Welcome and thanks for considering joining the Lays and Lockwood in celebrating the 100th anniversary of their summer home in Door County, Wisconsin.

Dr. Harry Harding was a professor of bacteriology at the University of Illinois. He was an expert and early researcher in the curing of dairy products and the making of cheese. Dr. Harding was born in 1872 in Brodhead, WI. Anticipating retirement, in 1915 he bought an 135 acre tract of land on the Lake Michigan side of the Door peninsula, that separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan. On the land, but a ¼ mile or so from the shore was a small farmhouse built by a Swedish farmer in the mid 1800’s. The farmhouse was built in the traditional rural Swedish style of hand-hewn vertical cedar boards with joints filled with lime mortar.

Dr. Harding had the house moved from the farmer’s field to the shoreline area, on a bluff overlooking North Bay, its present location. We imagine it was done by using large log rollers to support the house and hauled by horses.

At the time of his purchase, Dr. Harding was married to Esther Gordon, sister of Sturgeon Bay dentist Roderick Gordon. About 1923, the Gordon family purchased the property next to the Harding tract and built the Gordon Lodge resort, that remains today one of the premier lodges in Door County.

The Hardings divorced and in 1942 Dr. Harding married Carol Lay’s and Rod Lockwood’s grandmother Jessica Hay. The property remains in the family through our grandmother.

Dr. Harding and his new wife Jessica lived year around at the North Bay house, without plumbing or electricity. An outhouse served the sanitary needs, heating was done by a potbelly stove and lighting by oil lamps. Quite a transition for our grandmother, a city girl who came from the luxuries of a Detroit home!

In 1947, enough was enough for Grandma, and our father had the house finished with modern siding, plumbing was added along with an oil furnace and electricity was brought to the house.

Carol and Rod have spent their entire summers growing up at the North Bay house. We have very fond memories of our time there, with beaching, boating, waterskiing, thimbleberry picking, building tree forts and just enjoying the woods. Carol and Paul Lay continue to spend their summers at the house and the Lockwoods make it up there several times each summer too.