Meet Chris Drake — he's been coming to Bear Lake his whole life.

The founder's story

My name is Chris Drake. I grew up coming to Bear Lake every summer — specifically the Dayton Bear Lake Outing Club, which has been a fixture for families like mine for generations. Some of my earliest memories are of that lake: the smell of the woods after an afternoon rain, the boats on the water at sunset, the slow rhythm of a Northern Michigan summer that doesn't feel like it operates on the same calendar as the rest of life.

I spent most of my career so far in marketing and business development — desk work, screen work, the corporate kind of problem-solving. It was good work, but it wasn't the work I wanted to be doing forever. I've also done lawn and landscape work earlier in life — I know what a long day on a mower feels like, and I know what good property work looks like from the inside.

In 2026, I made the call to come back. Right now it's me and my dog up here, putting down roots. My family is following as soon as we've set things up. Up North Lawn Co. is the business I'm building from that move — the lawn service I'd want for my own family's cottage, run by someone who's sat in that owner's seat for thirty years.

Why this matters for customers

Most lawn-care businesses get started by someone who already lives where they serve. That's fine — it produces good local operators. But it's a different vantage point from the one our customers usually have. Most of the properties we mow are cottages and second homes. Their owners are spread across the country.

I know what it feels like to plan a year around the cottage. I know what it's like to wonder, from a thousand miles away, whether the property got mowed last week. I know what it's like to drive in on a Friday afternoon and want it to look right when the family pulls up. That lived experience is exactly why Cottage Care is built the way it's built — Friday turnover, photo confirmation, monthly flat billing, eyes on the property when no one else is there.

What "Up North" means to us

"Up North" is the phrase Michiganders use for the place they go to escape — the cottage on the lake, the cabin in the woods, the quiet street where summer slows down. It's an identity, not a geography. Our brand sits squarely in that emotional space: we tend the property so the owner can enjoy being Up North.

Our service area runs from Frankfort in the north down through Bear Lake, Onekama, Manistee, Filer Township, Arcadia, and Eastlake — and east as far as Cadillac. If your property is in that footprint, we probably have a route day for you. You can see all the towns we serve.

What we believe

• Show up.

  Schedule reliability is the entire product. Late = lost. We don't skip; we reschedule when weather makes it necessary, and we text by 7 AM the day-of.

• Look the part.

  Clean truck, clean uniform, clean equipment. We're walking advertisements for the kind of business we want to be.

• Charge what we said.

  No surprise invoices. No scope creep without a yes. The number you saw before the first visit is the number on the invoice.

• Leave it better than we found it.

  Blow off the driveway every cut. Pick up the stray ball, the trash can, the kid's bike if it's in the way (and put it back). Owners notice.

• Earn the review.

  Every interaction is the audition for the testimonial. Good service isn't a campaign — it's how we operate every visit.

Licensed, insured, and serious about it

Up North Lawn Co. LLC is a registered Michigan limited liability company. We carry $1M general liability insurance and commercial auto coverage — both available on request as a Certificate of Insurance for commercial customers, HOAs, and property managers who need an additional-insured endorsement.

We're also pursuing Better Business Bureau accreditation, which no other lawn care service in Manistee County currently holds. That matters for trust — and as a single-crew family-owned operation, trust is most of what we sell.

What we don't do

Clarity on what we don't do is as important as what we do. We're not a full-service landscaping company. We don't do hardscaping, paver patios, retaining walls, or design-build work — we'll refer those out to good local partners. We don't do tree work (anything climbing or large-trunk chainsaw); we'll handle the cleanup after a tree service is done. We aren't licensed for pesticide application in Year 1, so we don't do weed-and-feed or chemical weed control.

What we do, we do carefully. That's the trade-off.