Volume 8 issue 3
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Time to Leave the Lakes Alone? Easy Riders - Motorcycling Door County Accidental Icon - Thumb Fun Restaurant & Lodging Guides
autumn 2010
P remier Door County P roPerties exCluSive gated Waterfront eState Community
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P r o P e r t y L i n e s A r e A P P r o x i m At e
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1000-aCre Peninsula on lake MiCHigan m arSHall ’ S P oint • S outHeaSt of S iSter B ay
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a&a ranCh • Private PaStoral SettinG H ill r oad • l iBerty g rove • n ear S iSter B ay
Just 31 residences or sites share this special place developed in 1980’s. Properties face either Lake Michigan or North Bay with nearly 4 miles of shore, some have views of Cana Island. Shared tennis, pond, & 500+acre private nature preserve with trails. Short drive to Sister Bay & marina. For current listings & prices, please visit www.marshallspoint.us
Woodland trails for riding, pastures for grazing, & enclosures for training. Stable: 8 state-of-the-art stalls, tack room, 2 grooming stalls; plus lounge with kitchen & office, full bathroom, & laundry. 140x80 foot Cover-All arena, 2 large storage buildings, & 2-bed ranch house. $2.95m. For more photos & info, visit www.aaranch.info
C laSSiC e PHraim W aterfront & v illage v ieWS
G orGeous r esidential s hore F rontaGe
wonDerful 3+beDrooM log HoMe 120 f oot S teel & C onCrete P ier on e agle H arBor
toP neigHborHooD along lake MiCHigan WHitefiSH Bay & glidden drive • n of Sturgeon Bay
Beautifully maintained & updated. Outstanding vistas from Eagle Bluff to village - fabulous location adjoining Peninsula Park. Incredible fossil stone fireplace in great room, flagstone sunroom, & new master suite. Offered furnished - including bikes, kayaks, & more. $1.95m. For more photos & info, visit www.ephraimwaterfront.info
3 & 4++ bedroom homes along Glidden Drive & Bark Road offer great views of Lake Michigan & Whitefish Dunes. Sand beach or shelf rock provide easy water access. Many year-round residents and a short drive to Sturgeon Bay make this a fine choice for your Door County home. For current listings & prices, please visit www.gliddendrive.us
W onderful n atural S etting • g reat a menitieS Environmental Award Winning Community
B eautiful B luff -t oP W aterfront S etting
rolling terrain, Prairie, HarDwooDs, & Pines t oWn , S ingle -l evel P atio , & f ree -S tanding H omeS
Great Community • Shared Patio & Shore C roW ’ S n eSt e StateS C ondominium • S iSter B ay
Variety of styles for year-round living or vacation retreat. Convenient to parks, Green Bay, Lake Michigan, & Europe Lake. Clubhouse: lounge, indoor & outdoor pools, whirlpool, sauna, exercise & locker rooms; tennis; & trails. Community water & sanitary systems. Resident caretaker. For current listings & prices, please visit www.cottageglen.com
Wonderful designs: inside & out. Tram to shore frontage & swim pier. Municipal water & sewer. Attached 2-car garages. Select gorgeous 5 or 6 bedroom homes with fantastic panoramic vistas, 4-bedroom water view, or 3 bedroom residence. Ready to move in & enjoy. For current listings & prices, visit www.crowsnest-sisterbay.us
920.854.9799 ePHraim • door County • Wi www.premierdoorcounty.com
r egents . com L uxury r eaL e state . com • e x C l u S i v e B oa r d m e m B e r • The Leading Network for Luxury Properties & Vacation Real Estate
2010 autumn Editor EditorMadeline MadelineJohnson Johnson Associate AssociateEditor EditorSara SaraMassey Massey Copy CopyEditor EditorAllison AllisonVroman Vroman Photography PhotographyDirector DirectorDan DanEggert Eggert Contributing Artist Nik Garvoille Editors Julia Chomeau, Emilie Coulson, Myles Dannhausen Jr., Jacinda Duffin, Dan Eggert, Mariah Goode, Gary Jones, Brittany Jordt, Roy Lukes, Contributing Megan O’Meara, EditorsMelissa Julia Chomeau, Ripp, Sheila Myles Sabrey-Saperstein, Dannhausen Jr.,Katie Jacinda LottDuffin, Schnorr, JenniferAngela Klessig-Dupont, Sherman,Dan SallyEggert, Slattery, JohnBonnie Enigl Spielman, Sr., Nik Garvoille, Allison Vroman Gary Jones, Brittany Jordt, Roger Kuhns, Roy Lukes, Barbara Malcolm, Megan O’Meara, Advertising Melissa Ripp, Sales Katie Lott Madeline Schnorr,Johnson, Sally Slattery, Bonnie Spielman, Paul Wanish, Patty Bonnie Williamson, Spielman,Allison SteveVroman Grutzmacher
ekholm Gallery
OUR 27th SEASON A gallery filled with light & color small & large
3913 Little spring Rd. Fish Creek (One block south of the Top of the Hill shops, on spring Rd - turn left)
impressionistic oil paintings also represented by Edgewood Orchard Gallery
920 868 4144 www.ekholmgallery.com
Publisher Advertising DavidSales Eliot Madeline Johnson, Bonnie Spielman, Steve Grutzmacher Owners: Madeline Johnson & David Eliot Publisher David Eliot Door County Living magazine is published five times annually by: Owners: Madeline Johnson & David Eliot Door County Living, Inc. P.O. Box 695, Baileys Harbor, WI 54202 Door County Living magazine is published five times annually by: Door County Living, Inc. Comments WeP.O.welcome Box 695, yourBaileys inquiries, Harbor, comments, WI 54202 and submissions. E-mail us at: info@doorcountyliving.com or simply Comments call us at (920) 839-2120. We welcome your inquiries, comments, and submissions. E-mail us at: info@doorcountyliving.com or simply Advertise Forcalladvertising us at (920) rates 839-2120. and information, please e-mail us at: advertising@doorcountyliving.com or simply Advertise call us at (920) 839-2120. For advertising rates and information, please e-mail us at: Subscribe advertising@doorcountyliving.com or simply Doorcall County us at Living (920)is839-2120. available free of charge at select locations on the Door Peninsula. Why not have it delivered directly to your door? To order an annual subscription, please send Subscribe $20.00 to Subscription - Door County Living, P.O. Box 695, Baileys Harbor, WI 54202. Door County To change Living youris available address orfree inquire of charge aboutattheselect statuslocations of your on subscription, the Door Peninsula. please contact Why not us inhave writing it delivered at the address directly above, to your ordoor? by e-mail To order at: subscription@doorcountyliving. an annual subscription, please com. send $20.00 to Subscription - Door County Living, P.O. Box 695, Baileys Harbor, WI 54202. To change your address or inquire about the status of your subscription, please Nocontact portionusofin this writing publication at the address may beabove, reproduced or by e-mail without at:prior subscription@doorcountylivwritten permission by theing.com. publisher. ©2010 No portion DoorofCounty this publication Living, Inc. mayAllberights reproduced reserved. without Unsolicited prior written materials permission must be by accompanied the publisher.with return postage. Door County Living magazine assumes no liability for damage or loss. ©2010 Door County Living, Inc. All rights reserved. Unsolicited materials must be accompanied with return postage. Door County Living magazine assumes no liability for damage or loss.
OPEN DAILY - CLOsED TuEsDAY 4 Door County Living Autumn 2010
doorcountyliving.com
EDITOR’S NOTE
Volume 8 issue 3
THE QUEST FOR A COVER By Madeline A. Johnson, Editor
P
ress time at Door County Living is a whirlwind. Typically, the last 72 hours of production involve tackling details that have been dangling for months. We finalize captions and tweak ads; we adjust spacing, page lines, graphics and colors; we edit text and make our peace with subtle imperfections; and we nit-pick all manner of minutiae, ad nauseam. By this point in the process, thankfully, the big decisions relating to topic selection and planning are under control, with one towering exception: the cover. Rightly, there is great pressure to make a wise cover choice. Apart from the obvious fact that we’ll have to look at it forever, the cover, truly, carries a heavy load. For starters, it is the gateway to the goods inside – why else would a reader be enticed to pick up and read eloquent words on subjects we care deeply about if the cover is not inviting…or at least not deterring? The image must be seasonally appropriate, and it must evoke a feeling that a reader either has experienced or would hope to someday experience. The image must say “Door County,” but it must also say Door County Living, which is to say it must peel back an intriguing layer in order to take a reader beyond the realm of “guidebook” and into that of storytelling. The image must also be iconic in some way, but not cliché – tough, given the unequivocally photogenic quality of our sunsets and lighthouses. We also try to find a cover image that relates directly to the content in
the issue. All in all, finding the perfect image to satisfy these criteria is a battle. This issue’s cover, like its predecessors, underwent rounds of spirited debate. We narrowed the selection down to two finalists. One, a shot of sailboats moored on tumultuous seas, chosen for the brilliant and eye-catching band of bright orange through the center, as well as for its distinctly autumn, chill-in-the air feeling. The other, a dynamic and textured shot of Anderson Dock, snapped as ominous weather descended on Eagle Harbor. Strictly speaking, the Anderson Dock photo is a superior image, but our staff stalemated over concerns it was just a trifle too grey and gloomy. An hour before we wrapped production reader Monica Isley emailed in an image and broke the tie. It’s hard to say precisely which nerve the picture hit, but I suppose it captured the elements we liked in (and lacked the downsides of ) the other two, and it had an interesting subject matter. Here we have more than a regular old lighthouse; rather, the lighthouse, though picturesque, is subordinate to the action of the Salmon Depot embarking on an adventure at dawn. The colors are soft and pleasant, and the scene is one you could envision yourself in. In the eleventh hour – as in most of our eleventh hours – there was no true science involved, only the allied notions of group consensus and a gut feeling.
This cover is a favorite of mine. It is a portrait of Door County pottery’s founding father, Abe Cohn, painted by acclaimed local portraitist Craig Blietz. This cover was serendipitous; we happened to have stories on both artists in the issue and were pleased to discover one had painted the other. 6 Door County Living Autumn 2010
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This issue’s cover captures the sought elements of being an attractive, seasonally appropriate photo, but also has the added appeal of tying in with Myles Dannhausen Jr.’s probing feature story on how we should handle (or not handle) the health of the Great Lakes (page 20). Photo by Monica Isley. Time to Leave the Lakes Alone?
Easy Riders - Motorcycling Door County Accidental Icon - Thumb Fun
Restaurant & Lodging Guides
autumn 2010
dclv08i03b.indd 1
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There was no argument among our staff what a striking photo this is. It was passed up, however, in favor of the chosen cover’s warmer tones. Photo by Dan Eggert. As one segment of a panorama, this photo is compelling for its simplicity and brilliant coloring. Unfortunately, the photo needed to be enlarged to fill the cover space causing it to become slightly grainy. Photo by Dan Eggert. In year two we ran this artsy photo of fallen leaves. We loved the photo and especially the delicate dash of purple on the right. To our dismay, a few weeks after the issue was released a reader meekly informed us the dash of purple was an invasive species. Try as we might, we occasionally miss the mark. Also a favorite of mine, this image required elaborate staging. Fortunately, our photographer Dan Eggert was spry and daring enough to be harnessed and hoisted high into the air atop the mast of the Passage North, while under power, to achieve such a dramatic image. This cover was a hands-down winner; no debate whatsoever. doorcountyliving.com
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CONTENTS
20 14 20
AUTUMN 2010
66 70
HISTORY Accidental Icon Thumb Fun Amusement Park
FEATURE Time to Leave the Lakes Alone? After a century and a half of trying to control the Great Lakes, is it time to concede to Mother Nature?
28 32 36 42
DOOR TO NATURE Old-Growth Forests
46 50 58 62 66 70
ART SCENE “One eye sees, the other feels.” Suzanne Rose: Fine Art Photographer ART SCENE Nik of All Trades A Door County Artist of Multiple Mediums MUSIC SCENE Family, Love and History
36
CAMEOS Sailing to Door County on a Trolley A.J. Frank & the Evolution of Entertainment on Wheels
FEATURE Easy Riders The Motorcycle Culture in Door County OUTSIDE IN DOOR Door County’s Quiet Jewel Potawatomi State Park FAIRWAYS Perseverance & Determination Sylvia Ferdon HABITATS Old Timber, New Uses Repurposing Wood
TOPSIDE Family-Operated Fun on the Water Door County’s Harbor Lady
74 78 81 82 90 96
ON YOUR PLATE Hot Town, Summer in the Kitchen
ON YOUR PLATE Tending Their Treasure Randy and Lisa Daubner’s English Inn RESTAURANT GUIDE Where to eat in Door County
ON YOUR PLATE Warm Up Autumn with Apple Cider LODGING GUIDE Where to stay in Door County
FEATURED ACCOMODATION Eagle Harbor Inn
Singer/Songwriter: Katie Dahl
50 doorcountyliving.com
ON OUR COVER: Eagle Harbor at sunset. Photo by Dan Eggert.
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 9
WOODWALK GALLERY WoodwalkGallery.com /news
featuring the ethereal Door County landscape paintings of Margaret Lockwood
AND
42 REGIONAL ARTISTS painting jewelry gifts sculpture assemblage photography ceramics furniture clothing beadwork glass tableware woodwork Kristen Christiansen HANDMADE 3 day and intensive papermaking workshops for PAPER all ages and levels of experience.
FRIDAY CONCERTS
Jeanne Kuhns’ Woodwalk Concert Series...live folk, jazz, blues, in an intimate setting. BYOB and we’ll keep it cold.
THEATRE M
Mark Moede and Mary White present provocative, professional theater in the barn.
ALSO restored historic 1890’s Door County barn, strawbale studio, wedding labyrinth, sculpture field, SiloSpace, fully accessible, lots of parking events, weddings & receptions for up to 200 welcome…
6746 County Road G Egg Harbor, WI 54209 920-868-2912 HOURS - open every day 10-5:00 mid-May thru mid-October, most weekends and always by appointment or chance.. call to make sure. DIRECTIONS - 2 miles North of Carlsville, 5 miles South of Egg Harbor, just off Hwy. 42 on County G (at Schartner’s Market).
