The house was originally constructed by famous local builder Earl Young, who was known for his whimsical, fairytale-like stone cottages that have been referred to as “mushroom houses,” and even “Hobbit homes.”
Located on 304 Park Avenue, the Thatch House was where Young lived up until the late 1940s with his wife and their children, per the Charlevoix Earl Young District report.
“This happened to be the house that Young built for himself when he was 20,” Seitz, a mechanical engineer, told Insider.
This is the first time that Seitz is putting the house up for sale since he bought it in 2013, per listing records.
Houses in Charlevoix, which is near the northern tip of Michigan, have a median listing home price of $399,900, per data from real-estate platform Realtor.com. There are currently 45 single-family homes in the area for sale, with prices that range from $79,900 to $4.5 million — making the Thatch House the most expensive listing in the neighborhood.
Nate Granata from Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Michigan holds the listing.
Although Young was known for his mushroom houses, he did not design this property in the same style, Seitz said: “It had a totally different roof, and it was really a normal house of the 1920s.”
Seitz decided to completely remodel the roof by making it wavy, “like a floppy hat,” he said. Material-wise, he drew inspiration from the thatched houses of Cape Dutch in South Africa where he’s from.
It helped that the house was located near where Young built his collection of mushroom houses, Seitz said.
“I come along from South Africa, with my almost-identical style, and I had this vision of what I was going to do because of all the houses in the surrounding. I thought, ‘What a perfect place to put my art,'” he said. “If I’m a classical pianist, and other people are playing with the piano, that’s where I’m going to go.”
Using the measurements he took when he first viewed the house, Seitz thought about what he wanted to change — including the interiors.
“I could see the house in my head and my first instinct was to try and draw it. We were flying back from a vacation and I was drawing on the plane on a napkin,” he said.
His then-wife couldn’t understand what he was trying to create and told him to forget about the idea, but Seitz refused.
“I built a model of the house right there and then to show everybody how the roof was going to look,” he said.
Once the model was completed, Seitz knew immediately that he was going to buy the house — and he did.
“I quickly bought the house for cash. I didn’t do inspections. I just went to them and said ‘I’m buying this place,'” he said.
The material used to create the roof was imported from Europe and thatched by hand by a local craftsman.
“It’s a natural reed,” he said. “It’s very durable, it can last 60, 70, even 80 years.”
Apart from keeping the house insulated, reed is easy to work with and can be molded into different shapes, he added. This meant that Seitz was able to create the gently sloping design that he wanted for the roof.
Before the renovation, there was hardly any stone work inside the house at all, Seitz said. He had to get a local stonemason to add the rocks to the interior walls to achieve the effect he wanted.
“Some of the rocks I had to buy, but most of it I found buried on the property as waste rock,” Seitz said.
Almost everything inside the house was made by hand — right down to the solid pine doors, which are of different sizes, Seitz said.
“Normally everything’s done exactly the same because you’re going to put Home Depot doors,” Seitz said. “So if the doors are one or two inches out, it increases the feeling that they’re slightly off, because I wanted to make sure that they didn’t look like they were pre-constructed.”
The slabs of dirtied wood were then covered in a layer of wax to achieve an aged effect, he said.
“I just love the old, rustic, romantic look, with lots of fireplaces and big timbers — the way the house is now,” Seitz added.
Despite living in a different state, he made it a point to oversee the entire renovation through FaceTime with the contractors. He even flew in once a month to check in on the progress in person, he added.
The entire house is available for rent, but rates vary depending on the season. Prices start from $1,100 per night for weeknights but can fall between $1,300 and $1,900 on weekends, per Seitz’s website.
His financial situation also changed after going through a divorce, Seitz said.
“Suddenly I really can’t afford to have this house, and so it went on to the rental market as an afterthought,” he added. “I’m not particularly wealthy, so I need it to earn its own keep.”
Whoever purchases the Thatch House is likely to be someone who has the financial means to upkeep it either as a primary residence or even a vacation home, he said.
“This is art, and not everybody wants to buy art. A very expensive painting or something valuable can be on the market for 10 years before the right person comes along,” Seitz said. “If it sells this year, next year, or in 20 years’ time, I don’t care. Maybe my kids will get it.”
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