The ultimate in lakeside living

Some couples dream of living in a castle in Spain or a sun-speckled villa in Tuscany. Others pine for an old farmhouse in the country or a cozy mountaintop chalet.

Tom Stockman dreamed of living in a lighthouse on Lake Huron.

And now he and his wife of 48 years, Judy, are living out the dream at their one-of-a-kind cottage home south of Lexington in Michigan's Thumb.

But first Stockman had to design and build his 40-foot tall vision -- from the ground up, from scratch -- with major help from some ironworker friends.

"It's not as if there's a blueprint for building a lighthouse," says the retired ironworker from Westland, whose last job before retirement was installing girders on the second span of the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron.

Three years after move-in day, his towering white lighthouse, with red metal cap and colonial blue shutters, is a real neighborhood conversation piece, complete with an open-grate iron catwalk high above the ground, a multiwindowed crow's nest and a flashing blue range light that can be seen for a few hours nightly by vessels on the lake.

It's also the dramatic focal point of the couple's unusual, five-section home, transformed by Stockman over 34 years from its origin as a one-room cabin in 1918.

With lovely landscaping that includes a wooden bridge and water wheel, brick-paver patio with fire pit, white picket fence and colorful flowers, the lakeside layout brings to mind a charming, bed-and-breakfast-style resort.

They call it "T.J.'s Landing," using the initials of their first names.

"It was just a big labor of love," says Judy Stockman, a former secretary for Livonia schools. "One of my teacher friends always says, 'How many husbands build their wife a lighthouse?' It's our little retreat and it's great fun living here."

The Stockmans use the main floor of the lighthouse as their nautically decorated family room -- and it's also the perfect spot for their 18-foot Christmas tree.

A sweeping staircase with 35 steps -- the most challenging part of the ambitious project -- leads up to the cozy crow's nest, where the couple retreats each afternoon for cocktail hour, typically Miller Lite or a Riesling from the new Blue Water Winery in Lexington.

Binoculars and a small telescope are on hand for gazing at the lake and the stars. At night, their range light is timed to flash every four seconds from 8 p.m. to midnight.

Stockman, 72, says his live-in lighthouse was inspired by his best friend and work partner, the late Tom Stephens Sr. of Caro who was fascinated by windmills and daydreamed about buying and operating a barge.

"We'd talk about what we'd do (in retirement) on our way home from work," he recalls.

After his buddy's untimely death 12 years ago, Stockman spent six years pondering his lighthouse, then hired his friend's son, Tom Stephens Jr., and his two sons, Tom and Andrew Stephens, to do the job.

Stephens owns Quality Steel in Caro and is now working on an expansion project at Bishop Airport in Flint.

"We tried to use all ironworkers," Stockman says of his brethren at Local 25 in Novi.

He tapped outside contractors only for the lighthouse's metal cap and 22-foot staircase, which proved so difficult it had to be redone three times, he says.

And in case you're wondering, they built the lighthouse in two pieces: first, the lower section with the circular staircase inside, and then the cap, which they built on the ground and set atop the structure with a crane.

The design was a true collaboration between Stockman and Stephens, who put their heads together and improvised as they went, according to Judy Stockman, who says she and her husband got ideas visiting lighthouses during winter trips to South Carolina and Florida.

"We would talk and Tom (Stephens) would go home and do his own little blueprint," she recalls. "There were a lot of phone conversations. ... It was amazing to watch it all come together."

Stephens, the builder, adds: "We looked at books and came up with every good part of each one. We wanted a domed roof and some type of round lighthouse ... and we just went from there."

Building the lighthouse took about three years, from getting the plan approved by Worth Township officials and digging the hole for the basement to topping the structure off with its metal cap -- plus assorted tasks such as insulating, drywalling, painting and installing wooden floors along the way.

The Stockmans, who have three grandchildren, left Metro Detroit and made the cottage their permanent home 15 years ago. In addition to the lighthouse family room, it has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen, garage, living room and loft. A whimsical "birdhouse room" is adorned with nearly 200 hanging birdhouses in wood, tin and other materials.

Stockman remodeled virtually every part of the house, and also built the garage, deck, breakwall and boardwalk. He installed skylights in the bathrooms and did all the paneling too.

"He's done everything. He's amazing. And he cooks," Judy Stockman says, beaming.

Nicknamed "Cookie" because he loves to cook, Stockman studied culinary arts at Schoolcraft College in Livonia. Together, the couple ran TJ's Catering for 30 years while their two children were growing up and even catered weddings at the cottage.

"We'd cater a party, we'd buy a new window," she says. "Every time we earned some money we'd buy a new door or window. That's how we remodeled our cottage into a home."

But living on a Great Lake means they can do without some things. "We don't have air-conditioning -- we can look out the window and feel like we're outside," she says

And you haven't lived until you've listened to rain hitting the metal roof of a lighthouse, Tom Stockman says -- although the sharp crack of snow falling off the roof is something else.

"We had to build ice guards so it wouldn't hit the skylight in the kitchen," he says. "You learn as you go."

And even in a lighthouse, there's no place like home. "I love the coziness of it," she says. "We go away on vacation and we just can't wait to get home."

Staying in a Michigan lighthouse

Five restored Michigan lighthouses -- four on Lake Superior, one on Lake Huron -- welcome overnight guests: