The parking lot at Kemil thins out a little earlier each August evening. The day-trippers head back toward the toll road, the shuttle buses stop running, and the stretch of Lake Front Drive between the Florida Tropical House and the Wieboldt-Rostone House empties out enough that you can hear the waves from the road. That is the version of Beverly Shores most residents already know.
The version worth paying attention to is the one that starts the same week the crowds leave. Late August through the last weekend of September is the busiest stretch on the local calendar, and almost none of it happens on the beach. If you have lived on the Island for more than a season or two, you have probably missed at least one of the things below, because they announce themselves quietly and then sell out, close for the year, or get rerouted around a construction fence.
Today, August 3, 2026, at 8 a.m. Central, Century of Progress Home Tour tickets go on sale through Indiana Landmarks. If you have been meaning to get inside the Florida Tropical House or the Armco-Ferro, this is the morning the window opens.
The tour ticket window residents keep missing
The Century of Progress Home Tour is the one day each year the five Lake Front Drive houses come off the "look but do not enter" list. Tour tickets are released for sale on August 3, 2026, 8 a.m. CDT at centuryofprogresstour26.eventbrite.com, and they sell out quickly; the two-hour tour costs $35 per person and is guided by park rangers and volunteers who provide overviews at each property. Tours run every 20 minutes from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Central out of the Indiana Dunes National Park Visitor Center, with shuttle transport from there to the district in Beverly Shores.
Two things have changed about this tour that matter for anyone who last attended before the pandemic.
First, the House of Tomorrow is finally coming back. Restoration of the House of Tomorrow, declared a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, began in April 2024, and an architecture and engineering team assembled by Indiana Landmarks is returning the landmark to its 1933 appearance. If you toured the district in 2018 and remember plywood over the twelve-sided glass wall, that is the building you will want to see again.
Second, the Cypress Log Cabin is no longer a once-a-year interior. IN The Dunes Lodging, in collaboration with Indiana Dunes National Park and Indiana Landmarks, has turned the Cypress Log Cabin into an overnight rental, an architectural gem previously accessible only during limited National Park tours. For residents with out-of-town family visiting in the shoulder season, this is a better story than any hotel in Michigan City.
Full details and the ticket link live on the Indiana Landmarks tour page.
What is happening under your feet on the Calumet Trail
If you walk the Calumet Trail in the mornings, you have already noticed the equipment staged near Broadway. The trail is not just being resurfaced. It is being rerouted, and the new alignment is going to change how the neighborhood connects to Dune Park and Chesterton on foot.
Here is what to expect this year, based on the April 2026 update from National Park ranger Rafi Wilkinson and NIRPC's Mitch Barloga:
- The portion of the Calumet Trail from Indiana 49 to Broadway in Beverly Shores will be rebuilt in 2026, including a "very dramatic" 200-foot boardwalk over Dunes Creek.
- The rebuild and paving raises the trail and provides drainage to avoid the flooding that has plagued the old gravel route.
- The new alignment diverts the trail off the powerline right-of-way and sends it through more wooded, secluded parkland, in part by closing half of Furnessville Road to make it a one-lane road with room for a trail.
- Wilkinson noted the park has tried to close Furnessville in the past because motorists have driven 75 mph on it, and there are horse trail crossings.
Zoom out and the scale is worth understanding. "We are putting about 10 miles on the ground this year, new trail," Barloga said. "So, by the end of '26, we should have at least 40-some miles of trail completed for the Marquette Greenway, which is obviously quite an amazing feat." The full corridor is a 60-mile paved path from Chicago to New Buffalo. When the Beverly Shores segment is finished, the trail out your back door connects to Miller Beach in one direction and Michigan City in the other, without touching US-12.
Expect detours through the fall. Construction related to the Marquette Greenway project is affecting portions of the trail system near Beverly Shores, Kemil Road, and Glenwood Dunes, and some trail connections, parking areas, and walking routes may be temporarily modified.
The Depot, still the town's front porch
The 1929 South Shore Line station on Broadway does double duty. The Beverly Shores Depot is a historic railway station built around 1929 that once served as a stop for the South Shore Line, and the beautifully preserved building now functions as an art gallery and museum. Curator Caryn Brown rotates exhibits through the summer months, with a small gift shop stocked with work by local artists. If you have been driving past it on Route 12 all season without stopping in, late August through September is the last reliable window before the schedule contracts for winter.
One place that stays open when the day-trippers leave
Beverly Shores has one restaurant, and if you have lived here any length of time you already know that. What is worth flagging for late summer is that The Goblin Duneside Bar & Eatery at 1 W Dunes Highway keeps a schedule that rewards residents over visitors. The kitchen closes Tuesday and opens at 4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then runs 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. The patio is dog-friendly and stays lively on weekends with live music into the fall. Weeknight dinner after Labor Day is the sweet spot. No reservation drama, no forty-five-minute wait for a two-top.
A dark-sky footnote worth keeping in your phone
Locals call this town "The Island," and the reason has less to do with geography than with what you can see overhead. Beverly Shores is situated on the shoreline of Lake Michigan east of the greater Chicago area, with Indiana Dunes National Park surrounding it to the east, west, and south and Lake Michigan to the north, which is why locals often refer to the town as "The Island," and residents have embraced dark skies as an important part of the local environment. On June 24, 2014, Beverly Shores was named the world's seventh International Dark Sky Community. Residents have demonstrated their commitment to controlling the growth of outdoor lighting through a series of retrofits and replacements of residential and commercial light fixtures.
The practical takeaway for August and September: the sky over Lake View Beach and the Great Marsh gets darker as the tourist lighting from Michigan City recedes with the evening crowds. If you have been meaning to bring a telescope down from the attic, this is the month. More on the designation at DarkSky International.
The quiet-beach window is short this year
The stretch between Labor Day and the last warm Saturday in October is when Kemil, Lake View, and North Shore Beach become quietly usable again. Kemil Beach shares a parking lot with the Dune Ridge Trail, making it convenient to combine a beach day with a hike, and it has a relatively uncrowded atmosphere. Dune Ridge itself is a short loop, and the roughly three-quarter-mile trail features varied terrain with some elevation changes and an observation deck at the end with views overlooking Lake Michigan.
Two things will shrink the window. The Century of Progress tour crowd on the last Saturday of September will fill every legal parking space on Lake Front Drive. And the Marquette Greenway construction near Kemil Road may pull traffic off the trail and back onto the beach lots on weekends. If you want a quiet lake morning, target a Tuesday or Wednesday.
If you are thinking about the next chapter
None of this is about selling anything. It is about the fact that Beverly Shores in late summer has a rhythm most people who live here only half know. The tour tickets go fast, the trail is going to look different next spring, the Depot closes for the season sooner than you think, and the sky gets darker every week from now through the equinox.
If you own a house on the Island and are starting to think about what the next few years look like here, whether that is a renovation, a rebuild, or a quiet conversation about timing, that is the work I do. Mark Hull is a Dune Acres native and a lifelong shoreline broker with @properties | Christie's International Real Estate. Book a complimentary consultation whenever the calendar allows.
