Cottage 36

Cottage 36 (Building 36, "Sunnyhill") was the last of the large Victorian houselike "cottages" built at Northern Michigan Asylum (later Traverse City State Hospital). Designed by area architect E.R.Prall, it is over 90 years old, (having been built in 1906). Like the other cottages and Building 50, it was built of whitish-yellowish brick from the Markham brickworks. This cottage, like the others in the south cottage area, was built to house male psychiatric patients. The cottages were built to house between 60 and 125 patients each.

The basic layout of this cottage is a squarish west wing, a squarish east wing, and a narrower section connecting them. It shares this basic "I" plan layout with most of the cottages in the former Traverse City State Hospital complex.

This cottage is currently the only one of the cottages that is fixed up and in use. While it is fixed up, it has not been restored to its historic condition. It is also the least interesting and most forbidding of the cottage buildings: it has no towers or balconies, and most of the windows are bricked in or replaced with metal barricade windows. It is located adjacent to Cottage 34, and north of the Arnell-Engstrom Children's Center. It is the southernmost of the old State Hospital buildings, not counting the buildings in the farm area.

Click on the following links to see other photos:

North facade, Nov. 1, 1998

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