Aerial view of the historic ore dock and waterfront in downtown Marquette along Lake Superior.

Building sustainable furniture, structures and community in Marquette: Pete Cook

A University of Michigan Engineering alum is prototyping and implementing a more sustainable way of living.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY:

Marcin Szczepanski

Summary

  • Pete Cook is founder of Cookcraft Woodworking, a design and build company specializing in reclaimed materials. Cookcraft’s portfolio includes custom furniture, greenhouses, compost toilets and a sauna for a retreat serving young cancer patients.
  • On 80 acres outside Marquette, he is building an off-grid eco-village centered around resilience, sustainability and cooperation.
Cook gestures toward an infinitive mirror while standing inside the compact bathroom.
Pete Cook talks about his work while being reflected in the infinity mirror he installed in his basement bathroom.
Pete Cook adds wood shavings to the composting toilet.
Cook adds a handful of woodshavings to his composting toilet.
A hand holds a handful of dark, finished compost rich in organic matter.
Cook holds a handful of finished compost produced from human waste and food scraps.

When Pete Cook (BS MSE ‘08,) uses the toilet he built in the basement of his home near Marquette, Mich., he doesn’t flush. Instead, he tosses in a handful of wood shavings from his woodshop and finishes with a quick mist from a spray bottle.

It’s an unusual ritual, but for Cook, it reflects a much bigger idea.

For most people, human waste disappears with the push of a handle, carried away by gallons of drinking water and a network of pipes and treatment plants. Cook sees a system that wastes both water and nutrients.

“As a society, I don’t think we should be taking two valuable resources—fresh, clean water and human nutrients—and combining them together to create toxic waste,” he said. “I think that’s just a bad idea.”

In Cook’s closed-loop composting system, heat, microbes, and worms transform human waste into nutrient-rich compost in a two-year cycle. Waste becomes compost, compost grows food, and food sustains people.

Pete Cook works in his woodworking shop, operating a table saw surrounded by stacks of lumber and tools.
Cook operates a table saw in his woodworking shop.
Close-up of hands cutting a piece of wood on a band saw during a woodworking project.
Cook does woodwork projects and finish carpentry for local clients.
A handcrafted wooden side table showcases contrasting wood inlays and fine woodworking details.
A wooden side table built by Cook.

The composting toilet is one facet of an ambitious experiment in sustainable living. On 80 acres of forest outside Marquette, Cook and his wife, Naomi, are laying the groundwork for an off-grid eco-village built around resilience, sustainability and cooperation.

“It’ll be totally off-grid,” Cook said. “We won’t bring in power, propane or water. It’s really starting from scratch.” He and Naomi are prototyping wood heating and solar systems, as well as sustainable methods to produce food and increase the backyard food production capacities in his current home.

One of those methods is a greenhouse where he plans to grow warm-weather crops. Drawing on his material science engineering background, he added geothermal heating and cooling and insulated the structure with hempcrete, a material made from industrial hemp, lime, and cement. The greenhouse is partially buried underground, taking advantage of  the Earth’s natural geothermal stability to regulate temperature and protect plants from freezing with limited supplemental heating.

Sunlight shines on a small eco-friendly building surrounded by trees and natural vegetation.
Cook walks out of a prototype greenhouse he built on his property. The greenhouse is partially underground and uses a geothermal heating and cooling system.
Close-up of a natural building wall showing wood framing and a textured insulation or earthen construction material.
Cook’s greenhouse wall uses empcrete, a natural building material.
Pete Cook works in a greenhouse-like growing space filled with plants and garden beds.
Cook waters plants inside his prototype greenhouse.

This summer, a local forester will mark trees on the property for selective harvesting to improve forest health and biodiversity. In exchange for the timber, a logging company will build roads and create clearings for ponds, greenhouses, cabins and homes. The following year, Cook plans to drill wells and build a sawmill to provide lumber for construction.

His vision includes self-sustaining homes,workshops, campsites and small-scale enterprises like maple syrup and citrus production. He also plans a folk school that will teach traditional crafts like blacksmithing and woodworking. Cook is searching for families interested in building a community based on shared resources and mutual support. Discussions with two such families are already underway.

“Part of the land will become a place where people live, work, and create together,” Cook said.

From Prototype to Community

Aerial view of forested land and open terrain near Marquette, showing the landscape surrounding Pete Cook's property.
Pete Cook’s 80 acre property and surrounding land, near Marquette, Mich.
A mixed hardwood forest on Pete Cook's property near Marquette, with tall trees and a leaf-covered forest floor.
Cook walks through the 80-acre parcel that he hopes to develop into a sustainable eco-village.
Two people sit on a bench overlooking Lake Superior as the sun sets behind windswept trees along the shoreline.
Sunset at Presque Isle Park in Marquette, Mich.

Cook hopes to address challenges facing communities across Michigan, including rising housing costs, economic uncertainty and climate adaptation.

He believes alternative building methods can help make housing more affordable. Composting toilets, for example, can eliminate the need for conventional septic systems, reducing construction costs significantly. Homes on the property will be built largely from timber harvested on-site.

“My work with alternative building materials and energy-efficient architecture gives people the opportunity to touch, see and feel a different way of construction,” he said. “They can smell the compost, try the sawdust toilet, and even taste what’s coming out of the garden.” Cook has given tours of his prototypes to clients, neighbors and friends, and a professor at Northern Michigan University plans to bring one of her sustainability classes to his property.

Cook hopes those experiences encourage people to think more broadly about how communities are built.

“If I can help people think differently about the world we live in, our interactions with each other, and our environment, my goals as an educator have been met,” he said.

A Long Way Home

Four people share a meal outdoors around a table, gathered in a wooded setting.
Cook eats dinner with his wife, Naomi, and their daughters, Abigail and Amélie, on the deck of their home in Marquette, Mich. The girls were born in the Netherlands, and the family moved to the Upper Peninsula in 2023.
Pete Cook walks along a wooden boardwalk leading through a forested property toward a house.
Cook walks toward WALDEN Institute, a retreat center for cancer patients built into the cliffs overlooking Lake Superior. The main house was designed by Herbert Fritz Jr., Frank Lloyd Wright’s last apprentice. Cook helped build the property’s recently completed sauna.
Pete Cook sits on rocks along a waterfront with a large industrial ore dock structure in the background.
Cook poses on the shore of Lake Superior by the historic ore dock in Marquette, Mich.

Cook grew up in Escanaba and embraces the Upper Peninsula’s tradition of independence and self-reliance. After earning a degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Michigan, he served in the Peace Corps in Mali, where he met his future wife.

He later earned a master’s degree in secondary education and teaching at U-M and spent more than a decade teaching high school math and physics in the Netherlands. Along the way, he became a writer, entrepreneur, woodworker and finish carpenter.

In 2023, Cook and his family returned to Michigan and settled near Marquette. He launched Cookcraft Woodworking, creating custom furniture and structures, including work on a sauna for a Lake Superior retreat serving young cancer patients.

He credits the University of Michigan with teaching him two lessons that continue to guide his work today. “The biggest things were learning how to learn and the power of teamwork,” he said.

That belief sits at the center of the eco-village project. Cook does not claim to have all the answers; instead, he is testing ideas that could help communities become stronger, more self-reliant and more connected.

Cook speaks passionately about the Upper Peninsula’s culture of community, independence, creativity and self-reliance. His impact lies in demonstrating that resilience can be built locally and together—and that the UP can be a place where new ideas take root.

Aerial view of the red lighthouse at Marquette Harbor on the shore of Lake Superior.
The lighthouse at Marquette Harbor on the shore of Lake Superior.