Petoskey

Petoskey is the county seat and the hub of this whole resort region — a small city of about six thousand on the south shore of Little Traverse Bay. Its heart is the Gaslight District, a historic downtown of brick storefronts, gas-style lamps, and well over a hundred shops, galleries, and restaurants. The waterfront has parks, a marina, and the Little Traverse Wheelway, and the Bear River runs right through town. Petoskey has long been the place people from downstate come to vacation, and a young Ernest Hemingway spent summers nearby and stayed in town — the historic Perry Hotel dates to that era.

Just east of the city, in Bear Creek Township, is Bay View — a remarkable cluster of around 450 gingerbread Victorian cottages built before 1900. It started in 1875 as a Methodist summer camp and grew into a famous “Chautauqua,” with concerts, lectures, and classes all summer long; today it’s a National Historic Landmark. The rest of Bear Creek Township wraps around Petoskey with neighborhoods, shopping, and the area’s main hospital.

For buyers, Petoskey offers the most year-round services and amenities in the region — hospital, college, shopping, an airport nearby — along with everything from in-town homes to bay-view and rural property in the township. It’s the practical anchor of an area that’s otherwise very seasonal, so the market is active in every season and across price ranges.