our story

It was December 2019 when we found ourselves in St. Joseph County for the first time. 

For nearly a year, we – me (Monika), my husband Nick, and my best friend Kris, had been searching for a place where we could build or rehab a cabin to use as a vacation home and, eventually, as a rental property. We wanted something on the waterfront, driving distance from Chicago, big enough to support multiple cabins (if things went well with the first one!), and secluded yet still close to shopping, dining, and recreation. 

But after months of poring over real estate listings, driving all over Wisconsin and Michigan, studying plats, looking at flood maps, and trying to make sense of building codes, we were beginning to wonder if the place we were looking for simply didn’t exist. 

Needing a break, Nick and I packed up our family and drove to a lake house we had just rented for a couple of nights near Three Rivers, Michigan. It was an unfamiliar place that we selected based on the sound, well-researched reason that pretty much everything else was booked right before New Year’s Eve.

Be it fate or completely random coincidence, Kris was vacationing in northern Indiana that same weekend. We decided to meet in Three Rivers for an afternoon, to relax and catch up. After having lunch, enjoying some cold beer, and perusing a local used book store, we were all thoroughly charmed by this small but vibrant town.

On the way back, I pulled out my phone and, on a whim, began to scroll through local listings. I was shocked to find an old house sitting on a wooded 13 acre parcel on Mud Lake. The place checked off every box on our list... except the price. So I figured it wouldn’t work.

As winter turned into spring, we continued searching for our dream property. We looked at many promising places, but something always seemed to go wrong at the last minute. The house on Mud Lake remained on the market and, finally, we decided to take a shot at negotiating the price. On July 11, 2020, we drove up to the property as its new owners. 

As we approached the house, two sandhill cranes flew across the road. We were all struck by the understated beauty of these graceful, long-legged birds. And, when later that day, two cranes landed on Mud Lake, we decided to take their sighting as a sign of good fortune and named the property after them. 

And now, we cannot wait to welcome future visitors to Crane’s Landing!