Click above images to enlarge Bilz, Aloys, House 107 South Division Street, Spring Lake - Ottawa County Property Type frame house Historic Use DOMESTIC/single dwelling Current Use DOMESTIC/single dwelling Style Italianate Late Victorian Significant Person Aloys Bilz Narrative Description The Aloys Bilz House is an L-shaped, two-story, clapboard-sheathed, frame house with a one-story, deep extension at the rear that contains the kitchen, porch and day room. The Italianate design features paired brackets under the eaves, arched window and door openings, and a parapeted porch over the main entry on the inside of the ell. The intersecting gabled roof, with a subsidiary gable across the center of the front of the side-facing ell, features returns. The house is covered in clapboarding except of the first floor back of the porch, which is clad in horizontal boarding, laid flush. Statement of Significance The Aloys Bilz House is one of the Spring Lake/Grand Haven area's most important Italianate houses. Built in 1872 after the 1871 fire which destroyed most of Spring Lake, the house has remained in the same family since construction and still contains many original family furnishings. The original owner, Aloys Bilz (1841-1934), who settled in town in 1866, played a primary role in the development and improvement of Spring Lake in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A successful tinsmith/hardware store owner and investor in real estate, he was an entrepreneur who worked with other local businessmen to finance various commercial and industrial enterprises to diversify the local economy following the decline of lumbering, the town's major industry. Period of Significance 1872-1913 Significant Date(s) 1872 Registry Type(s) 12/18/1986 Marker erected 12/14/1987 National Register listed 04/10/1986 State Register listed Site ID# P24570