4001 Sandall Rd

This is 253 acres on Lake Winyah, the impoundment of the Thunder Bay River northwest of Alpena, with a cabin the remarks say sits on an island joined to the mainland by a bridge, and the rest of the acreage running along the lake and the South Branch of the Thunder Bay River. The listing files it as vacant land. The remarks describe an on-grid cabin, two miles of frontage, state land on the boundary, and access that is easiest by boat, with an undeveloped easement as the other way in. It was listed in October 2025 at $500,000, pulled in March, relisted in April at $475,000 and cut to $450,000 on August 18, 2026. Neither Zillow nor Redfin holds a county record for it.

Getting there

The remarks give three routes and show none of them. A bridge connects the island to the mainland. The property is most easily reached by boat. An undeveloped easement provides another access option. The photos show a two-track through pines to the cabin, a dock with a pontoon boat, and a path trodden through deep snow to the door. No photo shows the bridge, the easement, the road, or the island from the water.

The listing coordinates fall in Maple Ridge Township, Alpena County, west of the city, near the pool above the Norway Point dam. The nearest mapped roads are the residential streets of the small grid on the lake’s east side, about half a mile from the point.

The cabin

The listing gives no bedrooms, no baths, no square footage and no year built, because it files the property as unimproved land with a garage. The photos show a small one-story cabin with wood siding and a shed beside it, a main room paneled in wood with a wood stove, a sofa and recliners, a dining table, a television and a refrigerator, and a lamp on a post outside the door. The remarks call it on-grid. There is no photo of a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen beyond the refrigerator, or the garage.

The water and the land

The photos are mostly of the water: the lake flat at dawn from the dock, the pontoon at the shore, reeds and lily pads, a river channel through marsh at evening, sunsets, ducks, and the dock and lake under snow. The remarks describe shallow bays and a winding river, wood duck habitat, whitetail, bear and grouse, and a lake stocked with muskie and walleye. Three trail camera frames in the listing, which we left out of the gallery, show a bear and two bucks in the woods at night.

Lake Winyah is a hydroelectric impoundment. The Norway Point dam on the Thunder Bay River holds it, one of a chain of dams below and above Alpena run under a federal license. The lake level is the operator’s, within the license, not the seller’s.

The facts

What to know before you call

Access is the property. A cabin on an island with a bridge nobody photographed, a boat as the easy way in, and an easement that is undeveloped, which means a right on paper and no road on the ground. Ask how the right of way is held: a recorded easement in the deed, a license from a neighbor, or a handshake. Ask what the easement crosses, private land or state land, and whether the state’s permission is needed to improve it. Ask whether the bridge is rated for a vehicle or only for foot traffic, who built it, who maintains it, and whether it is on the parcel at both ends. Ask what winter access is when the lake is frozen and the two-track is under two feet of snow, which the photos show it gets. Ask who plows anything, if anyone does. Until those answers are in writing, the $450,000 buys land you may reach only by water in summer and on foot in winter.

Two hundred fifty-three acres with no county record. Zillow says 253 acres and the remarks say 250. Neither Zillow nor Redfin carries a parcel number, a tax bill, an assessment, a legal description or a parcel count for this property. The acreage, the number of parcels, whether the island and the mainland shore are one parcel or several, the taxes, and the assessed value are all as the listing states them, with nothing to check against. Ask the Maple Ridge Township assessor and the Alpena County equalization office for every parcel in the sale, with the legal descriptions, the acreage on the record, the state equalized value and the taxable value.

Michigan taxes on a transfer. Michigan caps the growth of taxable value each year and uncaps it when the property changes hands, so the first bill after a sale resets to the state equalized value, which is half of market value. With no record here, ask the assessor what the taxable and equalized values are now and figure the bill at the equalized value. Ask whether any of the acreage is enrolled in the Commercial Forest program, which taxes at $1.35 an acre and opens the land to public foot access for hunting and fishing, or the Qualified Forest Program, which exempts the school operating mills and requires a management plan. Both carry withdrawal penalties. On 253 acres, either one changes the bill by thousands of dollars and changes who is allowed to walk the land.

A lake with a dam at the bottom. Lake Winyah is the pool behind the Norway Point hydroelectric dam on the Thunder Bay River, one of four dams near Alpena operated under a federal license. The operator sets the level within the license, and hydro pools are drawn down for maintenance and vary through the year. The shallow bays in the remarks are shallow because the lake is a flooded river bottom. Ask how much the level moves, whether the dock in the photos is on the bottom or floating, whether the operator holds a flowage easement over the shore, and whether the dock needed a state permit. Michigan’s critical dune and high risk erosion rules apply to Great Lakes shoreline, not to an inland impoundment, so they do not reach here. Township setbacks from the water and the state’s rules on docks and bottomlands do.

Two miles of frontage, on the deed or not. The remarks give two miles of frontage on the lake and the river. The listing’s own frontage field is empty. On a hydro pool the shore can belong to the riparian owner up to the water, or the operator can own or hold an easement over a strip along it. Ask for the survey and the deed, and ask whether the frontage figure is measured along the water or along the parcel line.

State land on the boundary, or not. The remarks say the acreage adjoins state land and that the surrounding state land makes the duck habitat. The federal protected areas layer we queried shows no public land within a kilometer of the listing coordinates. That layer can lag Michigan’s own records, and the coordinates may sit on the cabin rather than the far boundary, so this is unverified in both directions. Ask which sides touch state land and get the Michigan Department of Natural Resources map for the section, because state land on the boundary also means public hunters on the boundary.

Filed as vacant land, sold with a cabin. The listing type is lot and unimproved land, with no bedrooms, baths, square footage or year built, and a garage in the parking field. The remarks and the photos describe a furnished cabin with power. A lender will not treat a vacant land listing as a house, and the county classification is unknown because there is no record. Ask how the county classes the parcel, whether the cabin was permitted, and whether the garage in the listing is the shed in the photos or another building.

On-grid, and nothing else listed. The remarks say on-grid. The listing gives no water, sewer, gas or heat. The photos show a wood stove and a refrigerator. Ask where the power line comes from and whether it crosses the water or a neighbor, whether there is a well or the lake is the water, and what the toilet is.

Two cuts and a gap. Listed at $500,000 in October 2025, removed in March, back in April at $475,000, cut to $450,000 in August, and 341 days on Zillow. Ask what happened in March.

Twenty photos, the broker’s full set. The listing carries 23 images. Three are trail camera frames of a bear and two bucks, which we left out and describe above. The other 20 are the whole set and they are phone photographs, most of them of the water. There is no aerial, no map, no photo of the bridge, and no view of the island from the water. Not shown: a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, the garage, the easement, the road, the boundary, and any of the 253 acres away from the cabin. Nothing is virtually staged.

You can see everything else we have listed on the properties page. For other properties reached by water we have a cabin on Peterson Bay across from Homer, Alaska and a gutted house with no bridge across its creek in Yancey County, North Carolina.

To ask about this one, call Great North Real Estate on 989-884-1294 or email Steven Shaw at Steve@greatnorthre.com, and reference MLS 50190786. The listing prints the same number for the agent and the office. Tell them where you saw it.