Wednesday & Saturday – through December

Every Wednesday and Saturday from May through December, the Holland Farmers Market, aka the Eighth Street Farmers Market, hosts more than 75 vendors offering everything from soup to nuts. The fresh-picked produce is consistently topnotch, as are the flowers and baked goods. Bonus points for the free parking and jovial ambiance, which includes a food court and live amateur musicians.

Saturday’s – through December

On Saturdays through mid-October, the South Haven Farmers Market offers a diverse marketplace of locally produced goods in support of local growers. There are too many highlights to list (Candles! Handmade blankets! Smoked dog bones!), but you’d be wise to seek out the traditional Michigan pasties, flaky handheld pastry shells filled with fresh beef and vegetables.

Friday’s – through September

The Saugatuck Farmers Market pops up on Fridays through the end of September in front of the Saugatuck Center For The Arts (known as SCA to locals). The market is small but special, a community hub full of impeccable fruits, baked goods, and small batch custom coffees, all of which connects locals and visitors to the farmers and artisans that make this part of Michigan a destination. A cash bar keeps the good times flowing.

The Wickwood’s chef since 2022, Duong is a veteran of Chicago’s restaurant scene, doing everything from running her own Kingsbury Street Café to doing the catering in the green room for the Oprah Winfrey Show. Here, she dishes on her updated kitchen, new menu items, and life in Saugatuck.

With more than a century of history as a sanctuary for artists, Saugatuck, Michigan, has been called the “Art Coast” of Michigan. Its art scene is so lively that AmericanStyle Magazine named Saugatuck one of the Top 5 Art Towns In America. Reserve a room at the Wickwood and stay a few steps away from dozens of galleries—and studios open to the public, a rare chance to see artists at work in their own environment.

James Brandess makes his studio and gallery in Saugatuck’s old post office. Known for oil paintings and watercolors, Chicago native Brandess also does giclées on canvas created using atomized, pigment-based ink delivered at more than four million droplets per second. 

Good Goods describes itself as “a gallery of fine design, art, and American craft,” and specializes in hand-crafted jewelry, sculpture, furniture, and ceramics. Think tea strainers made of cherry wood and rooster-shaped rocking chairs made of thin steel.

Armstrong DeGraaf Fine Art, which claims to be Michigan’s oldest art gallery, has a wide roster that represents more than 50 artists, roughly half of them international.

For more than 100 years, Ox-Bow School Of Art and Artists’ Residency has been the kind of unique place that makes Saugatuck, Michigan, a destination. Affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ox-Bow offers diverse year-round programming for artists in every stage of their career on its bucolic 115-acre campus. Twenty-four hours a day, artists can access Ox-Bow’s studios, which are at the edge of the Tallmadge Woods overlooking the Ox-Bow lagoon, and feature everything from painting and ceramics studios to an open-air metal sculpture studio, and glassblowing facility.

Founded by Frederick Fursman and Walter Marshall Clute from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1910, Ox-Bow has been a refuge and source of inspiration for many celebrated artists. Those who have been affiliated with the Ox-Bow over the years include Claes Oldenburg, LeRoy Neiman, Shel Silverstein, Janet Fish, Chris Ware, Ellen Lanyon, Ed Paschke, and Nicole Hollander.

But you don’t have to be an artist to be part of Ox-Bow’s creative community. Plan your stay at the Wickwood Inn and get involved in the following ways without sacrificing a lifetime of blood, sweat, and tears.

Julie Meridian is a self-taught photographer in Evanston, Illinois, with a background in fine art and art education. Her curiosity for the “commonplace wonders” of the world—and her terrific eye for capturing beauty in objects the rest of us might find mundane—have inspired and influenced Martin and Shea’s design aesthetic. Often, Meridian’s techniques involve improvisation, dependent on the shifting daylight as it changes the appearance of say, an oak leaf. “My intent is to convey the mysteries that I feel in their presence,” she says. We chatted with her about art, inspiration, and the benefits of limiting yourself.

Lynda O’Connor has been quietly ahead of the curve in the design industry. Known for her one-of-a-kind pillow designs and her expert ability to source the most unique and rare textiles all around the world, she is more than just a designer and a curator of fine materials, she is a story teller. Every fabric incorporated into her designs has an origin story, a life of its own that can date back generations.

While she intentionally sources her goods, many of her finds are through personal friends that will take her to hidden corners of the world that would never be discovered but for these connections. From a beautiful collection of antique lace from Budapest to a collection of French cuffs or an antique silk baby carrying sash from China, the designer brings something special and unique to each of her designs. 

Each design element and brand partner has been carefully curated by the Wickwood’s new owner, to reflect their passion for excellence and elevating the ordinary into something more luxurious. Lynda O’Connor’s pillows are that perfect accent to the rooms at the Wickwood Inn, where every turn and every touch has been considered.