The essence of Door County in an historic setting
CONTRIBUTORS Julia Chomeau was born and raised in Door County. She is an active member of the local community and serves many organizations on a volunteer basis. Julia is the mother of two darling but exhausting children and is thrilled to be raising part of the next generation of activists for our county. She lives in Ephraim with her husband, Steve, and their children, Ian and Gretchen. Emilie Coulson is a Fish Creek native who traded brats for burritos in a move to San Francisco. When not writing about the peninsula from afar, she works at 826 Valencia, a creative writing center for kids. Myles Dannhausen Jr. grew up in Egg Harbor and now serves as the news editor of the Peninsula Pulse. A frequent contributor to Door County Living, he pulls double duty in this issue. The writer takes a look back at “progression of errors” that created Thumb Fun, then wades into the shallow waters of Lake Michigan’s shores to ask what we do next about the drop in Great Lakes water levels. When he’s not writing, Dannhausen coaches Gibraltar boys basketball, contributes to several community organizations as board and committee member, and practices his air horn skills for the 2011 Door County Half Marathon. Jacinda Duffin has lived in Door County all of her post-collegiate life, and has had the good fortune of wearing many hats: restaurateur, art gallery owner, playwright. She is an avid reader, crossword puzzler, freelance writer, and theater-goer. Jacinda spends entirely too much time buying and selling real estate – both personally and professionally – and is a broker/ owner and partner at True North Real Estate in downtown Fish Creek. Dan Eggert, currently the Photo Editor of the Peninsula Pulse, has been working with Door County Living from the beginning of its publication history. He is a freelance photographer working with clients ranging from local Door County businesses to artists and musicians, and will shoot an occasional wedding now and then. Mariah Goode is the Director of the Door County Planning Department. She is a member of the Door County Economic Development Corporation Attainable Housing Committee and of the advisory board for the Door County Green Fund, a component fund of the Door County Community Foundation. When she used to have free time (before she and husband Sam had two children, Thelonious Jacob Goode and Trenowith Blair Perlman), she liked to walk the beach with their dog Lucy, watch Law & Order, do yoga, read, drink wine, travel, and spend time in the darkroom. Gary Jones is a freelance journalist as well as a poet, dramatist, essayist, fiction writer, and occasional teacher of writing. After nearly 30 years of living in Door County, he and his wife have finally put down roots. (No small thing; a late orchard man once told Jones that because of the peninsula’s rocky soil he sometimes had to blast to plant trees.) Brittany Jordt graduated from UW-Madison in May 2009 with a BA in English and Theater. She feels excited and honored to be able to share her passion for the arts by contributing to Door County Living. Door County is a wonderful community with a variety of art forms and very talented artists, which makes it a delightfully compelling place to live and to write.
doorcountyliving.com
The study of nature has been a lifelong pursuit for Roy Lukes. Learning, photographing and teaching about the natural history here since 1964 has sharpened his awareness and knowledge of the excellent biodiversity in Door County and the urgent need for stronger continuing stewardship of this great peninsula. Megan O’Meara started coming to Door County for family vacations as a child. During a Thanksgiving stay in 1998, she discovered that the Irish House (now O’Meara’s Irish House) was for sale and purchased it. Before moving to Door County from Chicago, she worked for an electrical contracting company. Megan graduated from St. Ambrose University with an English and French degree. Most of her time is spent in her store; however, she does find time to write, read and take in the occasional Door County view. Melissa Ripp, a native of Door County, decided to come back to the place she grew up after college graduation. The county hasn’t been the same since. Melissa lives her life by word counts and is a regular contributor to Door County Living and the Peninsula Pulse. When she’s not under deadline, Melissa enjoys working as the Marketing & Community Relations Director for the Hardy Gallery as well at her creative services company, Peapod Public Relations & Marketing. Sheila Sabrey-Saperstein retired as a Northwestern University theatre and opera professor to live in Door County with husband Phil 14 years ago and is happy that she can’t remember what big city living was like. She enjoys writing and photography and occasionally directs theatre within a social context like “TimeSlips,” part of an Alzheimer awareness project, and “Out of the Shadows,” a presentation on sexual abuse and domestic violence. Sheila was one of four founding members for the Isadoora Theatre Company. Katie Lott Schnorr spent her childhood summers in Ephraim. After living in Chicago for a decade, she moved to rural Southern Door where she resides with her husband and two young daughters. She teaches second grade in the Sturgeon Bay Public Schools and writes poetry to try to slow down the furious march of time. Copy Editor and former intern of the Peninsula Pulse, Sally Slattery spends the summer seasons working at Wilson’s Restaurant & Ice Cream Parlor, planning winter adventures to such places as New Zealand, Croatia, and Madison, Wisconsin. Though, as she has discovered, all roads lead back to Door County. Bonnie Spielman is currently the Sales Manager for Door County Living and the Peninsula Pulse. With a college background in English and Journalism, she has enjoyed rekindling her interest in writing in her spare time. She discovered the game of golf in her adult years and credits her husband, avid golfer and Gibraltar High School golf coach, Bob, for teaching her the game. She also authors the Peninsula Pulse’s regular golf page “Making the Turn.” Bob and Bonnie own Hat Head and reside in Fish Creek with their dog, Looper. Since setting her post-college, vagabond ways aside, Allison Vroman has settled into life along the Door Peninsula. When not editing the Peninsula Pulse or writing for Door County Living, she can be found on the soccer field coaching the Gibraltar/Sevastopol High School boys soccer team. Any spare time after that is equally divided among drinking coffee, taking naps and training for triathlons. Autumn 2010 Door County Living 11
AROUND THE DOOR
Autumn 2010
enjoy the peninsula & surrounding islands
Cider Party There’s no better way to take in the county’s second most famous orchard fruit than to celebrate it with apple enthusiasts on Washington Island. This year’s Cider Party, which takes place at the Farm Museum on Jackson Harbor Road, will occur on October 9th & 10th. Watch apples being pressed, cider concocted, and caramel apples swirled as you celebrate the harvest. This weekend is about crisp air and crisp apples – but leave time to take in a horse-drawn wagon ride, some blacksmithing, and the on-site historic Icelandic farm. Call (920) 847-2179 for more information.
12 Door County Living Autumn 2010
Elevate Yourself 2010 was designated by the Wisconsin State Legislature as the “Year of the Niagara Escarpment” in an effort to raise awareness of this important geological feature. This 650-mile cliff formation, which stretches from south of Door County in the west clear over to Niagara Falls in the east, is clearly visible in the rocky cliffs and ledges that constitute Door County’s dramatic landscape. The escarpment’s corridor is home to a variety of plant and animal species that are critical to the region’s ecosystem. Ask a local for their favorite lookout point, then take a good long moment to appreciate and ponder the hundreds of millions of years’ worth of rocks on which you stand.
doorcountyliving.com
AROUND THE DOOR
Resounding Art Looking for something off the beaten path? While cruising the back roads of Door County, you may hear the sound of libations and live music off in the distance…and that sound may just be live music emanating from Hands On Art Studio’s Rock ‘n Roll Adult Night on Friday evenings. This kidsfree zone combines local musical talent with the fun you’ll have making your own do-it-yourself art project. Pizza, soft drinks and beer are available on site. Must be 21 or older to participate. For more information call (920) 868-9311.
The Door County YMCA’s 9th Annual Labor Day Weekend Run will be held on September 4th at the Northern Door Program Center in Fish Creek. The event includes a duathlon with a 2-mile run, then a 12-mile bike, followed by another 2-mile run. The event also offers a new pairs relay, a 5k run/walk, and a half-mile youth fun run.
Test your strength and spirit over a threeday, 50-mile walk throughout Door County to benefit multiple sclerosis (MS). The Challenge Walk MS makes an incredible difference in the lives of people living with MS but is also designed to change the lives of those who partake. Participate by yourself, with a team, or by pledging and supporting walkers (a 30-mile option is also available). The event takes place September 24th through 26th.
The Fall 50 is a glorious 50-mile running adventure for solo ultra-marathoners and teams of up to five that begins at the northernmost tip of the peninsula. Traveling down scenic back roads along the western shoreline of Green Bay, the race ends in downtown Sturgeon Bay. The event concludes with an outrageous finish-line party by the shipping channel at Sunset Park. Saturday, October 23rd.
For the latest in Door County news, arts and entertainment check the Peninsula Pulse newspaper or www.ppulse.com.
doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 13
HISTORY BY MYLES DANNHAUSEN JR.
Accidental
Icon Standing amid Standing amid
the suburban-style condominiums that make up the Northhaven development in Fish Creek, one can’t help but be struck by the contrast between what was and what is. Here, where water sprays into the air from the middle of a pond ringed by 141 condominium units, is the land that was once the site of Thumb Fun, hallowed ground to generations of kids on Door County family vacations. When Thumb Fun amusement park closed after the 1998 season, it represented
14 Door County Living Autumn 2010
THUMB FUN AMUSEMENT PARK
the final shove that transitioned Northern Door into a different era, one where the Door County vacation was repackaged to appeal to the Baby Boomer crowd. By contrast, Thumb Fun was the ghouls of the haunted mansion, the unabashed rowdiness of the bumper cars, and the thrills and screams of the Tilt-A-Whirl. It was families, first dates, and the smell of cotton candy and fresh popcorn. “I think that initially Thumb Fun going out of business hurt Door County a lot,” says Digger DeGroot between answering
doorcountyliving.com
HISTORY
(Opposite page) Thumb Fun founder Doug Butchart called the park’s growth “a progression of errors” that he still misses today. (Right) A horse from the pre-World War II carousel he bought at an auction from the old Funtown Amusement Park in Chicago.
questions from a steady stream of firsttime visitors at the Fish Creek information center. “Families missed it a lot. Thumb Fun was iconic.” DeGroot knows a bit about icons. He owned a landmark Door County restaurant, Digger’s Grill, for over 20 years. The creation of Doug Butchart, the “progression of errors” that was Thumb Fun became an attraction unlike any in the county before or since. A nightly county fair that operated from May through Halloween, the park welcomed 3,000 to 4,000 people through its doors on busy summer days. It featured an arcade, a drive-up restaurant, go-karts, bumper boats, a train, and a classic pre-World War II carousel bought at auction from the old Funtown Amusement Park in Chicago. But two attractions stood above the rest. The minigolf course, with its Frankenstein figure towering over the holes alongside Highway 42, and the Haunted House. Butchart turned 80 years old this year, but he remains very much the same caricature of the man that he was when DeGroot says he was nicknamed “the Walt Disney of Door County.” His white bushy eyebrows match his thick hair, and a Santa’s belly sits atop matchstick legs. His mind works
doorcountyliving.com
in tangents, a s an ever-rushing flow of ideas takes him darting from one thought to the next. “He’s a total carnie,” DeGroot says. Even today, nearly 12 years after he closed the park, his eyes spark with excitement as he recounts the story of a ride “find” at an auction or a deal that made good. His inflections are still those of a promoter and salesman. “We set up the American Raceway track, and I tell ya, it was an IN-STANT-TANEOUS SUCCESS.” Thumb Fun began as a dive shop, originally located in Egg Harbor, but moved to Fish Creek in 1961. The property along Highway 42 just north of Gibraltar School had once been a driving range, and Butchart re-opened the range, which proved far more profitable than the dive shop. He soon added mini golf at 50 cents a game, with free popcorn at the end for kids. Then, a man proposed he put a pinball machine in. “I told him, ‘I don’t want those damn things in here, the y make too much noise.’” But Butchart relented and allowed him to bring in a primitive driving game, with the stipulation that the man come pick it up at
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 15
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HISTORY in Fourth of July parades, one of many promotional gimmicks Butchart became famous for.
(Above) A promotional photo for the Haunted House. (Below) Kids ride the Midgo Racer, one of Thumb Fun’s most popular rides.
the end of the week. “He came back in a week and pulled $170 out of it! ‘Holy mackerel,’ I said. ‘Line em up!’” But Thumb Fun didn’t add its defining symbol until 1971. That’s when Butchart, Toby Schlick, and Weldon Blum went in on a deal to build a haunted house on the property. It met with instant success. “We had people lined up, packed in lines four-wide, as soon we opened. We had the thing paid for by Labor Day.” But they stumbled on the secret to its lasting success by accident. To protect the props from getting torn up by kids, they put a person inside the house, dressed in all black to stay hidden, to watch people. Eventually a customer touched him “and when the guy moved, it spooked the heck out of the customer and he went sprinting out. Then, we knew we had something.” The house featured three to seven live actors from then on, possibly the first haunted house to do so. They had to remodel the house to provide secret passages, which became part of the house’s mystery, for the actors to move around without anyone seeing them.
He traveled the Fox Valley, dropping free passes at businesses and offices for use in employee parties. He bought local television spots when it was cheapest, during Saturday morning cartoons, getting kids begging their parents to go to Thumb Fun. Every year he tried to add something new to the park to create buzz, and in 1992, he swung for the fences and installed a water slide at a cost of $1.2 million. “We opened on June 13th and the temperature was 85 degrees. We were swamped!” But the weather didn’t cooperate. The rest of the summer the slide was open only 23 days, and year one was a financial disaster. In years to come though, the slide grew more popular and proved a success. Butchart recounts the history of the water slide and the park for five hours on a Saturday in May, when he was once gearing up for the season. Today, he lives in a non-descript house just a few steps from the old site of Thumb Fun. DeGroot, as fate would have it, now lives in a condo at Northhaven. Butchart’s coffee table is smothered in stacks of tourism trade publications and other industry periodicals. One could be forgiven for thinking
this is not the home of a retired man. We go through shoeboxes full of photos and clips and a garage filled with leftovers from Thumb Fun, mostly of the non-sentimental variety. Before I leave, he tells me of a deal he worked out with Nor-Door Sport and Cyclery, the bike shop down the road, to sell off his stash of blinking red tail-lights for bikes. It’s clear he still loves the business, that he’s still a “carnie.” So why did he get out of it? He says it was a combination of age, opportunity, and a desire to free his daughter and right-hand lady, Peggy, to pursue a life outside the confines of the park. “My biggest problems were labor,” he says. “We had 106 employees that final year. Peggy handled the kids, she was wonderful with employees, but I was a pain in the butt with them after a while.” Peggy wanted a family of her own, not a life confined to the amusement park business. Then, out of the blue, a developer expressed interest in the property. Butchart still owed over a million dollars on the water slide, and the offer covered that and then some. It also offered the chance to set Peggy free. “Peggy said, “Dad, most people retire w h e n they’re 65. And you’re out here at 69 working out here all day long.
