Family cabin kept for 25 years after selling 365-acre Michigan tract to NPS
In 1980 Miles Boekeloo sold his 365-acre lakeshore property to the National Park Service, but retained a five-acre parcel with the cabin until 2005.
Miles Boekeloo and his wife Glea turned a 161-acre lakeside homestead, originally bought by Joseph Cooper in 1929, into a private wilderness retreat. Over the years they added a pond, privies, a deck and a rear bunk-room extension to the cabin, and in 1962 expanded the estate by another 204.48 acres to protect over a mile of Lake Michigan shoreline. In 1980 the whole 365.48-acre property was sold to the National Park Service, becoming part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
However, the sale included a Reservation of Use and Occupancy for five acres, letting the family keep the cabin and pond for 25 years. This unique arrangement lasted until April 2005, after which the National Park Service assumed full control of the land. Today, the cabin, pond, and surrounding landscape remain as historic remnants of the mid-20th-century retreat within the protected park.
Why it matters
It shows how private land can transition to public conservation while honoring existing family use.
In this story
