The Myers family has owned the nearby property atop "Pickle Hill," named for a pickle processing facility once located at the base of its western slope, since the mid 70s. In the 80s, we purchased the meadow across the road and what became our family home, Hilltop House. It only made sense for us to buy George's Hilltop Retreat, when our neighbors George and Zelda Zendra decided to sell in 2005.
Up to that point, the property had been in George's family for quite some time. His extended family used to gather here to play cards, gather around the bonfire, and enjoy one another’s company – much like we do today! It is our understanding that Zelda grew up in the farmhouse across the meadow, now called Hilltop House, and that her parents, the Gibbs, lived in the farmhouse in the 1940s and 50s, until the time they died. It was in the late 60s that George and Zelda inherited the home. They lived in Muskegon and enjoyed the property as their “up north” retreat, a base for activities like skiing, hiking, canoeing, and fishing.
George, Zelda, and her parents moved two 1930s buildings from a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) logging camp located in Brethren, about twenty minutes south in the Manistee National Forest. One was the storage shed now connected to the sauna building. The other was moved to the farmhouse across the meadow where Zelda’s parents lived, and it housed a sauna for a time. A few other such buildings, from the CCC camp, can be spotted around the local area. In the late 1980s, George and Zelda built a sauna in the outbuilding and added the bedroom, the bay window area, and a deck to the back of the house. It was around that time Don and Shirley purchased Zelda’s family home across the meadow, where Dusty and his sister grew up.