The Thumb Fun Hearse became a staple doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 17
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HISTORY doing it alone anymore. I realized it was time, and the buyers had created the opportunity. I thought, geez, this might not come up again.” He didn’t try to find a buyer who would keep the park open, and none came to him. The land was now worth more than the park. By 1998, Butchart was paying six times as much in taxes as he had originally paid for the land.
(Left) Thumb Fun added a water park in the 1990s, which grew into a large attraction after a rough start. (Right) Butchart wishes he could have seen his grandkids ride the carousel.
And I want to have a family.’ And she was right,” Butchart says. “I was not capable of
On Halloween night, 1998, the park opened for the final time. Hundreds showed up, including many former employees. When the lights went out and the last person had been spooked, the Haunted House closed, and so did an era of a different Door County. Butchart, it’s clear, still hasn’t put the place to bed. Near the end of our conversation, he gets juiced up talking about the new plans for the amusement park being built at Coney
Island. He hops on his computer and digs through the daily emails he gets from an amusement park trade publication. He has read them all, ever in search of ideas. Ever a carnie. “If I were younger,” he says wishfully, “I’d go back into it in a minute.”
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WATER LEVELS
Time to Leave the Lakes Alone? After a century and a half of trying to control the Great Lakes, is it time to concede to Mother Nature?
By Myles Dannhausen Jr.
B
ryan Nelson stands on his wooden boardwalk over Lake Michigan, about 100 feet from shore. Well, 10 years ago he’d be standing over Lake Michigan water. Today, he’s surrounded by tall grasses growing from a soft, muddy sludge as he looks back toward his home and business on the Baileys Harbor shore.
Blacksmith Inn owner Bryan Nelson stands at the present water line behind his property. It has receded more than 200 feet in the 10 years since his shoreline was a sand beach. Photo by Dan Eggert. 20 Door County Living Autumn 2010
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WATER LEVELS
The Ephraim shoreline in 2009 (left) and today (right). Photos by Dan Eggert.
Since 1996, Nelson and his wife, Joan Holliday, have owned the Blacksmith Inn on the Shore. Back in the late 1990s, the inn featured a 400-foot stretch of picturesque sand beach just a few steps from the inn’s back door. Today, that beach looks more like a jungle, with thick bushes and trees climbing over our heads and grasses taking root in the sludge. “Eight or nine years ago, we stopped saying beach in our marketing or even on the phone,” Nelson explains with a shrug and a resigned smile. “We don’t want to oversell or mislead people, so we say we have a ‘wild shoreline.’” The Door County shoreline changed rapidly from 1999 to 2003, and that change is on dramatic display in shallow Baileys Harbor. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources defines the edge of Nelson’s lawn as the lake’s high water mark. At the end of the 1990s, Nelson’s property was hit with the duel impacts of Mother Nature and human modification to the shore. The water began to recede at the same time that Baileys Harbor completed an expansion of its town marina just a few hundred feet from Nelson’s beach, causing sediment to build up and catch. Then, the water retreated 80 feet in 2002 and another 160 feet in 2003. By the time the water level at Nelson’s property stabilized a bit in 2003, it had receded hundreds of feet from the high water mark. doorcountyliving.com
Many shoreline property owners are demanding that something be done to bring water levels back up with controls in farflung parts of the Great Lakes system. Nelson hasn’t joined that chorus. “We keep messing with the lakes, and we keep screwing it up,” he says. “Sure, my first instinct is to say, ‘Yes, we should do something,’ but I’m not so sure. What do we really know? We’ve only been keeping records for 140 years. There’s much more that we don’t know than what we do know.” Nelson has worked on the shore of Lake Michigan for 30 years, dating back to his days at Anchor Marine in Sister Bay in 1980. He was there in 1986, when Lake Michigan reached its peak water levels and lake seiches, or storm surges, “brought the lake into the parking lot.” At that time, people were “up in arms” clamoring for regulation of the entire Great Lakes system, but back then it was because the high water levels were creeping in on their property and threatening shorefront homes. Some homes on the shore near Milwaukee were lost, and property owners built retaining walls and installed riprap to save their land and their homes. In response, the International Joint Commission (IJC), the bi-national commission of United States and Canadian representatives that oversees regulation of the lakes,
“Being an engineer and thinking we can control things has taught me that every time you think you can do something, Mother Nature comes back and shows you up.” - Scott Thieme, Chief of Great Lakes Hydraulics for the Detroit District of the Army Corps of Engineers initiated a study that examined the possibility of regulating the entire system. Its study was completed in 1993, near the end of a 30-year period of unprecedented high water levels. The authors ultimately recommended against implementing system-wide controls, calling them too costly and carrying no guarantee that engineering could keep up with Mother Nature. Twelve years later, the commission was taken to task again, this time by shorefront Autumn 2010 Door County Living 21
WATER LEVELS haustive, $3.6 million study of its own, led by Dr. Eugene Stakhiv, co-chair of the International Upper Great Lakes Study board. Its findings were released in July of 2010 and disappointed many concerned about lake levels. The real water thief in the last quarter-century, it determined, was not the St. Clair dredging, but climate change, particularly a drop in rain and snowfall in the Great Lakes Basin. “We’re just not seeing these storm systems the way we used to,” says John Nevin, policy advisor for the IJC study board. A Rhinelander, Wisconsin native who now lives in Michigan, Nevin said the near-drought conditions in the Great Lakes basin from 1998 to 2007 sapped the lakes of the precipitation that feeds the system. But the IJC study didn’t lay the issue to
The Great Lakes are fed by precipitation that falls throughout the entire Great Lakes Basin (shown in dark green). When snow and rainfall decrease in Ontario, less water rest. At a public hearing with three members makes its way into Lake Superior which means lake levels in lakes Michigan and of the IJC in Sturgeon Bay in April, 2010, Huron fall as well. Graphic used with permission of the International Upper Great a crowd of 120 people was united in their Lakes Study Board.
property owners watching their piers become useless amidst the retreating waters. The Georgian Bay Association, a group of Canadian property owners, commissioned a study of their own in 2005. They hired Baird & Associates, an international engineering firm that focused its research on the 97-mile St. Clair River, which connects Lake Huron to Lake Erie. Their study determined that dredging of the St. Clair riverbed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in
1962 altered the river bottom so drastically that it led to continued erosion in the years to follow. That erosion, the study claimed, increased the flow of water from Lake Huron to Lake Erie, draining vast sums from lakes Michigan and Huron (which hydraulically are considered one body of water). The study ignited international controversy. In response, the IJC conducted an ex-
passion to have controls put in place or remedial measures, such as infill, an inflatable bladder, or dams on the St. Clair River.
Frank Forkert of Liberty Grove argued for economic stability, pointing out that much of the region relies on the lakes for its livelihood through boating, fishing, tourism, and shipping. Dr. Stakhiv says controls have been discussed at several points, but the difficult question remains: What is the trigger point that makes you implement such a device?
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WATER LEVELS “It is impossible to find the golden mean,” he said. “We have proposed fixes, but when we go to the public [with a solution and its costs], almost invariably they say, ‘do nothing.’” The lakes have been altered over the past century by numerous dredging projects, locks, channels, and controls. Each effort to fix one problem or benefit one area inevitably has an adverse impact somewhere else. In 1900, engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River to send the city’s sewage downriver to St. Louis. Now the river drains an estimated 2.5 billion gallons of water from Lake Michigan each day, and has opened the door for the Asian Carp, an invasive fish that many believe could devastate the Lake Michigan ecosystem. In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened to tremendous fanfare, connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. It was an engineering marvel that brought ocean-going shipping and economic growth to port cities. But 30 years later a startling influx of invasive species began that continues to alter the lakes in dramatic ways. Zebra mussels, quagga mussels, and grasses are just a few of the more than 60 foreign species that have bummed rides into the lakes on oceangoing vessels. From the late 1800s through 1962, the St. Clair River was mined for resources and then dredged for the shipping industry, draining as much as 21 inches from lakes
Dredging in the St. Clair River in 1962 and earlier lowered water levels on Lake Michigan an estimated 16 inches, and ongoing erosion lowered them another 4 inches. Many who live on the lakes want to see remedial measures installed, such as an inflatable bladder, to make up for the loss. Graphic used with permission of the International Upper Great Lakes Study Board.
Michigan and Huron. Now, with water levels so low that Door County property owners have dredged 367 private channels to access piers and ramps, many want to reverse the effects. Though the initial St. Clair River study was only instructed to look at post-1962 dredging effects, the public outcry for a fix has pushed scientists to dig further. The U.S. and Canadian governments have given
the study board a mandate to look at remedial measures due to climate change, but not due to dredging in the St. Clair River. But Nevin says we may just be chasing our tail. “These all have ecological consequences,” Nevin says. “What would it do to Lake Erie? We can’t make a precipitous decision based on a couple of years of low water levels.” The late Phil Keillor, who was a leading lake expert for the University of Wisconsin
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WATER LEVELS
Zebra mussel shells have collected on the beach at Ilseview Park in Northport. The invasive mussels made their way into the Great Lakes after the St. Lawrence Seaway opened the lakes to ocean-going vessels. Photo by Dan Eggert.
Sea Grant Institute for 30 years, sounded an ominous warning in a 1997 report. Climate change is affecting the paths of storms and is changing precipitation times and levels, he wrote. The unforeseen high water levels of 1986 “washed away an assumption that lake level regulation and human modifications offer enough control.” He added that “the view that data on storms and water levels occurring in the first three-fourths of this century are adequate for predicting future storms and water levels on the Great Lakes was a casualty of the high water level crisis in 1985 and 1986.” In other words, in a changing climate the past is a poor model for measuring the future. The world has experienced three of the warmest years on record in the last decade. On the Great Lakes, this means the lakes don’t freeze
over, and evaporation continues over the winter when ice once put a lid on them. Scott Thieme, Chief of Great Lakes Hydraulics for the Detroit District of the Army Corps of Engineers, says there are two schools of thought on managing the lakes – keep messing with the lakes until we get them under our thumb, or pull all the controls out and go to a natural flow. Thieme doesn’t like either. “I think right now, to try and do something is extremely expensive,” Thieme says. “I’m not sure the St. Lawrence would get through today. We really didn’t talk about the environment back then when it was built.” Then there’s the unknown: climate change. Experts say that the effects of climate change are becoming more pronounced.
24 Door County Living Autumn 2010
Last winter’s snow on Lake Superior was the lowest ever recorded, but then June saw record high levels of precipitation. “We’re in for an era of extremes,” Nevin says. “The climate change models are all over the map, and though the consensus has been that lake levels will go down, some models have them going up. The science is imprecise.” Thieme says that if one broadens their vision to look 25 or 50 years out, it puts the limits of human ingenuity in perspective. “If we’re complaining right now, what if lake levels drop another two to three feet?” he asks. “We might see major changes in navigation and public safety. Maybe we set another record high in 20 years. In 2007, when we had the record low for Lake Superior in August, we got 10 inches of rain in September. So as soon as we opened our doorcountyliving.com
WATER LEVELS
(Above) Graphic used with permission of the International Upper Great Lakes Study Board. (Below) Lake Michigan water levels have fluctuated radically over the last century. The chart shows water surface elevations in meters. Graphic used with permission of the International Upper Great Lakes Study Board.
mouths we were putting our foot in it.” Thieme referred to a study he read that said Great Lakes shoreline property changes hands, on average, every seven years, which
may cause a bit of a short-term memory problem when it comes to lake levels. People expect their property to stay the same as the day they bought it, no alterations by
the neighbor, no new zoning guidelines, and certainly no change to their shoreline. Lake levels on all five Great Lakes have been below average for the last 10 years. But beginning in the mid-1960s they were above average for the better part of three decades. “A lot of people got used to those 30 years,” Thieme says. In our never-ending quest for solutions, we rarely stop to consider whether doing nothing at all would be more financially sound in the long run. It’s not in our nature. But everything we do on the lakes to boost the economy of one region or another seems to cost someone else, and everybody else further down the road.
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Autumn 2010 Door County Living 25
WATER LEVELS
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“Being an engineer and thinking we can control things,” Thieme says, “has taught me that every time you think you can do something, Mother Nature comes back and shows you up.” Back in the late 1980s, Keillor appeared at a forum about high water levels at the Sister Bay Town Hall. Something he said then
sticks with Nelson to this day. “Humans influence,” Nelson recalled Keillor saying as we made our way back up the boardwalk toward his old shoreline, “but nature controls the water levels of the Great Lakes.” Consider, for instance, that more water evaporates from Lake Superior in a single day than flows through the St. Clair River all year.
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WATER LEVELS
Door County Land Trust
The drop in lake levels is apparent in Ephraim’s shallow harbor. Photo by Dan Eggert.
Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Nature Preserve, est. 2009
As Nelson and I walk back toward the inn, I ask him if he worries about the effect the slipping lake level has on his property value. “I’m sure I’ve lost a little bit,” he says, “but that pales in comparison to the big picture.” We enter into the “jungle” portion of his wild shoreline, where trees, grass, and
bushes form a canopy over the boardwalk. Nelson finds the beauty in Mother Nature’s change. “This is filled with birds,” he says. “It’s essentially an extension of the Ridges Sanctuary. If it weren’t for the loss of the beach I think you’d say it’s really quite beautiful.”
