to restore and run the inn.

Park officials reviewed a few proposals, but the right offer didn’t come along. Fast forward to 2017 when Kato, at the time soon to retire from Genesee County Habitat for Humanity, saw a news story about the opportunity. She and her husband Jeff Kato toured the property for the first time in 2018.

“It was just such a wonderful space, and in a way sort of like a moment in time because it wasn’t really disturbed after being closed 50 years prior,” Maggie says. “We walked away feeling pretty invigorated.”

They sold their downstate home and enlisted the help of George MacEachern, a licensed builder and another former Habitat for Humanity worker who decided to jump head-first into the project with the Katos.

After a few more delays, the official lease was signed in March of 2022, with the park service owning the property and leasing it to BEAR (Balancing Environment and Rehabilitation) a non-profit organization formed by the Katos. Then the real work could begin.

The building was in good shape but had to be completely updated to meet modern guest expectations. Where once there was a community bathroom, for example, each room now has one. Fire suppression, modern plumbing, electrical and more added to the workload.

“Everything was pretty straightforward, but it was a monumental amount of work, and it was the three of us,” Maggie says. “We relied on the help of volunteers and some subcontractors, but it was a three-person show.”

All told, more than $2 million was invested into the building, some of it from loans and donations. They are now down to the finishing touches.

“I brought over some artwork and some decorative accessories yesterday, and we still have to install the small things – toilet paper holders, towel bars, all of those sorts of things,” Maggie says. “There’s a bunch of little stuff that needs to be done.”

The Katos envision their nonprofit completing work on other structures within Glen Haven, but for now are thrilled to see the Sleeping Bear Inn dream come true. So are officials at the Sleeping Bear Dunes. 

“We couldn't be happier with Maggie and Jeff and George. They've just done a fabulous job," Phil Akers, chief ranger at Sleeping Bear, tells The Ticker."It's really fantastic."

With tens of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance throughout the park, such a project would not have been possible without the BEAR team, Akers says.

Rooms at the inn range from $269 to $339 per night.