Beach Lake. The Village View Farm is a fine example of the boarding house era in Wayne County. In 1922, Frederick Frey and his wife Ethel Gevert Frey bought a decrepit farmhouse with a barn and seventeen acres just east of Beach Lake. In 1927, they took one boarder when the Highland House next door was full. The following year "summer bedrooms" were built in the barn for family use, and the house bedrooms were rented. By 1930, an annex had been built and the Freys had gone from one boarder to twenty-five. Many improvements followed, a drilled well, indoor plumbing, more land, a dining hall, a lodge, a recreation hall, a pond, a pool, and tennis courts. Ethel Frey continued to run the boarding house after her husband's death. In 1952 daughter Doris Frey Henry and her husband Burton came back from New York to help. In 1966 they took over the business. Both Ethel and Doris were well known for their fine meals. Guests looked forward to the weekly menu of Sunday turkey, Monday roast pork, Tuesday lamb, Wednesday chicken, Thursday meat loaf, Friday fish, and Saturday roast beef. All the meats and vegetables were home grown. Breads and pies were baked daily. In 1987, after sixty years of serving guests, the boarding house was closed. Their four Henry children; Richard, Carol Dunn, Alan, and Paul, have homes nearby and are raising their children as the fourth generation in this peaceful place.
This page was one month of the calendar and was made possible through the Wayne County Commissioners and a Tourism Promotion Committee’s Tourism Grant.