GILLS ROCK STONEWARE
Since 1986, the Door County Land Trust has been protecting Door County’s finest open spaces and wild places. Please visit our website for directions to our preserves and to make an on-line, tax-deductible contribution of support. P.O. Box 65DCL Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235 920.746.1359
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Autumn 2010 Door County Living 27
DOOR TO NATURE ARTICLE & PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROY LUKES
Old-Growth Forests Growing up in
the small town of Kewaunee, especially during my high school days from 1944 to 1947, taking long weekend hikes in our favorite woods was an absolute tonic, a necessity, for a few of my best friends and me. The privately-owned mixed hardwoods bordering the Kewaunee River on the north and west sides provided us with a virtual wilderness where we seldom met another person. Even though the woods had all been logged, the trees had been felled using cross-cut saws, and the logs had been skidded out in winter using horses, resulting in a minimum of damage to the understory plants. Plenty
of big trees remained, and those secondgrowth woods were wonderful for hiking. Perhaps it was in a high school English class where I was introduced to the poem “Evangeline,” by Longfellow, and was impressed by the first line: “This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks…” Those words, along with an ongoing love for the forest, have remained with me through the years. Little could I have dreamed after graduating from high school that within 17 years I would be actually working in a “forest primeval,” as manager and naturalist at The Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor. Even though some logging had occurred on quite a bit of the
28 Door County Living Autumn 2010
property, there still existed plenty of large trees in the 200 to 300-year-old range. At least some of that property qualified as an old-growth forest, generally defined as an undisturbed forest for 200 or more years. I soon was introduced to Toft Point, Miss Emma Toft having been on the Ridges’ board of directors from its start in 1937, and this was, and still is, a genuine “virgin” forest as Emma called it. Some of the towering White Pines, which had been toppled by the furious Armistice Day Blow of 1940, were sawn into lumber using a portable saw rig in the Big Field at the point. There, the thick layer of sawdust had remained virtually unchanged, nearly 25 years after the doorcountyliving.com
DOOR TO NATURE
(Left) Natural plant succession has been at work over the past 300 years at the Toft Point State Natural Area, maintaining the old-growth forest. (Middle) A healthy ground cover of mosses, ferns, shrubs and tree seedlings at Meridian County Park will result in a beautiful old-growth forest in the future. (Right) One of the finest mixed northern forests in eastern Wisconsin, where large natural stands of Red Pine and White Pine trees mingle with towering hardwood trees, exists near the southern border of Door County.
storm, when Emma first showed it to me in 1964. She maintained that the sawdust had remained in such wonderful condition because it was from virgin trees. Today, the term old-growth forest has become the preferred description of the socalled “first,” “primary,” “original” or “virgin” forest. According to the October 2004 issue of the Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine, “Surveys conclude that only about one percent of Wisconsin’s old-growth forests remain in tact. According to a 1995 study by the U.S. Department of Interior’s National Biological Service, less than five percent of the lower 48 states’ original old-growth forests remain and most of this is concentrated on publicly owned lands in the Pacific Northwest.” But, 200 years ago this was not the case – in the early 1800s Door County must have
been pure primeval splendor. The relatively small number of Native Americans in this region then had little effect on the land, despite the fact that they did make use of fire to open up land for agriculture, to improve game habitat, to reduce insect pests in their camps and small villages, to remove cover from potential enemies, to improve conditions for better growth of berries, and, especially, to drive game. Nonetheless, forests were of value in that they supplied those early people with wood, fur and food. The arrival of the early European settlers to Door County quickly changed the picture in the widely scattered old-growth forests. There was much wood to be had. In the appendix of my book, Toft Point, a Legacy of People and Pines, John W. Brann Sr. writes about early Baileys Harbor: “Pic-
This is the Pine Forest Primeval where old fallen trees create sunny openings which promote a healthy and important understory of plants.
ture if you will a continuous pile of wood extending from Baileys Harbor to Sister Bay, a distance of nine miles, and you will have a pretty good idea of the amount of cordwood (note: one cord is 8 ft. long, 4 ft. wide and 4 ft. high) shipped out of Baileys
Read Roy’s “Door to Nature” column each week in the Peninsula Pulse or online at www.ppulse.com. doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 29
DOOR TO NATURE 300 to 400 years ago with a low intensity fire, perhaps started by lightning or by the Native Americans. A forest of pines requires a burned-over landscape to begin growing and become established.
shipping out vast quantities of wood. One can only be thankful that chain saws had not yet been invented!
Where else can one go today to experience an old-growth forest? One of the finest in the Midwest is the Sylvania Wilderness of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Another excellent site is the Cathedral of Pines located three miles southwest of Lakewood, Wisconsin. This is one of the few remaining stands of old-growth pine in Wisconsin. It’s a 20-acre parcel in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest with pine trees ranging from 200 to 400 years old. The state chapter of The Nature Conservancy purchased a beautiful tract of old-growth woods known as Jung’s Woods about seven miles west of Shawano. One of North America’s very finest old-growth forests, supporting enormous Sitka Spruces, Western Hemlocks, Douglas Firs and other trees, which we were privileged to see, is the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park in Washington State. Visit this world-famous area if you can.
Toft Point, now the Toft Point State Natural Area, contains one of the very few several hundred-acre pine forests along the entire west shore of Lake Michigan that escaped the saw and remains essentially an old-growth forest today. The reason that Toft Point has such a fine stand of White and Red Pines is directly related to the fact that the area was burned completely over
A classic research project was undertaken years ago at what today is the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, to illustrate plant succession from sand dune to climax forest – a forest which, under natural and ideal conditions, theoretically will continue to regenerate itself for hundreds of years. Today you can see this fascinating process, first-hand, at Whitefish Dunes State Park. Even though
Large Eastern Hemlock, Paper Birch, Yellow Birch, Sugar Maple and American Beech trees are included in the pristine second-growth forest at Meridian County Park.
Harbor in 1869. To this pile of 8,300 cords add 650,000 feet of pine lumber and you will realize that Baileys Harbor was a busy port.” Vast stands of old-growth Eastern Hemlocks were cut down, and only the bark was shipped to the leather tanneries to the south. Many schooner loads of cedar shingles, along with thousands of cedar poles and fence posts, were also sold. Bear in mind that other villages situated along the shores of Lake Michigan and Green Bay were also
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American Beech leaves add color to the fall canopy at Toft Point State Natural Area.
logging was done there many years ago, one can nevertheless see many fine trees along with a healthy understory of plants. Forests in Door County which were logged many years ago, but where a considerable number of trees were also allowed to go uncut, are slowly but very nicely returning to being old-growth forests. One excellent example is Ellison Bluff County Park, one of the premium state natural areas, where a beautiful and fairly long but easily-hiked, handicapped-accessible loop trail has been established. Check out other county parks and also Door County Land Trust sites, such as Lautenbach’s Woods, which have been permanently preserved. Rock Island State Park also boasts an oldgrowth forest. One of the ongoing problems which becomes worse in severity each year is that of invasive pests, plants and insects being brought into the forests mainly by people, but also by wildlife. Several of the most threatening are Garlic Mustard, Buckthorn, Autumn Olive, various exotic honeysuckles, doorcountyliving.com
Forget-Me-Not, and Hound’s Tongue. All are capable of eliminating the growth of native plants, upsetting natural plant succession and greatly reducing biodiversity. In the case of perhaps the worst plant of all, Garlic Mustard, not even native seedling trees can grow within dense stands of this alien invasive. Add to this short list of invasives the dreaded Emerald Ash Borer, which seriously threatens millions of ash trees of all species in the state, and you should easily sense the glaring need for people to act accordingly to help. Many of our state parks, various private organizations such as The Ridges Sanctuary, and state natural areas including Toft Point have established active friends groups which have been helping considerably to keep these valuable areas as wild and natural as possible. Numerous second-growth forests, oldgrowth forests in the making, will be enjoyed by countless people in generations to come. It is our responsibility to ensure that this will happen. Please help if you can!
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ART SCENE BY SHEILA SABREY-SAPERSTEIN
“One eye sees, the other feels.”
Suzanne Rose: Fine Art Photographer
“Dancing Trees”
How m a n y
people receive original black and white Ansel Adams-type photographs embedded in an email or a Sally Mann-influenced image of an eight-year-old daughter printed on a linen note card? One never gets used to such elegance and artful generosity as a friend of Suzanne Rose.
“In Between”
The word “elegance” embraces the ideas of grace and sophistication, but its literal meaning, “using only that which is appropriate,” suggests the contemporary term “minimalism,” a more accurate description of Suzanne’s artistic sensibilities. This is her style and it can be observed operating in most areas of her life: in her home, the clothes and colors she wears, even her work
area is artfully and simply arranged. This personal style is reflected and extended into the images she creates – it was even given a name by a Washington Post art critic: “[She is] a straight shooter with a kind of spare visual poetry that speaks volumes in a mood of ‘Zen Americana.’”
“Baby’s Rocker”
“Fresh Bar of Soap”
32 Door County Living Autumn 2010
Suzanne calls herself a “mindful minimalist,” and it is this quality of mindfulness that
doorcountyliving.com
ART SCENE has shaped her career. She uses German Expressionist painter Paul Klee’s phrase, “One eye sees, the other feels,” to describe the gestalt of the in/out, ying/yang, real/imagined working together in zen-like synchronicity and purposefulness in her work and in her life. Photographic masters believe that clicking the shutter is not about reproducing images; it’s about the light. Using Ansel Adams’s legacy of “painting with light,” Suzanne’s compositions often take on the quality of a still life – the Renaissance in black and white. Her process is simple and because she has a strong resolve for traditional photography, she uses classic dark room techniques. She uses a Hasselblad medium format film camera, develops and enlarges the negatives and then prints her usual 9” by 9” images. Her latest area of exploration has been the printing process, and she’s accepted the benefits of digital scanning in order to make larger prints. In typical fashion, she committed herself to taking this new step by accepting a commission for these larger 23” by 23” pieces at Mercy Medical Center’s Cancer Center in Oshkosh. Suzanne studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she met husband Jim, a fine art furniture fabricator and artist. They live with eight-year-old daughter Delilah in a restored 100-year-old farmhouse in southern Door County with a garden lovingly tended by all three. Jim’s studio, where he crafts award-winning steel furniture for an international market, is just down the road. Though they travel to Chicago and other cities for an “urban fix,” they are truly tied to their community, evidenced in Suzanne’s first major exhibition, “In Walking Distance.” The preface to it is revealing: “When we walked through the door of the old brick farmhouse, I turned to my husband and said, ‘I’m home.’ At that moment, we became part of a small rural crossroads town in northeast Wisconsin…a community that all residents seem to mutually respect and hold dear…This has been a lesson in seeing what is. Looking no further doorcountyliving.com
Portrait of Suzanne Rose.
than one’s own community to find beauty, substance, fulfillment, possibly even sanctuary – to connect with one’s own personal landscape and to celebrate all that is within walking distance.” Her second series, “Close to Home,” in 2006, used the same lens, same eye looking at the gems right in front, but her introduction goes deeper in capturing the essence of her photography and the woman behind it: “When our daughter came, our home embraced a family. Life became richer, more
vibrant, more real than ever before. I began to see our daily life in our surroundings with fresh eyes. All became intensely vivid, finding beauty in the simplest things. The living became clearly separate from the in-between moments…The moments I find the quiet within myself, my family, our home. The meditative moments so close to my heart… so close to home.” It is hard to imagine when looking at Suzanne’s credentials today that she began photography with a class taught by David
“Laundry Day” Autumn 2010 Door County Living 33
ART SCENE
“Winter Workshop at Gills Rock”
Currie at the Peninsula School of Art only 11 years ago. Her emergence as a professional in such a short time can be attributed to her marketing skills and “grantsmanship,” but mostly to the clearly defined personal vision used in choosing quality and challenging projects, workshop opportunities and exhibition possibilities. Her growth as an artist has been methodical – well thought out and executed imaginatively with a focused progression. For her efforts, she has been rewarded handsomely: she was a recipient of a threeyear residency in Miami Beach, Florida from the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts; received financial awards granted by the Peninsula Arts As-
sociation and the Wisconsin Arts Board for her projects (“Close to Home” and “In Walking Distance”); and she has the distinct honor of being the first individual artist to receive the Fred Alley Visionary Award from the Peninsula Arts Association. Her images can be found in many public and private collections, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Racine Art Museum in Racine, Wisconsin; the Chazen Museum of Art, in Madison, Wisconsin; the Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh, Wisconsin; and in the private collections of Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton and Ellsworth and Carla Peterson. Her most recent accomplishment outside of Door County was with the Paine Art Center in Oshkosh where as artist-in-residence for 10 months she exhibited “Meditations on Oshkosh” and penned an online journal: “Writing the journal was one of the most soul searching and rewarding projects I’ve done, pairing my images with text and exploring history as well as my own creativity,” she says. To Suzanne’s delight, the Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh purchased the entire 22-image exhibit titled “Portrait of a Community,” which she created for them in conjunction with the Paine project.
“Lowell Louis” 34 Door County Living Autumn 2010
“Doctor Poet”
Despite making a name for herself statewide, Suzanne is dedicated to supporting local talent. She heads the Photography Department at the Peninsula School of Art and teaches classes there, as she does for The Clearing Folk School in Ellison Bay. She mentors young aspiring photographers through the “Exposure to Creativity” program offered to Gibraltar students by the Hardy Gallery, recently teaching a class in “Traditional Photography and the Darkroom.” As a teacher, one holds in highest regard the opinion of your mentor and so this statement from master photographer Dan Anderson is possibly Suzanne’s highest reward to date: “Suzanne Rose has become a doorcountyliving.com
ART SCENE dear friend in the short while that we have taught together and photographed together. I deeply admire her work. She lives her photography in a way that few photographers are able to do and never seems to ‘turn off’ her photographic vision. She has a singular ability in her work to show us the beauty and quiet nobility that resides in the commonplace objects of our lives. I always look forward to what next she chooses to celebrate with her camera. Simply put, she inspires me.” Suzanne has experienced several major career jumps but nothing compares to two events coming up. In 2011, she will travel to China as artist-in-residence at the Linden Centre in the Yunnan Province and will coteach a photography workshop, “Spirit in the Middle Kingdom,” with international photographer, Doug Beasley. In 2012, the Miller Art Museum in Sturgeon Bay will exhibit their first one-woman photography show entitled “Journey to the Middle Kingdom” – a retrospective of Suzanne’s images from her China experience. One can only hope for a preview photo embedded in an email from the Yunnan province. Namasté, Suzanne.
Landscape Art
Steve Wysocki
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Joy Kruse
Gallery & Coffee Shop
If interested in participating in the China workshop contact www.lindens.cn. To contact or to order Suzanne’s prints, visit www. suzannerosephotography.com.
