FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: MARLENE TOBY 248-682-5560, mtoby@sbcglobal.net

(Photo opportunities or pictures available)

Re: FOURTH ANNUAL SYLVAN LAKE HOME AND GARDEN TOUR

Saturday, June, 16, 2007 10am to 4pm

Tickets: $10 groups of 10 or more, $12 prior to day of tour, $15 day of show

Tickets available @ Sylvan Lake City Hall, La Rosa Market and Detroit Garden Works (cash or check only)

For questions call: 248/681-8624 or 248/681-2750 or check our website @ www.sylvantour.com

“BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU WILL FIND”

The quaint and quirky little City of Sylvan Lake does it again. Seven homes with gardens plus three additional gardens will be shown on this year’s tour. From newer custom lakeside homes to early 1900 homes, this year’s tour features creative ideas and tips for anyone considering any type of remodeling or landscaping.

Walk into the front door of a kit home built in 1922 and you are walking into a home used by the Purple Gang for bootlegging during Prohibition. The cedar exterior of this craftsman style home was used to disguise the odors from the liquor. During Prohibition, the trucks would pull around the back and go down a ramp into the underground garage where the liquor was loaded. The recently remodeled kitchen with tin ceiling accents on the overhangs is a gourmet cook’s delight. The screened front porch is now enclosed and has become a sitting area and Ikea inspired office. The underground garage is now a storage area as the owner recently added a cedar sided garage behind the home.

Walking through the cherry red door seems like stepping into a family home of the last century. You love antiques, especially family heirlooms and you have a 1914 lakeside home that is too small for your family. What do you do? You move your family into the basement for 1 ½ years while you blow out the front and back of the house. This family claims that they were the pilot run for the movie, “The Money Pit”, and they somehow managed to stay married. Every inch of the remodeling was done to maintain the character of this home. You will enjoy seeing the uncle’s icebox in the dining room that now serves as a storage bar. The dining room table and chairs, the family rocker, the Morris chair and the iron bed, which are still in use, were purchased by the homeowner’s grandparents 5 days before their wedding in 1900. The table was $10.50 and the set of six matching chairs were $18.50. The family has the original bill of sale for the furniture in addition to the crewel piece in the dining room by the great-grandmother. Everyone will enjoy the pictures in the hall of the ancestors and all the family heirlooms from the family’s Scottish background including the Scotland room which is the sitting room overlooking the lake.

As you walk into the custom carved door of a 1950’s ranch home, you could never imagine that this house was purchased from the bank as a teardown. This homeowner could write a book on how she changed this dilapidated house into the charming California style ranch it is today. The warmth and charm of this home reminds one of a villa in Tuscany. Just one of the owner’s creative ideas was to use glass doors from Home Depot as windows in the sitting room overlooking the patio. This home is a decorators dream from the galley kitchen with its custom brick walls to the cheetah wool carpeting in the master bedroom. Light fixtures from the Czech Republic to sculptures by Sergio Bustamante grace this beautiful and innovative home.

This year’s tour again provides shuttle busses courtesy of Cauley Chevrolet and musicians playing in Memorial Park. On the day of the tour, tickets will be sold in front of city hall. In addition to the tour homes, local realtors will be holding open house at homes that are for sale in Sylvan Lake.

Breaking News: In the late 40’s the late Ernie Zilka, recently home from WWII bought a century old house @ 2595 Orchard Lake Rd from two little old ladies to establish Zilka Heating and Cooling. It turns out that the two little old ladies who sold Ernie the house had used their house as a blind pig in the basement and as a brothel upstairs during Prohibition. The stairways still have the footprints leading down to the basement. You never know what you will find behind closed doors.