What’s the recipe for a Michigan beautiful place?

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MLive named Cranbrook House and Gardens the most beautiful place in Oakland County. Image: Barbara Eckstein, Flickr

By David Poulson

This list of the most beautiful places in each of Michigan’s 83 counties is sure to generate discussion.

So go ahead and debate that at that link. We’re not attempting to resolve that here.

But we will give you the lister’s apparent ingredients in making such decisions and a couple questions:

Should any other measures be considered when evaluating a Michigan beautiful place?

Which would the state’s most beautiful place include? (Maybe it’s a lighthouse on a lake in a Lake Michigan island connected by a bridge to a dune on a national lakeshore.)

These are features mentioned in that list and how often they appear:

  • State parks or recreation areas – 24
  • Inland lakes -13
  • Great Lakes – 13 (Huron – 2, Superior – 4, Michigan – 7)
  • Local parks – 9
  • Rivers – 8
  • Historic homes, buildings – 8
  • Human structures not buildings or lighthouses –  7  (bridges – 3,  ski jumps – 2, petroglyphs – 1, highways -1)
  • Islands – 7
  • Gardens – 7
  • Dunes – 6
  • Geologic features not dunes – 6 (Mount Baldhead, Grand Ledge, Mission Peninsula, Turnip Rock, Arch Rock, Devil’s Soup Bowl)
  • National parks, lakeshores, wilderness areas, refuges – 6
  • Water features not lakes or rivers – 6 (waterfalls – 2, springs – 2, rapids – 1, ponds/marsh – 1)
  • Lighthouses – 5

 

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