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2 miles south of Algoma on Hwy 42 “Fourth of July” doorcountyliving.com
open daily 9-6 thru Oct. then long weekends Autumn 2010 Door County Living 35
ART SCENE BY SALLY SLATTERY
Nik of All Trades
A Door County Artist of Multiple Mediums
Nik Garvoille
is unassuming, a laid-back, soft-spoken man with a lot of talent, a lot. On a sunny afternoon, he and I sit outside Good Eggs with our breakfast burritos, drinking coffee and orange juice, as we often do as coworkers of the Peninsula Pulse. However, this particular afternoon I have a notepad with a list of questions and discover there is a lot I did not know about my friend. “Nest”
Since moving to Door County in 2004 as a full-time resident, Garvoille has been
36 Door County Living Autumn 2010
a bartender, a waiter, a carpenter, a painter, and a baker. “My first job was at Sweeties Pies in Fish Creek,” he says. “I moved to Door County because I had friends working here, and I was very sick of the city. I thought this would be a good place to get a jump on an art career, though I didn’t really use my design schooling for three years.” Though his employment may not have reflected his artistic ambitions (like so many Door County employees and residents), in his spare time he continued to create art. doorcountyliving.com
ART SCENE
(Above left) “As the cornfields as my witness, I’ve run out of brains.” (Above right) Nik Garvoille reads from Knock at Plum Bottom Pottery. 300 people were in attendance to celebrate the launching of the eighth edition of the publication.
In fact, in his first year in Door County, after attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where he studied painting, graphic design, and fine art, and finishing a bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota, Garvoille submitted a portfolio to the Peninsula School of Art’s “Emerging Artists’ Program.”
Garvoille states that his interest in art began when he was four or five years old: “I used to paint with my Grandpa Elvin, mostly birds from the encyclopedia.” He spent a significant amount of time with his grandfather between ages six and 10, while his mother attended nursing school.
“Young artists submit portfolios, and they choose the best in the surrounding counties,” he says. “I was the only Door County artist to be picked that year.”
“He watched and taught me about painting with watercolor. He was a musician who cooked liked crazy, who came to art a little bit later in life,” remembers Garvoille.
doorcountyliving.com
Aside from using watercolor as a boy, Garvoille remembers “always writing stories and illustrating them, using Transformers, Ninja Turtles, or robots” for inspiration. Now as an artist, Garvoille’s favorite medium is oil paint. He uses oil on wood, paint on wood panel, or gouache (similar to watercolor) on paper. He also writes stories, creates comics (including the popular “Up Nort” featured in the Peninsula Pulse), and digital art. Autumn 2010 Door County Living 37
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38 Door County Living Autumn 2010
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ART SCENE
When asked how he describes his work, Garvoille ponders for a moment and lists a few relevant terms: “Fantasy, new expressionist with comic book lines, neo-Flemish, avant-garde.” One of Garvoille’s major contributions to the Door County arts community is Knock, a free literary journal that contains work by a number of Door County artists, writers, and poets. Currently on
its eighth issue, the journal is published twice a year. Garvoille states that the concept for Knock was born during a Door County winter when he was unemployed, right before he began working at the Peninsula Pulse. “I realized there wasn’t a lit magazine or anything,” Garvoille says. “I liked making books and stuff, and it was a void that needed to be filled. It’s an outlet, especially for young people; there is so much talent in the schools up here, so many talented people.” For the first issue, Garvoille relied on himself and friends for content. “I had a whole bunch of stories I wrote and thought about publishing, so I had that to work with,” he says. “I asked friends to contribute; I think it was me and three other people – there were maybe five things in the whole issue. I funded it myself. I stapled it myself.” He continues to put in a lot of time and effort, sorting through submissions, getting sponsors, doing the layout, the cover, the design, and delivering the publication to businesses all over the county. Garvoille states that he has received “a lot of good feedback” for the publication. “It’s paying for itself now,” he smiles. As far as his current employment, Garvoille works as a graphic designer for the Peninsula Pulse. Since 2007, he has learned a lot about the newspaper industry.
“Across the bar #3” doorcountyliving.com
The 2009 and 2010 covers of the Peninsula Pulse’s annual literary issue.
“It’s pretty awesome to use your degree for work,” he says. “It’s cool. You have to be creative within this box, and it’s a challenge.” One of his favorite issues of the Peninsula Pulse is the Literary Issue, in which he has a lot of creative leeway. Regarding the arts community in general, Garvoille believes that “it is getting a lot cooler – lots of cool stuff. I think it’s getting more innovative. The Peninsula School of Art is branching out in new mediums, and there are a lot of younger gallery owners now, like Chad Luberger at Plum Bottom Pottery.” In his spare time, Garvoille spends a lot of time hiking, treating himself to a nice meal at T. Ashwells, or hanging out at the Autumn 2010 Door County Living 39
Whitefish Bay Farm Gallery
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1 ½ miles east of Hwy 57 on County WD www.whitefishbayfarm.com/gallery.htm
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40 Door County Living Autumn 2010
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ART SCENE
“February portrait”
AC Tap, which has become another venue for his artistic ambitions. “I am always at the Tap,” laughs Garvoille. “We did a poetry reading at the Tap and read selections from Ralph Murre’s poetry book [Barcode] about bars. We all drank and read poetry.” In the vein of Murre’s poetry book, Garvoille is working on a series of paintings about people at the bar. “The paintings
Garvoille at age four.
show people drinking, having a good time or a not good time,” he says. As for the future, Garvoille, who has spent every winter in Door County since moving to the peninsula, has aspirations of attempting a winter elsewhere: “I have a lot of pulls from big cities. I have friends in New York City, Chicago, and Seattle. I think I neglected getting on with stuff that scares the heck out of me. It’s very easygoing up here – you have to make projects to get challenged.”
Through all his various projects and jobs in Door County, Garvoille has challenged and created opportunities not only for him, but also for others. Though the city life may steal him away for the winter, he is certain he will be back for summer seasons to come. For more information or to see more of Garvoille’s work, visit nikenji.wordpress.com or become a fan of Knock on Facebook.com.
Connie Glowacki - Artist “Watercolors with Spirit”
Jeanne & David Aurelius
Est. 1976
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OPEN 10-5 Located North of Sister Bay 11650 Hwy 42 Ellison Bay, WI 54210 Email: jaureliu@itol.com Phone: 920.854.5027 www.claybaypottery.net doorcountyliving.com
Limited Edition Giclee
Gallery located in the Top of the Hill Shops in Fish Creek – Unit B23 www.connie-glowacki.com watercolor@connie-glowacki.com 608-774-4737 Autumn 2010 Door County Living 41
MUSIC SCENE BY EMILIE COULSON
Family, Love and History
Singer/Songwriter: Katie Dahl
Katie Dahl performs with Eric Lewis at T. Ashwell’s restaurant in Ellison Bay. Photo by Dan Eggert.
On any given
summer day, you might find Katie Dahl picking cherries on her family’s orchard north of Sister Bay or singing about the same fruit trees before a packed house of adoring fans. This singer-songwriter is by no means new to Door County, where she has been a
smiling face all around performing arts venues since she was a child. But now, a year after the release of Katie Dahl’s first album, County Line, the crowds Katie plays for continue to grow above and below the Door/ Kewaunee borderline. With a voice time and again compared to honey, and her melodic guitar-picking behind it, Katie reflects on family, love, and history, often set against
42 Door County Living Autumn 2010
a Door County backdrop, in her original songs. Katie’s career as a solo performer is relatively new, and this Renaissance woman credits much of her inspiration to summers above the county line. Raised in the Twin Cities, Katie grew up singing with her mother in church, and she says, “My mom always listened to really great folk music – Alison Krauss, Mary doorcountyliving.com
MUSIC SCENE
Album artwork for Dahl’s CD “County Line.”
Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea.” But her love of music compounded every summer of her childhood when she visited her grandparents on their orchard farmhouse off of Highway 57. In Door County, Katie went with her family to American Folklore Theatre (AFT), which featured folk musicians as actors. One influence that Katie will never forget was AFT’s 1994 production of Goodnight Irene at the Ephraim Town Hall. In describing the show, which celebrated the music of The Weavers, she talks about the actors’ passion for the message in the music. “It was so related to social change, and it was effective,” she says. “That was when I got the folk music bug, and I started listening to everyone I could.” Still, she didn’t consider sharing her love of music with an audience. When she thinks back to college and the question of what she would do after graduation, she says, “I would tell people, ‘Well, if I could do anything, I would be a musician, but since I can’t do that, I think I’ll be a teacher.’” Besides the fact that she also loved teaching, Katie is not sure why she didn’t see herself performing, except that, as she says, “I tried writing a song my freshman year, and it was horrifically bad.” For anyone who has heard Katie’s original music, or read any of her pieces that she regularly writes for such publications as the Peninsula Pulse or this one, this statement will be as amusing as it is hard to believe.
her stiff right hand. That summer, following her love of the arts and her strong desire to be back in Door County, she interned at Door Shakespeare, where she was thrown headfirst into being a performer. She played guitar on stage for the plays, learning new chords, stage presence, and how to run through the forest with an instrument. “It made me go outside of my comfort zone because I had to play in front of people,” Katie says, and she is grateful for the opportunity, one of the many when others took her more seriously than she took herself and propelled her forward. It was at Door Shakespeare that Katie Dahl realized that Door County was filled with music at every level. “People play music around bonfires, and singing at those bonfires with my guitar, I had an audience of people I’d admired since I was a kid. That motivated me.” She began to pick with ac-
tors and professional musicians in Door County, like Karen Mal, Eric Lewis, and Claudia Russell. Katie says of Claudia, who performed regularly with AFT in addition to her own solo tours, “I had admired Claudia so much as a singer-songwriter, and getting to know her and having her take the idea seriously that I might want to be a singer-songwriter, too, was really important.” Claudia is based in Northern California, and plays with her band occasionally in Wisconsin. She says, “I’m impressed how Katie’s gone full ahead. She’s really embraced her music fully.” And Claudia, who has been nominated for numerous songwriting awards, speaks as both a mentor and peer of Katie. “Her songwriting voice is pretty sublime, and I love her singing voice – she’s my favorite alto. She can go low!” Katie has returned each summer as a company member and musician for Door
Friends and musicians join Katie Dahl to record the chorus for one of her new songs at Utopia Sound Wurks studio.
When she was 19, Katie slipped on the ice and broke her wrist, and this was just the push she needed to set down her oboe and learn the guitar, holding a pick with doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 43
You Create your own Art We make art fun!
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44 Door County Living Autumn 2010
doorcountyliving.com
MUSIC SCENE dia Russell – Katie decided to record her first album in the winter of 2009.
Katie Dahl (left) performs with Jessica Holland at Base Camp in Sister Bay.
Shakespeare or AFT, gaining exposure and skill. In the winters, she continues to gather the life experiences she can later use to write her original songs. She spent a year fulfilling her other chosen career path by teaching English in France. And she has spent winters in Boston and Chicago, writing music and working at famous folk music venues, Club Passim and the Old Town School of Folk Music, respectively. With tales of places she’d been and the home far away in Door County she could never get out of her head – and with the blessing of established musicians like Clau-
“Here is another instance of other people taking me more seriously than I took myself,” she says, and she is so happy they did. “I was going to make an EP, just to have something to sell at shows. I didn’t have enough songs to record a whole CD anyway.” But Katie was surprised at how much fun it was to record, and suddenly it was a much bigger project than she’d anticipated. Surrounded by many favorite local musicians to back her up on her recordings, Katie wrote more songs and made a full-length album. For much of the winter, Katie worked in the Sister Bay recording studio Utopia Soundwurks, run by Dave Alley. Dave instructed her in every step of the process, from recording initial tracks to mixing the sounds. “Making a CD is a process that builds its own momentum. It was a pro-
cess that, when I was done with it, it had catapulted me unwittingly into the world of people who make music,” she says. Of her album County Line, Katie says, “It felt like a good time marker, literally a ‘record,’ of where I was as a musician at that point.” But she hasn’t stopped, and this past summer, while playing gigs all over Door County and beyond, she continued to write new material. In her lyrics, Katie’s sense of place remains strong, as in the new song “Hometown Tables.” The chorus epitomizes Katie’s wise and warm outlook: “I’ll break my bread at hometown tables in the company of friends.” Katie is winning fans with her genuine love of music, home, and history, her laugh and her storytelling. When Claudia Russell describes Katie as a musician, she says, “She’s like a redwood tree. She’s going to be around for a long time. She has that kind of growth in her.”
