Dale-Time

Last November we had some major water damage at the Clock Funeral Home facility in Fruitport, Michigan. It is a small facility (2500 sq ft with no basement) that we only have staff at when we are meeting with families or having visitations and funerals. We check on it regularly but it is not uncommon for there to be 5 day stretches that no one is in the facility. It seems that the furnace starter failed and the building was without heat for a while. It was also a matter of fate that we had an unusual early cold snap during that period. When we discovered the problem with the furnace we had it fixed, turned the heat up and left the building. 

Three days later our parking lot snowplow guy was clearing the snow and called us to say there was water running out from under the door. Not the kind of news you want to hear. What had happened was that the water pipes that run through the ceiling had frozen and cracked during the cold snap when the furnace wasn’t working. And when we turned the furnace back on it thawed out the pipes and the water started spraying water in the attic space above the ceiling. It eventually soaked the drywall and tiles and the ceiling came crashing down on the furniture. The water then continued to run for 3 days before it was discovered. Here are some pictures.

This brought to us a major dilemma. This branch was small and didn’t have good bathroom facilities. The layout wasn’t good for larger crowds and we had shifted all of our body preparation to our main facility in Muskegon over 15 years ago. The business volume in Fruitport had been slowly declining for a few years and we wondered if it was worth it to repair the place at all or just close the facility down.

After a few weeks of thought and contemplation we decided to take a gamble and try something completely new and different. We decided to completely gut the building and turn it into an Event Center for all of life’s events. We are calling our new business “Sunset Celebrations”. Click here for the website. http://sunsetcelebrationcenter.com/

We will still be able to hold funerals, visitations and memorial services just like before. But now the facility has an open floor plan, with a sound system, TV’s on the walls and a small serving kitchen so we can hold any type of event that folk’s desire; wedding receptions, birthday and anniversary parties, graduation open houses, business meetings and baby showers. We are working with area caterers to provided food for events. The facility can comfortably handle crowds of up to 125 people depending on the layout.

Under Construction

We are finally ready to reopen the place. Which is good because we have our first wedding reception there this weekend. And the road in front of the building which has been completely torn up for the last 4 months for a new sewer project will be open too. I’ll post photos soon.

I’m Dale Clock. Thanks for listening.