BEAVER ISLAND, MI – The houses were first fully built – appliances in, light fixtures up, blinds hung – in Illinois. Then they were transported to northern Michigan, where they were put on a barge, shipped across Lake Michigan and installed on a far-flung island.

In total, it was a 550-mile journey.

This is what it took to build new rental housing on Beaver Island, the most remote inhabited island in the Great Lakes. Housing is a unique challenge for the island’s 600 permanent residents because it’s covered with vacation homes and struggles with steep housing costs and barriers to new construction.

But one developer found a unique solution that could become a model for other rural Michigan communities.

Vince Ebersoldt and his wife, who have been island homeowners for 16 years, led an e

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