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CAMEOS BY ALLISON VROMAN
Sailing to Door County on a Trolley A.J. Frank & the Evolution of Entertainment on Wheels
46 Door County Living Autumn 2010
doorcountyliving.com
CAMEOS
To say that
Oprah Winfrey is responsible for all those red trolleys seen around Door County is not an exaggeration. The multi-million dollar queen of daytime television didn’t back the company financially or even tout it in O magazine; but, had it not been for an Oprah episode in the late ‘90s, A.J. Frank would not have had the catalyst he needed to pick up his life from the suburbs of Milwaukee and begin Door County Trolley. The episode, which A.J.’s wife Cheryl encouraged him to watch one day when he came home from work, outlined the idea that everyone has a destiny, comparing it to a “mothership.” Oprah raised the question, “Are you sailing toward your mothership or are you sailing away from it?” “I couldn’t even see what my mothership was,” said A.J. “It was a really good wake-up call,” said Cheryl. “He had a realization that he was nowhere near his destiny; he was moving in the opposite direction.” From the show, A.J. heeded the advice: just do it. Oprah encouraged people to do just one thing a day – it didn’t have to be anything major – to turn their ship around and head toward their destiny. A.J. started taking action each and every day toward his new future. One day he called the Door County Chamber of Commerce and had them send a visitor’s guide. Another day he researched trolleys on the internet. On another occasion, he found himself on a trolley tour in Savannah, Georgia. On a winter weekend he travelled to Door County where he discovered the booth behind Orchard Country Winery & Market that could be his depot. From the small efforts of those days, A.J. created a business plan. He found himself asking: Do I quit my job, sell my house, buy a trolley and move to Door County? “That’s exactly what I did,” said A.J. In May of 2000, he quit his nursing job in Milwaukee, purchased a trolley that his father-in-law helped him track down in doorcountyliving.com
Stillwater, Minnesota, and decided to take a chance on a life in Door County – a place he and his wife had vacationed. “We just absolutely loved the area,” said Cheryl. “I paint, so with so many artists up here, it was wonderful for me in that regard. It was also the beauty of the area and wanting to get out of the suburbs. It is a good place to raise a family.” “I thought the nostalgia of the trolley and the historic nature of Door County would kind of fit,” said A.J. Cheryl also admitted that “at the time one of the driving factors was that our children were very small, and you want to instill that dream into your kids – that they can do or be whatever they want to. So, A.J. was wanting to be an example for our children.” Ten years later, Door County Trolley has grown from one trolley into a fleet of nine. The company offers an array of tours, as well as the option for private rentals. And, all along the way, A.J. not only tried to provide an example for his children – now 12, 10 and 8 years old – but he also infused their presence into the business. Each of the trolleys are named after his children: Jack, Eric and Katie. “I kept spinning that cycle,” said A.J. “So there’s ones, twos, and threes of Jacks, Erics, and Katies out there.” When A.J. started the business, he recognized that, should the venture fail, he could fall back on his degree in nursing from Carroll College and the 14 years of experience he had gained. While he has not gone back to nursing, he does not look at that experience as a waste of time. “I learned a lot about people, and how to react to people,” A.J. said. “When you deal with the gamuts – from weddings to tours, to problems, to good things – you have to know how to treat people and treat different personalities. And I think that’s what nursing gave me.” Another aspect of Door County Trolley that A.J has enjoyed over the years is the opportunity to entertain people. When he was growing up, he had always wanted to be an actor, and the trolley tours provided an op-
A.J. FRANK’S SOUNDBITES ON BUSINESS The Coke Can vs. the Coke Product “Everybody, I guess, praises their staff, but for me, I really kind of correlate it to Coca-Cola. Everybody knows the Coke can – it’s red and it’s semi-attractive – but the Coke inside, if it wasn’t good, nobody would buy it. And that’s exactly what I have: the trolleys are beautiful; they’re attractive; they get you in. And then when you’re in, it better be a good product while you’re on it. And that’s what my drivers are – they’re the Coke product – they are my product. The trolley is a fancy package, but my product is great entertainment and a good time – and that’s really what I focus on. The trolley is only the Coke can.” Providing the “Wow!” “I try to utilize the great places that make Door County great. I think most people will pay a little bit more money to have a better experience…I want something that when [guests] get there it’s a ‘Wow!’…I want unique, knock-your-socks-off places.” Establishing Relationships in Door County “Those first five years were not very easy. I was not a Door County native and that carries a lot of weight here…[Locals] say ‘Wait five years and if you’ve established a great business, we will recommend you. We’re not going to do it before five years, because we see a lot of fly-by-nights.’ So, the fabric of Door County natives is huge up here. But I think you can break that wall once you become established and you’re part of it… You’re still not a native…but they’ll accept you…which is unique to any other area. I don’t care if you’re in Milwaukee or Green Bay, nobody asks you where you’re from – everybody is from somewhere else – but Door County holds that allegiance to their natives. I think once you break in that fabric they’re apt to know what you’re about, and word of mouth goes a long way.” Beating the Seasonal Challenges “The money comes in June through October and you have to budget up until May. What I find is I actually like the off-season because a lot of people close down, and that’s when I make hay. Because if there’s nothing else to do, if you have something offered, you win [by] default…I’ve really increased some of my tours with my Winter Wonderland; I do a Progressive Dinner. I’m steadily adding stuff in the spring season, so I actually think it’s a positive thing. I think those seasons can be all right…It’s a tougher season. You have to be a lot more creative. You have to think like the people coming that season. Winter and spring [bring] different travelers than summer and fall. You have to find out what their interest is, and you have to cater to it.” Autumn 2010 Door County Living 47
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Between Fish Creek & Egg Harbor, 920.868.3287 off Highway 42 www.peninsulaplayers.com 48 Door County Living Autumn 2010
doorcountyliving.com
CAMEOS portunity for him and his staff to put on a show – they are providing an attraction, not just transportation.
Cheryl is grateful that all of those extra efforts have helped the business reach a point where A.J. can take a day off each week.
“A lot of my tours are not just drive from point A to point B,” said A.J. “I do not do that. I am theme-based, narrated tours – from ghost tours to lighthouse tours – and [my guests] have to be entertained.”
“We try to keep Sunday as family day,” said Cheryl. In addition to spending time on their jet skis or playing baseball in the yard, she said, “This year we are trying to make a real effort to do some of those great touristy things that, as people who live here, we sometimes forget about. We’ve gone on the Harbor Lady and to the drive-in. It’s been really fun.”
Carrie Lautenbach-Viste, Co-general Manager of Orchard Country Winery & Market, where Door County Trolley has leased space since its inception, admitted that the partnership has faired far better than they could have imagined. “I don’t know that we always thought it would be a great fit more than 10 years ago when he walked in one winter weekend, but it’s grown to be a perfect fit,” LautenbachViste said. “It’s been a great partnership. A.J. is a great businessman; he always comes up with great ideas…He’s always trying to add that extra, special little touch.”
It would not be an exaggeration to say that A.J., who has entrenched himself and his family into the fabric of the Door County community, is happy he took his wife’s advice and watched that episode of Oprah. “I have the same feeling I did on day number one,” he said. “When I drive home I say, ‘God I’m the luckiest person to live in Door County. I get to make a living in the most beautiful spot. People dream about it; I actually get to do it.’”
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MOTORCYCLISTS
Easy Riders The Motorcycle Culture in Door County By Gary Jones Photography By Dan Eggert
A
fter the passing of actor Dennis Hopper earlier this year, television news programs showed clips of the iconic film Easy Rider. For some of us, meeting a group of bikers on the highway conjures images of Hopper’s counter-culture character, and we flip the locks of our car doors.
Lars Ribbens cruises Garrett Bay Road in Ellison Bay. Photo by Dan Eggert. 50 Door County Living Autumn 2010
doorcountyliving.com
MOTORCYCLISTS According to Door County biker Rol Grabenkort, violent “bad-ass” bikers account for about one percent of the motorcycle population. Other local riders agree with him. While Grabenkort might look intimidating on his bike, he is very much a good citizen, an attorney who retired from a law practice in Chicago before moving permanently to Northern Door. In some respects, he is typical of the motorcyclists in Door County, and for that matter, in the entire country. Many people are not aware of the biker culture that exists on the Door Peninsula, the number of clubs and the diversity of bikers. And few know of the shifting demographics of motorcycle enthusiasts that have occurred since the 1969 premiere of Easy Rider. In Pursuit of Freedom But while motorcyclists range in age from teenagers to those well into their sunset years, and run the spectrum of income levels and occupations, one constant is their reason for biking: freedom. “I can’t tell you exactly,” Grabenkort said of riding his Honda Gold Wing. “I love it, the freedom you feel, leaving the world behind.”
His retired teacher wife Susan, who rides a Honda Gold Wing trike, agreed but added, “I like the outdoors. I like to be in touch with scenery. My Honda is so quiet it doesn’t disturb the activities of nature, the birds and animals.” Eighteen-year-old biker Lars Ribbens, who rides a 1979 Yamaha XS750, said, “It’s the age-old concept of freedom…nice for summer when cars are backed up and a little bike can zip around them.” Tom Zwicky and Andy Stimers, both teachers, like being outside on a motorbike. When Zwicky is on his Honda Shadow he can “focus his attention on the road and what’s going on, be open to the elements.” Stimers finds that when he rides his Suzuki SV650 “you see everything, smell things, feel the temperature, and are more in tune with your surroundings.” Member of the Titans MC and a retired demolition explosive technician, Owen Bergwin, rides a Harley Davidson Softtail Springer. A biker since he was 12, he also likes the freedom. “You’re in the open,” he said, “the wind in your face, wildlife to swerve for, close to nature, beat up by rain and sleet!” Bergwin’s son Michael, who has his own landscape business and rides a Harley Bagger (deluxe touring model), said, “I like to
TODAY’S BIKERS An informal survey of riders suggests that the demographics of motorcyclists have changed since the debut of Easy Rider: 1. The mean age of bikers is older. Retired riders are more likely to be able to afford expensive motorcycles and to have the free time to ride them. 2. Bikers are riding at older ages, not only because of increased life expectancy, but because today’s motorcycles are more riderfriendly. 3. Today, more women bikers ride their own motorcycles. 4. For many riders, biking has become a family activity. 5. A greater percentage of bikers choose to ride independently rather than become formally affiliated with motorcycle clubs.
Titan Club members and others gather at the Flag Pole Dedication for Ensign Christopher O. Simon, US Navy at Peninsula State Park Golf Course. Photo courtesy of the Titans MC.
(Above and below) Owen Bergwin in his Captain America gear at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 51
MOTORCYCLISTS
ride bikes for the same reason I drive a Jeep Scrambler; you’re open to the sights and sounds and interact with nature.” Karen Nicholson, also a member, finds that it makes her “feel free, clears your head. It’s exhilarating and relaxing at the same time.” She rides her Harley FXR “for the same reason people garden: therapy.” In addition to her office job in a tattoo parlor, Nicholson works as a landscaper. “Honda had an ad years ago,” John Kellner said, “that claimed some people see a psychiatrist and some ride a Honda. You never see a Honda at a psychiatrist’s office unless the doctor is riding it.” Kellner’s Honda is a 1988 Gold Wing with a collector’s plate. When not biking, he works in a school maintenance department. “Some people go for a walk or a run. I jump on my bike, go for a ride, and see where the road goes,” retired Milwaukee firefighter Kenneth Schultz said. As he is now 79, he has had his Gold Wing converted to a trike.
Owner of LeFevre Tire and Auto, Dennis LeFevre also enjoys taking his Gold Wing “out in the open, to ride in the country. I love nature, like to see what’s going on, like being out in the open air.” The open air also attracts Viking Restaurant owner Dan Peterson, too. He used to put in 12,000 miles a year on the road with his Harley Ultraclassic touring bike, but he has cut back. On the Open Road While some local motorcyclists enjoy using their bikes to commute to work (as do Zwicky and Stimers) and occasionally to shop and run errands (as does Susan Grabenkort), for many the road trip is the ultimate freedom quest. The rally at Sturgis, South Dakota, for example, has become a mecca for a number of local riders. Crowds of bikers gather from all over the country for the opportunity to listen to music, to visit with vendors, and to socialize with other like-minded enthusiasts. Others enjoy extended road trips, often with a friend or as a part of a group of bikers.
52 Door County Living Autumn 2010
Peterson likes to load his bike on a trailer and leave Ellison Bay sometime during February or March, often with his companion and corider Wendy Smith. When he finds warm weather in the south, he parks his truck, mounts his bike, and usually rides from Florida to California. Typically, he’ll put in a total of 2,000 miles on his truck and 5,000 on his bike during one of these trips. He is especially fond of epic journeys. “[For] my biggest trip,” Peterson said, “I left from my restaurant on my bike February 20th [a bit cold that day!], picked up Wendy at the John Wayne Airport in California, went through Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas, spent a week, dropped her off at the John Wayne Airport, and headed for home,” a 7,000-mile round trip. But Peterson doesn’t find his Harley mileage impressive. On one of his trips he met a semi-retired couple who puts in 30,000 miles a year on their bike. “Some guys travel 100,000 miles a year!” he said. Many local bikers ride far fewer miles, doorcountyliving.com
MOTORCYCLISTS
One group of riders meets on Wednesdays for a “burger run.” They start at LeFevre Tire in Sturgeon Bay and head to a different burger joint each week – this week it was Joe Rouer’s, just outside of Duvall. Photo by Dan Eggert.
often in the county or on day trips to destinations in the northeastern part of the state. But most have longer road trips they remember with pleasure. Schultz recalls one with his wife into the Canadian Rockies. “We went all the way into the ice fields and British Columbia,” he said. “That was one nice ride.” A Zen moment for LeFevre happened last year at a rally in Spring Green, Wisconsin. “I was leading a group of 10 or 12 bikers,” he said, “and near the end of the ride an eagle flew above my bike, leading us as we rode Golden Wing Hondas!” Kellner laughed at a memory that was definitely not Zen. He and his wife Sherry “were in southwest Wisconsin going down back roads and never saw a barricade as we rode into the town, but all of the side streets were blocked off and people were lining the main street waiting for a parade. So I’m going down the street blowing my horn and waving, and people are clapping and waving [back]. My wife said, ‘Stop this! I am so doorcountyliving.com
embarrassed!’ but I said that we’ll never have this opportunity again.”
call us and we make sure they are taken care of at no charge other than for materials.”
In the Company of Bikes
The community of bikers takes many forms. Ten years ago Kellner organized an informal Sturgeon Bay-based group called the Door Area Riders. About 30 bikers meet Wednesday nights for a “hamburger run.” With a number of spouses as co-riders, the outing includes a stop to eat. Once a month the group also takes a day-long Sunday trip.
