Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: little venice

I really like the way these folks planted a few trees across the road from their house. The trees give the yard a really distinctive look, which I've long admired. Strange Highway's named after an early settler family--second generation family member Daniel Strange wrote the best of the Eaton County histories. Photo shot from Dow Road, not far from Little Venice.

This barn, on Dow Road, is near the non-place called " Little Venice ." The barn was likely built by the Bosworth family, early white settlers in Sunfield township whose heirs owned much of the land along Dow on the Sunfield side for over a century. There's a house on the lot that looked to date from the mid-20th century while it was still being kept up but now looks about as old as the barn; the barn's gonna outlast it. That tree's really something. By the way, I've shown you folks this barn before. Here's an example , complete with the farmhouse. And here's another .

This barn, on Dow Road, is near the non-place called " Little Venice ." The barn was likely built by the Bosworth family, early white settlers in Sunfield township whose heirs owned land along Dow on the Sunfield side for over a century. There's a house on the lot that looked to date from the mid-20th century while it was still being kept up but now looks about as old as the barn; the barn's gonna outlast it. That tree's really something. By the way, I've shown you folks this barn before. Here's an example , complete with the farmhouse. And here's another .

At its peak, Little Venice consisted of a country store, a tiny motel, and a handful of houses--all surrounded mostly by cornfields. I'd occasionally stop at the store when I was bicycling between Kalamazoo and Lansing. It was never really a village, just a named place on Clinton Trail (M-50) between Charlotte and Lake Odessa. The store's been converted to a home. The motel's rooms are now teensy apartments. There's still a few houses....

In its prime, Little Venice wasn't much--a motel, a general store, a handful of houses, and a great view of Michigan prairie. Not a canal in sight, though. Venice is now well past its prime. Not a proper ghost town, but a place which hints of failed ambitions.

Little Venice, Michigan; on M-50 not far from Mulliken and Sunfield. (If those are your local "big towns," you're in a really small place; neither has more than 800 inhabitants.) The Siesta had some pretensions to being a resort when I first found the place, though there's really nothing close-by to call a tourist attraction. Now a rural apartment complex.