Two crew members of Glen Lake Property Management Group lay out dock sections prior to assembly. Photo by Don Sielaff.
By Stewart A. McFerran and Pat Stinson
Many enjoy strolling on their docks to the lakefront, where a wide array of watercraft is moored. Not many think about who installed those docks and the effort involved.
The Cottage Pros, LLC
The Cottage Pros is based in Beulah. The Cottage Pros Marine is in Benzonia. The company’s crew keeps busy installing docks on lakes where they have accounts: Portage, Arcadia, Herring, Platte, Crystal and others. They wade into inland lakes to bolt together the dock sections that make the platforms.
Owner Chris Howard said the goal is for all docks to be assembled by Memorial Day, and they will make their goal this season.
“We got a jump start this year,” he said. “It has been a nice spring.”
Howard founded Cottage Pros five-and-a-half years ago “with a few college kids doing it all by hand.”
“I remember when we had 30 docks and hoists,” he said. “Now we have 300, so that’s why we needed to update our equipment.”
One piece of equipment is substantially larger than the others.
“The ‘barge’ is a 30-foot flat-bottom work boat with a 250 horsepower Evinrude motor on it,” Howard explained. “It has down riggers on the back that are 25 (feet tall), that will go 25 feet down. They hold the whole thing stable. It’s got forks that also extend out 25 feet in front of the barge so we can, in most cases, set the hoists right on the shore in the fall, and then in the springtime we pick them right back up and take them back to the water,” Howard said.
The crew of Howard, “Nathan” and “Reed” was recently moving and installing boat lifts at Arcadia. Reed backed the 30-foot barge down the launch ramp into the lake. Howard started the motor and deployed the downriggers.
When asked the length of their longest dock, Reed replied: “Forty-two sections; those are 10-foot sections. It’s on the Deadstream sandbar (on Big Platte Lake) and runs 36 sections, straight out.”
“We will stay busy,” he said. “We sell dock and hoist, we have lawn crews, we are a full-fledged construction company.”
Howard said they can build a deck or a new cottage.
“We are busier than busy.”
Carie’s Marine & Home Construction
Carie’s Marine & Home Construction has been installing docks and boat lifts in the Ludington area for 21 years, ever since Carl Carie, Sr. bought the business. He said he “inherited” the dock installations from the previous owner and continues to service about 80-plus dock accounts, but the company primarily constructs seawalls, boathouses and decks.
“We do virtually all types of construction, and I sell docks and lifts,” he said, adding that they also build garages, sheds and walkways.
The company also does home renovations and remodeling, everything but new home construction.
“We are State of Michigan licensed builders,” Carie said.
They are also Michigan Certified Natural Shoreline Professionals “trained in the use of natural landscaping technologies and bioengineered erosion control for the protection of Michigan inland lakes,” according to the Michigan Clean Water Corps, which provides the training.
“It’s getting harder and harder to obtain a permit to put a seawall in,” Carie said.
He explained that a seawall needing replacement must be a “working seawall,” not “two posts and a cross piece.” Replacement materials might include metal (steel), riprap (rock and stone) or “bio” (bioengineered) logs if the structure has deteriorated.
“We can make the determination,” he said. “The homeowner can dispute it and apply for a permit with EGLE.”
Carie’s crew of five, all in their 30s, start dock installations at the beginning of May, but “weather is always a factor.” They use their 24-foot barge with a hydraulic crane to help with installations. They mainly service Hamlin Lake, but Carie said he has gotten calls from Pentwater and Bass Lake, and the crew completed a job on Harper Lake (in Lake County) and a challenging demolition on a river in Manistee that connects to Lake Michigan.
“We’ll look at anything; we’ll take on virtually anything, if it’s a job of substance,” he said.
When calls come in for smaller jobs, he said he tells them, “We can’t even look at it until next year.”
Glen Lake Property Management Group
Don Sielaff lives close to the eastern shore of Glen Lake in Leelanau County. He works for Glen Lake Property Management Group, recently purchased by Will and Kirsi Chatfield from former owners Tom and Sue Flerlage.
For 11 years, Sielaff’s job has taken him outdoors to install docks on Glen Lake, do fall/spring cleanups of yards, snowplow driveways and lots of what he calls CHS (Carry Heavy Sh**).
Sielaff sold his restaurant business when he was 55. He bumped into Sue Flerlage while grocery shopping one fall and thought the idea of working in and around Glen Lake sounded “romantic.” He began taking out docks that September, initially wearing what he called a “shortie wetsuit” and a pair of boots.
“Charlie Stairs, Bill Champion (now retired), and I wore the wetsuits,” Sielaff said. “The other guys clunked around in big, sloppy waders. We were like the cool kids ’cause we looked all slick and everything. But when you’re in a wetsuit all day, you’re wet. You have to peel it off, and you’re all prune-y.”
This year, Stairs ⸺ the company’s longest-serving employee ⸺ bought a pair of waders, and their boss wore a pair that fit nicely and covered him almost to his neck.
Sielaff followed suit.
“When you’re done, you drop it and you’re dry,” he said, with obvious relief.
Only twice this season did the crew have to wear their wetsuits. One of those times was during a six-hour installation of a dock with 5 hoists and 62 sections, 40 of them running in a straight line 320 feet into the water. Four people began the installation and two more joined them.
Sielaff, now 67, obviously enjoys his work, taking satisfaction in a job well done. In this case, that means installing 48 docks that are perfectly level.
“Docks we put in our straight as an arrow and flat as a pancake … it’s kind of one of our signature things.”
He also appreciates laboring outside.
“I clock in on Glen Lake every day,” he said. “You know, some of the early spring mornings when the lake is covered in mist and the loons are calling … I love it. I absolutely love it.”
He said the crew began installations two weeks early, in mid-April, because the weather was so nice. But, what about when it’s cold and rainy? “I don’t love it so much,” he admitted. To keep on schedule, the crew works through cold and sleet. Waves don’t deter them, either, except on the largest jobs.
Sielaff said he signed up for one more year of doing docks, to help the new owners.
“The other thing is, it keeps me in shape,” he said. “My young poker friends tell me, ‘You’re in the best shape of any of us.’”
S.A. McFerran coined the term “dockaquacology” after riding along with a crew installing docks on Long Lake. He wrote an article with that title which appeared in Grand Traverse Journal, July 9, 2018.
Pat Stinson is the editor of Freshwater Reporter.