For most riders, biking is recreation, but it also provides a social component. Nicholson, for example, rides her bike not for the independence she experiences but “the camaraderie of getting together with others that ride.” She laughed, and added, “Bikes are more fun than people!” Again and again, motorcyclists point to the sense of companionship they enjoy as a major reason for participating in their sport. “It doesn’t matter what you ride or look like,” Kellner said, “there’s a camaraderie among motorcyclists. I’ll pull up to any guy on a Harley chopper with my Honda, and he might wear leather and have tattoos, but he’s like your next door neighbor.” The “hog doctor,” an informal group of riders that includes Graberkort, demonstrates this bond. “If a visiting biker breaks down up here,” Grabenkort said, “they can
Many of these riders belong to formal bike clubs as well, and some are members of several organizations. In addition to the clubs already mentioned, groups include the Gold Wing Road Riders Association, the Northeast Wisconsin Bikers Association and the Door Devils, reportedly one of the oldest clubs in the nation as it was organized in 1948. Typically, clubs attend rallies and organize events. The Titans, for example, sponsor club parties open to the public that include bike games, music, and refreshments. Autumn 2010 Door County Living 53
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MOTORCYCLISTS For a Better Image Motorcycle organizations are well aware of the negative image that many people have of them. Bikers can be intimidating, especially in large groups and if they have tattoos and piercings, wear leather and beards, and ride loud “crotch rockets.” While the image of hyper-masculinity may seem threatening to others, motorcyclists dismiss that aspect of their sport as an attraction for them. “The manly thing you like the first year,” 30-year-old Stimers said, “but I grew out of it.” His observation is one echoed by other riders. “One time in Sturgis,” Schultz said, “I was talking with a guy who had dirty torn clothes and a beard. When he walked away, another guy said, ‘You know who that guy is? A brain surgeon from Chicago!’” Michael Bergwin wears impressive ink, an assortment of piercing jewelry, and leather when he rides his Harley; nonetheless, he is an articulate young man who owns a small landscaping business in Door County and volunteers for local non-biking community organizations. Bergwin said, “In the 34 years of [the Titans] being around it has donated in excess of $50,000 dollars to such groups as the Wellness Center in Sturgeon Bay, Special Olympics, Sunshine House, fire departments, and to individuals” who have financial difficulties because of health concerns or loss of property. Like the Titans, most of the other motorcycle groups raise money for charities. The Recylists Motorcycle Club, for instance, recently donated to HELP of Door County. The Wisconsin Motorcycle Memorial Park was a project spearheaded by Owen Bergwin and brought to fruition through the efforts of many volunteers. The park is located off Highway 57 north of Sturgeon Bay on land leased from the Door Devils. Bike enthusiasts may purchase tribute stones for themselves or others in this unique setting. doorcountyliving.com
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MOTORCYCLISTS Bergwin also helped organize a contingent of Door County riders in the LZ Lambeau ride this past year, a tribute to Vietnam veterans that brought bikers from all over the state to Green Bay. While some people might see a group of motorcyclists and think Hell’s Angels, the reality is that biking is often a family affair. There may be a co-rider spouse who, as Kellner said, sometimes nods off during the ride and, frequently, sons and daughters ride bikes with their parents. And while the relative vulnerability of a rider might make the sport seem dangerous, safety is a priority for motorcycle clubs. Kellner noted that he has a collection of safety videos for his group, including the co-riders, to watch – material that he will share with others outside the group. Michael Bergwin said that the Titans enforce safety for their members, both in re-
gard to the condition of the bike and the gear of the rider. “Safety is a group thing,” Owen Bergwin added. Riders may make choices regarding their personal safety, such as whether or not to wear a helmet, but not in matters that affect the well being of the group. “An accident with a motorcycle has the chance of being more serious [than with an automobile],” Kellner said, “but the chances of avoiding one on a bike are much greater.” If the rider is attentive, has good reflexes, and drives at moderate speeds, a bike can stop more quickly and, because of the size of the vehicle, maneuver more easily. The groups of bikers that you might see in Door County are most likely not only good citizens, but might be contributing to the local economy as tourists. “We have different groups that come in the restaurant during the season,” Peterson said. “One group has 18 to 20 people, and when they
come in the lounge, a lady hands a drink list to the bartender!” John Jarosh, Director of Communication and Public Relations for the Door County Visitor Bureau, said that because businesses welcome motorcyclists, the bureau advertises in magazines catering to bikers hoping to attract them to the area. Motorcycle tourists bring with them significant disposable incomes for lodging, dining, and shopping. Ultimately, motorcycle enthusiasts defy stereotyping. “There’s such a diversity of people,” LeFevre said, pointing out the fact that their informal group includes shipyard workers, former mayors and police chiefs, and a retired airline pilot. “We all ride together; it doesn’t matter who you are. We might poke fun at each other sometimes, but we all ride together.”
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DOOR COUNTY MAP
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Autumn 2010 Door County Living 57
OUTSIDE IN DOOR BY KATIE LOTT SCHNORR
Door County’s Quiet Jewel Potawatomi State Park
Few Door
County visitors have missed a spin through famed Peninsula State Park to climb the tower, take in a show at American Folklore Theatre, or just meander along the roads. But if you’ve never been to Potawatomi State Park, located along the southern shoreline of Sturgeon Bay, you’re missing out on one of the county’s most beautiful spots. Potawatomi Park was established in 1928 and named for the tribe which inhabited
the area when Europeans first settled it. The 1,200-acre sanctuary boasts some of the best biking, fishing, hiking, and kayaking in the county. During the summer, the park sees heavy use from campers from all over the Midwest who know that Potawatomi is less congested and just as stunning as her park sisters throughout the county. But in the fall, the beauty of Potawatomi is unrivaled, and visitors often feel as if they have the park to themselves. Potawatomi has something for every type of outdoor enthusiast: trails which meander along the rocky shoreline of Sturgeon Bay, historic stone shelters, scenic waterside picnic areas, and playgrounds. The park also has a 75-foot observation tower – identical to the one at Peninsula – with an equally compelling view of the shoreline, farmland, and islands of the Door. The Wisconsin State Legislature named 2010 “The Year of the Escarpment” to call attention to the unique geographic formation which gives Door County its soaring cliffs and rocky bluffs. Pot Park, as it is affectionately known by locals, is a wonderful spot to hike and enjoy the vistas made possible by the elevations of the Niagara Escarpment. Many Sturgeon Bay residents enjoy the park on a regular basis and make it their
58 Door County Living Autumn 2010
place for after-work recreation. “Potawatomi is like a backyard neighborhood park for people in Sturgeon Bay. People hiking, running and skiing here know each other,” says Margaret Carroll, who lives within minutes of the park and hikes and skis there regularly. “As a woman, I feel safe going there alone…it’s an extension of the community,” she adds. The soaring popularity of silent sports, such as kayaking and hiking, have also brought more visitors to Potawatomi. This past summer, the camp store at the park came under the stewardship of Todd and Becky Hirthe, who rent bikes, kayaks and canoes to visitors. “People just love it here,” says Becky. “Kayakers can see swans, geese, ducks, pelicans and bald eagles.” And, at a mere $25 for a half-day kayak rental, the Hirthes are seeing many families taking advantage of the affordability of vacationing at state parks. Campers will find many options at Potawatomi. In addition to individual campsites nestled in the woods and along the escarpment, the park recently constructed two spacious group campsites ideal for larger events such as family reunions, scouting trips, and weddings. The sites were carefully planned to give visitors plenty of shade from doorcountyliving.com
OUTSIDE IN DOOR
View from the top of the tower at Potawatomi State Park. Photo by Dan Eggert.
new and existing trees, as well as maintaining open space. The wells, pit toilets, and drinking fountains are all solar powered. In 2009, they were utilized for a total of 16,000 camper days, and park superintendent Don McKinnon expects even more use this year. Pot Park’s most unique offering is the “Cabin by the Bay,” a fully-accessible indoor facility for campers with disabilities. The cabin is one of only seven fully-accessible such buildings in the state, and books up early in the season. Potawatomi also has one of the few accessible fishing piers around, and anglers of all ages and abilities have been known to catch a few walleye, bass, or even salmon casting there. Fishing is good year round at Potawatomi. During the winter, Sawyer Harbor becomes a “little city,” dotted with ice shanties. But, during summer and fall, many fishermen camp at the park and launch their boats, trolling for perch, northern, and walleye. “In the early morning, the fish cleaning station is a busy place,” says McKinnon. Friends of Potawatomi State Park is an avid group of supporters who volunteer for such tasks as invasive species removal and seasonal garden care, as well as raise money to support a park naturalist position and purchase large items like grooming equipdoorcountyliving.com
ment. Their most recent gift to the park was an enormous Texas-sized grill which stands at the park shelter along the shore. Bill Scholten is president of the friends group, and says, “Pot Park is truly a little hidden jewel in Door County and it needs personal care.” With funding cuts that have compromised the Department of Natural Resource’s ability to staff state parks, the friends group is essential. “Every spring we work to clean up all 123 campsites at the park,” says Scholten. “We’re a small, but very diverse group, and we get a lot done.” For 15 years, the friends group has held Run Wild, a 3-mile/10K run/walk event which takes place the first Saturday of October. Local folks gather to run the roads of the park and support the mission of the friends. The event is a festive day, which last year drew about 350 registered athletes. There’s even a Smokey Bear Children’s Fun Run for kids ages four to 10. Hikers at Potawatomi will find a variety of trails ranging from the interpreted Ancient Shorelines Trail (one-half mile) to the Tower Trail which features steps and steep drop-offs close to the water (3.6 miles). The park also sees some hard-core hikers, as it’s the Eastern Terminus of the Ice Age Trail, a 1,000-mile trek that meanders through Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest.
If you prefer locomotion that’s speedier than hiking, but still “silent,” never fear. Plenty of rollerbladers, cyclists, and even “rollerskiers” call Pot Park home throughout the fair seasons. Bikers can keep to the paved roads, or venture onto the off-road trails that wind through the woods and fields. And, when old man winter arrives, the park is a haven for cross-country skiers (stride and skate), snowshoers, and snowmobilers. A group of dedicated volunteers grooms the trails,
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER I had heard the call of owls many times, but never seen one in the wild. Last year, I began hiking Pot Park in the fall afternoons, always hoping I might spot an owl out past his bedtime. I’d forgotten about my quest the day that Don McKinnon was giving me the guided tour of Potawatomi. Then, as we rounded the corner in his vehicle, a large bird swooped past the windshield. We stopped and looked into the woods, and a huge barn owl stared back at us from a tree branch. What a beautiful, unexpected moment – the kind that happens in natural places and can never be planned.
– K. Lott Schnorr Autumn 2010 Door County Living 59
60 Door County Living Autumn 2010
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OUTSIDE IN DOOR
which many folks consider the best in the county. This fall, Pot Park will host a new activity: its first ever nine-day gun deer hunt during the regular deer season in November. According to Don McKinnon, the park initiated a reconnaissance study and discovered that “within 50 years, there will be no forest left” unless the deer population is controlled. McKinnon concedes that there were a few folks displeased with the decision, but that most parkgoers understand the pragmatics of forestation. “I’ve seen herds of 30 and 40 deer in the park – just look at that browsing line,” says McKinnon as he points to the forest’s edge. Activities abound at Potawatomi, but don’t neglect what many find to be the most breathtaking spot at the park: the grassy picnic area atop what used to be a downhill ski trail. The chairlift has long since stopped operating, and the chalet at the foot of the steep incline was recently torn down, but the vista on any day is breathtaking: ponds, fields, forest, and the sparkling waters of Green Bay. Bring your picnic blanket, bring the kids, or just go by yourself and enjoy the quiet jewel of Door County’s State Parks.
doorcountyliving.com
INFORMATION Potawatomi State Park 3740 County PD Sturgeon Bay, WI (920) 746-2890 Run Wild 2010 Saturday, October 2, 2010 www.runwild.org Autumn 2010 Door County Living 61
FAIRWAYS BY BONNIE SPIELMAN
Perseverance & Determination Sylvia Ferdon
An adventurous
life shaped by the game of golf has defined Sylvia Ferdon by four simple words: player, teacher, coach, survivor.
cessful Baylor University women’s golf program for over 16 years. And as a determined survivor of ovarian cancer, she is a living testament of her own perseverance and selfdetermination.
schoolhouse, she was sent to the Oconto public school system. It was then she took up the game of golf and for 20 dollars was able to play the local 9-hole golf course all summer long.
As an ardent player, she competed on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour against the likes of Nancy Lopez. As a devoted teacher, she spent 10 summers as the head teaching professional at Peninsula Golf Course. As a passionate coach, she has been in command of a suc-
Sylvia Ferdon grew up poor, but happy, in the small town of Pensaukee, Wisconsin, the daughter of a Norwegian fisherman, Olaf Johnson. She spent much of her childhood on the waters of Green Bay and was even driving her own boat as early as seven years old. After grade school in a one-room
“I was a real tomboy. I grew up playing sports with my brother and all the boys,” explained Ferdon. She took special interest in the game of golf, and those around her soon took special notice of her inherent talent.
62 Door County Living Autumn 2010
An Oconto High School Physical Education teacher by the name of Jan Blumreich doorcountyliving.com
FAIRWAYS encouraged and mentored Ferdon in her early years. She, along with Tom Moody, a “second father” to Ferdon, purchased her first set of clubs. In the winters, Blumreich would drive Ferdon the two and a half hours to Milwaukee to take indoor golf lessons from the legendary golf instructor, Gordy Watson. Ferdon attended University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and was considered one of the university’s pioneers of women’s athletics, lettering in four sports: golf, basketball, volleyball, and field hockey. “I was a onewoman golf team,” laughs Ferdon of her collegiate career. Oshkosh did not have a women’s golf team at the time, but several faculty members chipped in to help with Ferdon’s traveling expenses to compete against the bigger Division I schools. In 2002, Ferdon returned to her alma mater to be inducted into the UW-Oshkosh Athletic Hall of Fame. After college, Ferdon held a variety of golf teaching and coaching positions including short coaching stints at Florida State and University of Florida. Ferdon continued to hone her skills as a player on the amateur level, all the while setting her sights on making the professional tour. Explains her husband, Doug, of her fiery determination, “If Sylvia wants something, she aims at it. She can see the work ahead of her, and she gets it done.” Ferdon qualified for the LPGA at the age of 30 and spent five years on the tour with husband Doug as her caddie. The couple purchased a streamline trailer, traveled the country and made the most of the LPGA’s meager purses and Ferdon’s earnings. “We were a great team,” smiled mild-mannered Doug, a Journalism Professor at Baylor University, who was able to spend his summers on tour with her. “Sylvia was one of the older players on tour, and we just looked at it as one big adventure.” “The tour was so small then, only about 80 players. You got to know everybody and establish relationships,” remarked Ferdon. doorcountyliving.com
(Opposite page) One of the Baylor golfers confers with Ferdon (right) at a meet in Fort Collins, Colorado. (Above) Ferdon (left) watches the scoreboard with two of her players during a meet at Texas Tech.
