Beach:Pump house/wall (1970) &2022
The McDonalds mostly used the cottage for day trips or short stays. When Dad took over he wanted to stay for the summer (commuting to work in Niagara Falls). This meant we needed a better water system. The system he inherited used a sand point (a perforated pipe driven down below the water table) that had very limited capacity. So he quickly (1970) undertook a major project that involved contractors installing a beach well and a second contractor building a concrete block pump house into the sand dune. The pump house had a reinforced concrete top which formed the landing for a long staircase to the beach. He was so proud of that pump house, which I think symbolized the start of his ownership and vision for the cottage.
Scroll to the end of this section to see how the wall was upgraded in 2022.
Pump house foundation and walls (1970)
Doorway opens under stairs on lake side (1970)
Top of pump house will be level with bank (1970)
Pump house with benches on top and stairs to beach. The railroad tie wall is mostly buried under the growing sand dune (1970)
A lot of Schotts on those stairs (1971)
Bob and Fran on top of pump house (1970)
That glorious pump house only lasted one season. A (hopefully) 100 year spring storm took out the railroad tie wall, 15 feet of bank and left the pump house toppled on the beach (1971)
Here you can see Dufort's well which survived (as did ours buried in the sand) in background (1971)
Bob D. and Bob S. managed to shift the top pad onto the crumbled block ruins (1971)
They then reinforced with more block to form a landing which is still there today. Sue is sitting on the sandbags we filled to protect the bank. The storm was so devastating dad couldn't get boulders or a contractor to install them until the next year (1971)
Two runs of stairs now to reach the beach with a landing on the pump house ruins (1971)
Benches restored to the landing. The well in the foreground is the creek-side neighbors and would last a few more year until it was lost to a storm (1971)
And of course summer at the beach goes on (1971)
In 2022, after three consecutive years when winter storms came over the wall, pushed the deck around and caused minor erosion, we decided to add a layer of boulders to the beach wall. This involved disassembling the deck, moving in to the top of the bank and having a contractor add a layer of large boulders and back filling with large rock rubble. Then we rebuilt a slightly expanded deck.
On December 11 of 2021 we were at the lake after Covid restrictions were dropped and caught a massive storm. We had already started to disassemble the deck in preparation for the new boulders.
Our normal 100 foot plus beach disappeared and the water was coming over the walls.
Wild and more than a little scary.
Each boulder came down the beach on a front end loader to get stuck in the drain and picked up by the tracked backhoe.
The backhoe moved each boulder to the wall and placed it.
Rebuilding the joists in spring 2022 to replace rot before reinstalling.
The boys had helped haul the joists up in four sections at Christmas of 2021 and here we are reinstalling the first section on the new wall over 4th of July weekend.
John, Stephen and Jack after a celebratory swim with the joist framing set in place.
With all the leveling done Mark S. showed up in time to spend 10 days helping get the decking down, new stairs in place and railings assembled followed by a couple days vacation.
Putting the last of the deck boards down on the main section (under supervision).
Mark enjoying the finished deck including the extension over the old concrete pad from the pump house.
Finished deck with all the new stairs and sun shades back up.
One of many celebrations of the deck project. As usual Pam was the photographer but also sealed the deck and hauled all the deck boards up when we tore the deck apart in 2021.
Old wall with deck on top of bank.
New wall with giant bolder at top of beach stairs for foot wash, three stairs up to deck level and then 6 new stairs to top of bank.