Simply Superior
Two artistic spirits reduce life to its essentials at their North Shore cottage
When artists Hazel Belvo and Marcia Casey Cushmore set out to design their Grand Marais getaway on the shores of Lake Superior, they followed one basic principle: “We wanted to build a house that has everything we want and no more than we need,” Belvo says. And that’s exactly what they got.
The Golden Valley residents long harbored a love of Lake Superior, so 10 years ago, they set out to build this North Shore retreat, a one-bedroom home and studio with soaring views of the ever-changing lake. “We wanted easy in and easy out, so we can drive here and just start living,” Cushmore says.
The compact 1,500-square-foot saltbox, designed by John Larsen, principal of Design 45 in Minneapolis and built by Jerry Starr Construction of Grand Marais, embodies easy living. With its open shelving and hanging pots, the kitchen feels like a chef’s weekend atelier. Favorite ceramic pots are lined up near the ceiling, while colorful spices in glass jars look like powdered pigments. Food, plates, and platters are displayed in perfect rhythm, pretty and ready to use. “I like to look at my dishes,” Belvo says. “Everything is right where I can see it, just like the farm kitchen we had when I was a child.”
Gone are the gadgets and appliances of a city kitchen; this cooking space features only humble hand tools like whisks, knives, and worn wooden spoons. Dinners are eaten right in the kitchen on the white pine table that perfectly fits the space and seamlessly blends with the floor of the same wood. “We agreed we would use whatever wood was the least expensive at the time,” Cushmore says. “Price was always a factor in building this house.”
Nearby, a cozy living area provides seating. Poised a matter of feet from the lakeshore, it’s the natural place for contemplating the clouds by day and stars by night. Shelves of books, blankets, and binoculars provide the comforts of lakeside living. Throughout the space, a palette of white, tan, and beige is the clean, neutral backdrop for the colorful paintings that hang in every room. “Most of these works are by good friends,” Cushmore says. “Life up here revolves around nature and art.”
Photo by David J. Turner
And nowhere is that artistic spirit more alive than on the second floor, where Belvo and Cushmore have designed side-by-side painting studios, the very raison d’être for this beloved getaway. With plenty of pristine white wall space to hang finished canvases, along with works in progress, it’s the kind of studio most artists only dream of.
Tubes of paint sit piled on wheeled palette tables, while barrels of brushes stand ready nearby. And all around, sweeping views of the water send in the luminous light. “It’s the power of the lake, the never-ending movement, and the flat plane of the horizon line that anchors everything around it,” Belvo says.
A professor emeritus and former Fine Arts chair for the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Belvo has devoted her life to teaching and making art. She is known for her series of paintings of the 400-year-old gnarled and twisted “Witch Tree” that seems to grow right out of a hunk of granite and hugs the shoreline of Lake Superior in nearby Grand Portage.
Cushmore came to art later in life after leaving a career in higher education administration and a stint with the Humphrey Institute. A former philosophy professor and leadership consultant, she now paints full time. Her recent works focus on the many moods of the lake. She’s also taken up sailing and often crews on a schooner for sailing courses at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais. “I’ve always had a fear of the water, so I decided to face it head on and learn to sail,” she says.
It’s no surprise that Grand Marais attracted these two painters. The village has been an artists’ community since the Grand Marais Art Colony was founded some 60 years ago. Belvo has taught there for 26 years, and every summer she mentors small classes of artists inspired by the magical pull of nature and the North Shore. “Up here, we are in touch with time,” she says. “It is in the rocks, some going back to the glaciers. When I’m here, I have a greater sense of my place in the universe and it’s humbling.”
Life is noticeably quieter here than in the city and that’s by design. Days revolve around North Shore mainstays, such as morning walks along the lake and evening bonfires on the shore. Meals consist of simple fare, such as local lake trout and fresh-picked blueberries. “It’s so basic. When I’m up here, I’m less anxious,” says Cushmore. “I don’t worry about time. I feel I have all the time I need, and that is living well.”
Wendy Lubovich is a Minneapolis freelance writer.
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