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Picture

Catalog Number
2019.1.2660
Description
Copy of a photograph of a home being moved from Marigold to Macatawa Bay in 1939.
History
Randall P. "Randy" Vande Water was a local historian and newspaper editor. He spent 4 decades at the Holland Sentinel working as sports editor, city editor, editorial page editor, and managing editor.

Egbert H. Gold and his wife Margaret landed at the shore along Black Lake, now known as Lake Macatawa, in the summer of 1912. They were sailing on their yacht called Marigold that summer up and down the shoreline of Lake Michigan looking for the right building site for a summer estate. They took a rowboat to the dilapidated, broken-down remains of an old dock. This was remnants of Superior Point a village platted in 1836. The Golds spent the day exploring, meeting John C. Everett at his Waukazoo Inn. The Golds inquired about the ownership of the land. Egbert purchased the point in January of 1913. An ice-house was the first building built. They went on to add various lots and pieces of land to the Marigold estate. The name Marigold comes as a loving honor to the names of both his wife and daughter, Margaret and Mary Gold.

Egbert Gold who was born in 1868 came from a family line of entrepreneur's. One of his ancestors was Nathan Gold II, who invented the first cast-iron stove with movable grates. In 1854, Egbert's grandfather Stephen devised a way of putting a steam boiler in a house for heating. Many thought this was such an outrageous idea at the time that it was referred to as “Gold’s Folly”. Egbert’s father, when he was 19, patented the first iron sectional boiler and first cast-iron radiator, known as Gold Pin Radiator.

Egbert had more than 100 patents for his own work of improving heating devices. In 1917 he, along with a New York firm, formed the Vapor Car Heating Company in Chicago with branches across the country. This was after Egbert developed a vapor system for railcars.

Egberts children were Samuel Dickey, Mary Jayne and Egbert Jr. In one of his writing Egbert wrote about his 15 years at Marigold as “my only source of outside pleasure, and interest outside of family and business activities, and I am sure [it} has added much to my health and general welfare. If the place were given away today I feel that myself and family would have already recovered full value for all it may have cost.” Gold died on November 3, 1928.

After Egbert’s death the family continued to use Marigold as a summer home. Starting in 1925 another family, Al and Jessie Buursma, began their time at Marigold. That is the year Al, who emigrated from the Netherlands, began working as a gardener at Marigold. Three years later Al’s parents arrived from the Netherlands and his father became an estate employee for 22 years. Al hired many family members to work at Marigold over the years. After the Depression and in subsequent years, Al and Jessie lived on the estate in a houseboat.

Mary Jayne Gold, Egbert’s only daughter, lived in New York but spent a great deal of time in France during World War II. Mary Jayne was involved in the French Underground and helped smuggle out writers and intellectuals who were on Hitler's blacklist.

In 1969, a year after her mother Margaret’s death, Mary Jayne presented the estate to Hope College. The College used the property for many years as a meeting place. The college was not able to keep the house in good condition so the property was sold to Herman Miller. They completed restoration at the lodge and building of the Learning Center in 1978.

The lodge now has eleven bedrooms, with a main dining room to accommodate fifty-two people and a private dining area for twelve.

Al and Jessie Buursma continued served as caretakers of the estate into the Herman Miller era.
Gift of
Mary Vande Water, in honor of her husband Randy Vande Water.