Honor, Lake Ann, and the Platte River country

Inland from the dunes, two small villages anchor this part of Benzie. Honor, on US-31 along the Platte River, is known as the “Birthplace of the Coho Salmon” — the nearby Platte River hatchery launched Michigan’s salmon fishery in the 1960s, and the town still throws a Coho Festival every August. Just down US-31, the Cherry Bowl Drive-In — a 1953 theater and diner that’s the last drive-in left in northern Michigan — still packs them in on summer nights. The Platte River, an easy paddle down to Lake Michigan, runs right through town.

A few miles northeast, near the Traverse City line, sits Lake Ann, a friendly little resort village on the lake of the same name. It once competed with Traverse City to be the area’s main town, until a series of fires between 1897 and 1918 burned much of it down; today it’s a quiet, walkable spot with an iconic general store, an ice cream shop, and Benzie County’s only covered bridge. The surrounding Almira Township, close to Traverse City, is the county’s most populated township.

For buyers, this is inland-lake and river country — frontage on Lake Ann and the smaller lakes, wooded building sites, and a location handy to both Traverse City and the Sleeping Bear shore. Homes here are on wells and septic (see the well-and-septic note).