On a Saturday morning in late August, Herman Park sounds like a town meeting that never adjourns. Paddles pop on eight pickleball courts. Someone's dog argues with the fence at the dog park. A kid rides the pump track in tight loops while a parent waits near a playground that's a decade past its prime. Every one of those things exists because someone in Suttons Bay decided, at some point since 2009, that this particular 126 acres was where the new thing should go. Not a second park. Not a different lot. This one.
That pattern is worth naming because it's about to be tested for the first time in a generation. Fifteen miles from downtown Traverse City, a long-closed ski mountain just changed hands, and its comeback is the first real alternative Leelanau County has had for donor-funded outdoor recreation since Herman Park started absorbing every trend that came along.
Since 2009, Herman Park has picked up tennis courts, pickleball courts, a dog park, an 18-hole disc golf course, soccer fields, a pump track, and a paved trail, according to reporting from the Leelanau Ticker. Township officials have been candid about why everything lands there instead of somewhere else. When Suttons Bay's five-year parks plan was being drafted, township parks committee member Ostrowski put it plainly to the Ticker: Herman Park got the attention because of where it sits, near downtown, the school, and the Leelanau Trail, and because the township's other green spaces are, in his words, more pocket parks.
Pickleball is the clearest case study. It wasn't even among the top ten priorities when the township's previous five-year plan was written in 2019. By 2023, a group of pickleball supporters had raised $100,000 to add four new courts on top of the four that already existed, bringing Herman Park's total to eight. The dog park went in the same summer, split into small-dog and large-dog sections, funded by more than $134,000 in donations rather than township tax dollars.
Here's what's actually at Herman Park today, all inside the same fence line:
Every addition on that list arrived because a group of residents decided to write checks for it. None of it required a millage vote. That's the quiet mechanism behind Suttons Bay's recreation scene: when a critical mass of people want something, they fund it directly, and Herman Park is where it goes because Herman Park is the only park built to absorb it.
The park's current fundraising campaign is for a playground, and it's already the largest single ask in the park's recent history. As of an April 2026 report from the Leelanau Ticker, the campaign had raised about $186,000 toward a $350,000 goal, a target that alone exceeds the combined cost of the dog park and the pickleball court expansion.
The push started quietly. A $15,000 grant from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, drawn from its 2 percent gaming revenue allocation in July 2025, helped seed the campaign before it went public. Debbie Slocombe, a Suttons Bay Township trustee and member of the Friends of Herman Park, has been leading the effort. She describes it as the missing piece in a park that has spent nearly two decades adding things for teenagers and adults.
"We've done a lot of work to add uses to the park that appeal to older children and adults. This is the last piece of the park puzzle, and it's meant especially for our younger community members."
The design carries a farm theme, a nod to Leelanau County's agricultural history, and organizers say it would be the area's first true universally accessible playground. Michigan has only a handful of playgrounds built to that standard statewide. Slocombe said in April that the township and Friends of Herman Park could break ground this fall depending on how fundraising went through spring and summer, which puts groundbreaking a matter of weeks out from today, if the campaign holds pace.
For more than two decades, the biggest outdoor recreation story in Leelanau County wasn't a new addition. It was an absence. Sugar Loaf, a ski resort about 15 miles northwest of Traverse City, closed abruptly in 2000 after drawing as many as 3,000 to 4,000 skiers a day at its 1970s peak, according to a Powder magazine retrospective cited by the Rural Innovation Exchange. The 285-acre property sat closed until an ownership group called SPV 45 LLC bought it in 2020 and funded the cleanup of its old lodge and ski infrastructure.
What happened next is the part that matters for anyone who already lives in this county. The landowner's representative approached the Leelanau Conservancy and offered to donate the land outright if the nonprofit could raise $8 million to fund its restoration. The campaign went public in July 2025. By September 2025, more than 1,100 donors had pushed it past the goal. Ownership changed hands earlier this year: in March 2026, UpNorthLive reported that the formal transfer to the Conservancy was complete, with the actual stewardship work, trail building, restoration, and infrastructure, still to begin later in the year.
The plan for the site includes a trail network for hiking, biking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing, a universal access loop trail, a summit pavilion, a sledding hill, a seasonal ice rink, and a natural playground of its own. There's no plan to reopen it as a lift-served ski resort, but visitors will be able to hike to the summit under their own power and ski back down. One local winery has already folded itself into the comeback: French Valley Vineyard released two new wines, Sugar Loaf Red and Sugar Loaf White, in partnership with the Conservancy, supporting the restoration.
Here's the side-by-side, as of this month:
| Herman Park (Suttons Bay) | Sugar Loaf | |
|---|---|---|
| Current status | Open daily, still expanding | Ownership transferred; stewardship begins later in 2026 |
| Public access | Yes, free, year-round | Closed to the public for now |
| Signature draw | Eight pickleball courts, dog park, pump track | Summit trail, sledding hill, seasonal ice rink |
| How it's funded | Township plus targeted donor campaigns | $8 million community campaign, 1,100+ donors |
| Current fundraising ask | $350,000 for a playground | Campaign complete; work funded |
For 17 years, if you wanted to put money or volunteer hours toward outdoor recreation in this part of Leelanau County, there was really one address for it. Every new trend, from the pickleball boom to the push for universal accessibility, got built onto the same 126 acres because that's where the town's recreational energy already lived. Sugar Loaf breaks that pattern for the first time since the lift stopped running in 2000.
It isn't open yet. Nobody is hiking that summit trail this month, and the Conservancy has been careful not to promise a firm reopening date, only that on-site work starts later this year. But the county now has two donor-funded recreation projects running in parallel for the first time in a generation, one finishing a playground a few miles from downtown Suttons Bay, another rebuilding a mountain a short drive across the peninsula. Whether that splits the same pool of donors and volunteer hours, or simply grows the number of people willing to show up for either one, is the more interesting question for anyone who's watched Herman Park be the only answer for this long.
In the meantime, the calendar keeps running on the same fixed dates it always has. The Suttons Bay Art Festival filled the marina park the first weekend of August, and the village's Sidewalk Sales followed the next weekend. Ahead this fall: the Leelanau Harvest Tour on September 12, Cider by the Bay Fest on September 19, and the Fall Artisan and Wine Walk on October 16. Live at the Bay keeps its outdoor concert series going into early fall as well. None of that changes because a mountain fifteen miles away is coming back to life. But it's worth watching whether next summer's version of this same Saturday morning sounds any different.
If you're weighing what any of this means for how you use this county, or you're simply curious how a place this size keeps building the same 126 acres into something new every few years, Molly Buttleman knows Leelanau County from the inside and is always glad to talk specifics. Inquire Now.
Molly is Michigan native and has called the Grand Traverse and Leelanau County region home for more than 30 years. Understanding the demands of today's buyers and sellers has allowed her to be a top producing agent when it comes to Antrim, Grand Traverse, and Leelanau County real estate year after year. As a relationship building person, she enjoys developing loyal friends and customers. As a Real Estate Professional, she builds those same lasting relationships with both Buyers and Sellers. Service is Molly's top priority.
Molly is known for listening and problem-solving, often putting her own real-life buying, selling, and renovating experience to use for her clients. Her construction industry connections also give her clients an extra sense of trust, especially if they are looking to add value to a property with a remodel.
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