# Custom Home Builder in Brooklyn, Michigan — Strouss Construction

> Custom homes, lake cottage rebuilds, barndominiums and pole barns in Brooklyn, Michigan and the Irish Hills lake country.

Brooklyn sits in the middle of the Irish Hills, and building here is not like building on a flat lot in town. Columbia Township land rolls, lots run down to Clark Lake, Wamplers Lake, Vineyard Lake and Lake Columbia, and plenty of the older houses started life as summer cottages.

Strouss Construction has built in Jackson County since 1949 and is run by the fourth generation of the family. Add race weekends at Michigan International Speedway and US-12 traffic to the calendar, and local scheduling knowledge earns its keep.

## Cottages on the Lakes
The lakes carry cottages from the forties, fifties and sixties that people have kept adding onto. Many sit on narrow frontage with the water on one side and the road on the other, so a rebuild or a second story usually makes more sense than pushing out, and there is very little room to stage material or park equipment. In the village, older homes on small platted lots near Main Street ask for additions that work around tight side yards.

## Acreage in the Hills
Outside the village it is acreage in Columbia, Norvell and Liberty townships and down toward Somerset and Cement City, where the ground is glacial and hilly. That is where the barndominiums, pole barns and shops go up, and where a walkout basement is often the natural answer to a sloping lot. Rural sites mean well and septic instead of village water and sewer, and septic placement near a lake takes planning.

## Where We Build Around Brooklyn
Clark Lake, Lake Columbia, Wamplers Lake, Vineyard Lake, Columbia Township, US-12 through the Irish Hills

## What We Build in Brooklyn
- **New Homes & Barndominiums** ([details](https://stroussconstruction.com/services/new-homes-barndominiums.md))
- **Additions & Remodeling** ([details](https://stroussconstruction.com/services/additions-remodeling.md))
- **Garages & Barns** ([details](https://stroussconstruction.com/services/garages-barns.md))
- **Commercial Construction** ([details](https://stroussconstruction.com/services/commercial-construction.md))

## FAQ
### Can you build on a small lake lot at Clark Lake or Lake Columbia?
Yes. Most of those lots are narrow and already close to the water, so the real work is fitting the house inside the setbacks and figuring out where the septic can go. Sometimes the answer is a second story or a full teardown and rebuild instead of a wider footprint. We look at the lot first, then talk about the house.

### We have acreage outside the village. Can you build a barndominium or a large pole barn there?
That is a lot of what we build around here. The ground in Columbia and Norvell townships rolls, so the first questions are where the building actually sits, how the drive comes in off the road, and how water moves across the site once the roof is on. Township zoning sets the height and the setbacks, and that usually shapes the footprint more than anything else.

### Does a sloped lot in the Irish Hills mean a walkout basement?
Often it is the natural answer. A walkout uses the grade instead of fighting it, gives you daylight in the lower level, and can save fill and retaining work. Whether it makes sense on your parcel comes down to how the slope runs, where the drive comes in, and how water moves across the site.

### Do race weekends at MIS affect a build schedule?
They affect the roads more than the work. On the big Michigan International Speedway weekends, US-12 and the routes around Brooklyn carry heavy traffic, so we plan deliveries and concrete pours around them. It is one of those local details that only matters if your builder does not know about it.

## Contact
Phone (517) 750-0031 · https://stroussconstruction.com/contact