Tracy Donohue

The Reuben poutine (with fresh, house-cut fries) is a popular appetizer. Photo Courtesy of The Albion Malleable Brewing CO. There’s something appealing about hanging out and sipping beer at Albion Malleable Brewing Co., located in an historic college town with a celebrated waterway — the Kalamazoo River — running through it. Beginning in Hillsdale County as a spring-fed pond, the Kalamazoo River meanders northwesterly 175 miles to Lake Michigan, near Saugatuck.

Leighanne LaMarre, interior designer and owner of Leighanne LaMarre Interiors in Brighton, had just completed a home design project for a Detroit-area couple in late 2021 when they requested her assistance with a vacation house they had purchased on Walloon Lake in Charlevoix County. “Leighanne was so easy to work with, and we knew we couldn’t do the lake house without her,” the homeowners say enthusiastically.

When Michelle Davis, of the award-winning Farmington Hills-based interior design firm Davis & Davis, was approached by a long-term commercial client to work on his new home project, she felt honored to assist him and his wife with their dream house, as her firm had been focusing on commercial projects. Davis, principal and chief design officer, explains, “We’ve worked with this client for years on commercial projects that all have modern designs.