[3] Nicholas Pickard, a resident of North Manitou Island, requested and received from the government a lifesaving boat and the standardized plans to construct the station.

The United States Life-Saving Service was established in 1871, and the previously all-volunteer lifesaving stations were converted to house paid crews.

[4] The station continued operation with a skeleton crew until 1938,[3] when it was sold to the Manitou Island Association, a private corporation.

[3] The structures in the district date from 1854 to about 1916, and represent a range of historic architectural styles, as well as the three distinct periods of lifesaving history.

The Lifesaving Station is located on a broad flat plain facing a sandy beach, separated from structures in the nearby village by a grassy field.

The Manitou Island Association converted the structure into a quarters and a storehouse, and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore adapted this boathouse into a dormitory in 1990.

In 1932, the Coast Guard renovated the structure, placing it on a basement, adding a front porch, and reworking the location of the stairs.

The root cellar is primarily constructed of field stone and mortar, with a wood shingled gable roof on top.

The storm tower is a four-sided metal-framed structure, made of open trusses with taper to a point 50 feet (15 m) above the ground.