Throughout her years on tour, she competed and held her own against some of the game’s greats: Lopez, Beth Daniel, Betsy King and Mickey Wright. An unexpected surgery for fibroid tumors sidelined Ferdon from the tour. A failed attempt at re-qualifying for the LPGA proved to be a disappointment for the strong-willed Ferdon, but ultimately led her to her 10year teaching tenure at Peninsula, beginning in 1984. After previous visits to Door County, Doug and Sylvia ventured north to inquire about a position as a teaching professional at Peninsula. At the time, Ferdon recalls meeting with two key figures from the park, John Brann and the late Wally Klepp – two of many lifelong friendships she would establish throughout her decade at Peninsula. With assistance from the Peninsula Golf Association board, Ferdon started the popular junior program that is in existence today. “I remember one year, we had 60 kids!” exclaimed Ferdon. “That’s when we had to start putting a limit on it.” “I just absolutely loved my time there,” she recalled with fondness. “There’s just such a great nucleus of the clan at Peninsula.” Doug and Sylvia would summer in Baileys Harbor so she could teach golf and they would return
to Waco, Texas for Doug’s teaching position at Baylor. “At the time, for Doug and I, it was just the perfect lifestyle for us.” Ferdon’s years at Peninsula ultimately led to what she believes to be her calling – coaching. “I look at it like every step in my life led me to coaching. It led me to what I was really meant to do,” she remarked. The Baylor Bears have enjoyed tremendous success under Ferdon’s remarkable leadership. Twice she has been named Big Twelve Coach of the Year. “For Sylvia, it’s never been work. It’s never been about money. She loves what she does, and does what she loves,” remarked Doug of his wife’s relentless commitment to coaching. “Sylvia is the kind of coach who brings out the absolute best in her players. She always believed in me. She gave so much of herself to help me accomplish my goals,” remarked Melanie Willhite, one of the best golfers to emerge from Ferdon’s Baylor program. Willhite, who is currently employed as an engineer at Nike Golf, added, “Sylvia is such a first-class person. You rarely meet people like her anymore. I admire her so much – to this day, I joke that I want to be just like her when I grow up.” Six years into her success at her “dream job,” Doug and Sylvia received the scare of Autumn 2010 Door County Living 63
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FAIRWAYS their lives. “It was a sudden, unexpected attack. I got a call from the hospital and they said, ‘We’re losing your wife,’” calmly recalls Doug of a harrowing day over 10 years ago.
lor team was the perfect distraction. “Thank
To the surprise of many that know Fer-
goodness for coaching – I just kept coaching
don and have experienced her relentless
and recruiting. The kids were so great; they
work ethic, she is actually considering retire-
were so supportive.”
ment from her helm at Baylor in the not-so-
The doctors were able to save Ferdon and address the cancer, but Doug soon learned of the ominous outlook. “Back then, there was an 8 to 10 percent survival rate for that type of cancer.”
Through the entire ordeal of chemotherapy and doctor’s appointments, she proudly recalls only missing one college meet. This
distant future. She says she would like to get back into teaching, similar to her time spent at Peninsula. Until then, she will put in long
past February, the Ferdons celebrated 10
hours recruiting, preparing for her upcom-
years of Sylvia being cancer free. “Since my
ing season and staying on the cutting edge
“Doug would know that – he’s a numbers guy. I didn’t want to know statistics and survival rates,” explained Ferdon. “I knew I had stage four, and I knew that wasn’t good. But I just took it one day at a time.”
cancer, I definitely appreciate things more.
of collegiate golf.
For one who has a reputation for deflecting attention away from her, Ferdon’s Bay-
I appreciate people more. I appreciate every day.”
“Oh, we all know Sylvia will never retire!” jokes Doug. But what we can be pretty
In her time away from the hustle of col-
certain of is that her next path will involve
lege coaching, Ferdon loves to relax at her
golf, and that she will pour the same pas-
home in Baileys Harbor, dabble in flower
sion and commitment she has demonstrated
gardening, shop for antiques with friends,
throughout her life into her next big adven-
and even play a little golf at Peninsula.
ture.
Stay on top of your golf game by reading the Peninsula Pulse’s regularly published golf page. “Making The Turn” is Door County’s one and only resource for local golf news. Check it out and enjoy up to date golf news, highlights, events, photos, player profiles, tips from the pro and more. Feel free to drop us a line at golf@ppulse.com.
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Autumn 2010 Door County Living 65
HABITATS BY MARIAH GOODE
Old Timber, New Uses Repurposing Wood
As anyone who
has ever undertaken a major construction or remodeling project knows, there are an infinite number of decisions to be made about the materials used. For some, those choices are guided by a desire to avoid using new materials when old will do, whether those old materials are already present in your home or scavenged from elsewhere. The choice to use old materials may also be due to aesthetic considerations, as old materials may be more in keeping with the desired look, even for a new building. When I bought my house in Baileys Harbor, nothing about it, interior or exterior, provided any clue it is one of the oldest houses in town. The exterior siding was vinyl. The floors were covered in carpet, or, in some rooms, four layers of worn-out linoleum. The doors were hollow-core faux wood. The interior paneling and trim were 1970s vintage.
Since learning that my house was actually very old – and that its “twin” two blocks away still has all the old wood trim, doors, etc. – I’ve been obsessed with authentically restoring it. (Eventually. I have to confess most of the doors and trim present when I purchased the house are still there.) My husband and I had the carpet and linoleum downstairs ripped out and refinished the old wooden floors underneath, clearly authentic due to the hodge-podge effect of the different woods used in different areas and the unevenness and separations which come from an old house settling over many decades. Then, last year, as part of a remodel of our porch – added to the house in modern times, though in more need of overhaul than the rest of the house – we were lucky enough to obtain old barn beams to create the wide doorway we’d always wanted between the porch and main part of the house. The visual effect of the cleaned-up
but still beat-up beams is so in keeping with an old farmhouse that many people ask if the beams were uncovered as part of the removal of the wall. We acquired the beams through our contractor and friend Bryon Smith, owner of Ravenswood Builders, who had in turn acquired the beams from local builder Russ Cockburn. Russ is owner of Russ Cockburn Construction, which he established about 25 years ago. He notes, though, that he has “been in the building profession since I was eight years old, so I’ve really been in the business about 45 years. My father was a builder and he felt my brother and I ought to have a job on the weekends, so he just put us to work even though we weren’t necessarily any good at it.” Before moving to Door County in about 1994, Russ lived in Idaho and Arizona. He says, “When I moved to Door County and started to experience some of the barns here, they really interested me, especially since
Russ Cockburn brings down an old barn in order to reuse the wood. Photos by Linda Cockburn.
66 Door County Living Autumn 2010
doorcountyliving.com
HABITATS (Below, top to bottom) Collecting repurposed wood; The Cookery’s repurposed wood floor; The Musikantow residence –the exterior is comprised of “sinker cypress” and cedar shingles. Photos by Dan Eggert.
barn apart and salvaged all kinds of stuff to use on their property.” Russ has salvaged wood from five barns – all in Door County – and has also acquired “small quantities of stuff from people who just gave it to me because they didn’t want to store it any more. I’ve also salvaged a little bit out of some other smaller house tear-down projects, but it’s just difficult to get much material that’s useful, because things like the studs and rafters don’t work to re-use with our modern construction – old two-by-fours aren’t the same size as modern two-by-fours! – and a lot of times stuff just isn’t in very good shape. With the barns and larger buildings like that, there are substantial, big pieces of wood to salvage.”
many of the old barns you see are falling down. Reusing barn beams isn’t something I could do in Idaho and Arizona as there just aren’t old buildings like there are here.” He recalls that the first barn salvage project he conducted was on “a barn over near Valmy that Habitat for Humanity actually owned that they wanted to get rid of. I was working on a project at the same time for Jim and Carole Maronek in Ellison Bay, and so we got some people together and took this doorcountyliving.com
During the actual deconstruction, Russ explains, “I usually peel off the siding and salvage that as much as is reasonable, and then I pull the barn over. A lot of these buildings already have structural problems and it isn’t safe or worthwhile to disassemble them piece by piece. You get a certain amount of damage with this method, but it’s safe, and you still get a lot of good material. No one is really interested in reassembling these buildings – people are tearing these barns down because they’ve got problems.” He goes on to reiterate that “the structure of some of these old barns as far as engineering goes is a little sketchy. I’ve looked at some barns
which I’ve decided not to take on because I didn’t feel like there was enough material to make it worth my while.” Russ explains that in all his barn salvage projects to date “the barns have been free – I usually tear the whole thing down and remove it without charge to the property owner, but I get to keep all the materials.” Russ says that his favorite way to use materials salvaged from barns is “as accent pieces in the projects that I build. The Maroneks’ barn is a little different, because the entire thing is made out of salvaged wood. I just love the character of the wood, so I like to use it in places where it will continue to be exposed. I’m using it differently than it was used before, like in your doorway, or as posts, beams, or mantels. I like to play around with the wood a little and do some interesting joinery with it, but still explore the character of it. Some of the pieces of wood have so much labor put into them when they were building these barns, and it’s not the kind of work that they do any more – the way they notched the beams and put in the rafters, the hand-hewing, etc. – so I think it’s really interesting to come up with uses for the wood where you can see that old work.” Jim Maronek explains that he and Carole actually have four buildings on their property which have used salvaged wood: the barn constructed by Russ; a cottage that was constructed to replace a cottage that burned down, for which pieces from an old barn were used both for structural elements and “dressing”; a garage building which also houses a study; and the house. Carole says that the cottage was constructed “by Jim Grasse and his partners of Ellison Bay Construction, who had never done anything quite like this before they worked on our project. They had a lot of fun, though, and they did a great job.” With regard to their house, Jim notes, “The log portion of our home was one of the first buildings in Door County. It was a logging company office; then around 1900 became a farm, so a kitchen was added; and then
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 67
farm
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was expanded further in the 1930s. We love old buildings, and as we built or remodeled structures we just kept employing salvaged wood, with the vast majority of that wood being from Door County.” Carole concludes by saying, “It’s just so wonderful to protect the historic value of these items – they don’t make things like that anymore. Sometimes the old pieces are harder to use – they’re not as streamlined, they may have splinters – but it’s wonderful to be able look at something from history and have it as part of your house and daily life. We’ve been doing this for years; people were always bringing us old things that other people were about to throw away. I just think it’s so much fun.” Tom Birmingham, owner and founder of local construction company Great Northern Construction, Inc., agrees, saying, “I guess we’ve been reusing wood all along, before we really knew we were doing it! It’s a lot of fun, a real treat, when owners decide to re-use old materials. It’s usually a lot more expensive material-wise than buying new, but we encourage people to do it because the wood itself is not only old but rich in character and beautiful in quality. And, not only is it a lot of fun, there is a lot of pride involved in the work.” Nowadays, Tom notes, “Flooring is the most common material that people buy that’s made of re-used wood. It’s rich looking, and adds a nice warm touch to their houses. The new Cookery Restaurant doorcountyliving.com
HABITATS HABITATS
The Silver Poplar Studio inside the Maronek barn. Photo by Dan Eggert.
estuaries off of it, and sunk in probably the 1800s on its way to the mill. It’s similar to the pine logs that sank in Lake Superior that are now being dredged and hauled up to re-use – the wood is quite expensive, but it’s very beautiful.” Tom goes on to further explain, “The Musikantow house architect specified he wanted the sinker cypress because he knew it was available, and it had a very small number of growth rings per inch, so it would be very stable and very rot resistant. The cypress was used for the window frames, the doors, and all the exterior moldings and faceboards – basically, the whole exterior of the house is sinker cypress, with cedar shingles.”
Looking skyward through the silo at the Maronek barn. Photo by Dan Eggert.
building [though not constructed by Great Northern] is all reclaimed wood flooring, which they chose for environmental reasons. Allen and Amy Musikantow also chose re-claimed hard pine flooring throughout most of their house. The flooring is largely made from reclaimed factory beams – old warehouses across the country are dismantled and the beams are sawed into flooring. Carlisle is the name of the company that doorcountyliving.com
does most of the warehouse wood reclaiming work across the country.”
There are many other homeowners and builders in Door County re-using wood in construction or remodeling projects. Whether they choose to do so for environmental, aesthetic, historic, or qualitative reasons varies, but everyone I’ve talked to seems to agree on the end result: beautiful.
The Maronek barn.
Tom explains that the Musikantows’ home in Liberty Grove was probably the first time Great Northern consciously and purposefully used reclaimed wood for a significant project. He says, “The architect for the house specified that he wanted ‘sinker cypress’ used for the project. The sinker cypress was from the Mississippi River, or Autumn 2010 Door County Living 69
TOPSIDE BY MELISSA RIPP PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAN EGGERT
Family-Operated Fun on the Water
Door County’s Harbor Lady
People visiting
and people working in Door County have one key similarity: we all value our days (or even our few precious hours) off. So, when I was offered a chance by Captain David Graves to come aboard his Harbor Lady cruise boat on a sunny Fourth of July
afternoon, I gladly jumped at the chance to be on the water for a few hours before my waitressing job beckoned. “All you have to do is bring a friend, meet us down at Stone Harbor Resort, and save some room for lunch,” Graves tells me over the phone the day before. “We’ll take care of the rest.” I was more than happy to oblige.
Graves grew up on the water, and even between all of the other jobs he’s held in his life (among them, a paramedic and the previous owner of Go Wireless, a wireless phone company that he sold to US Cellular in the fall of 2005), he’s made time to be on the water as much as he could. After the sale of his company, he was a bit restless as to what he might want to do next in life. “I knew that I loved Door County – Sturgeon Bay in particular – and I loved being on the water,” Graves says. “So I figured I would need to do something that incorporated those two things.” He brainstormed a boat cruise that would take passengers through the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. “I wanted people to get a feel for Sturgeon Bay’s rich shipbuilding industry, and since we were on the canal, I knew that we wouldn’t have to cancel trips due to treacherous waters.”
Looking back at the Harbor Lady. 70 Door County Living Autumn 2010
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TOPSIDE
Once he decided to make the cruise boat a reality in Sturgeon Bay, the next step in Graves’s plan was acquiring his captain’s license, which he obtained at a national training center in Naples, Florida. “Although I had driven a lot of boats, I had never even touched a boat of this size,” Graves says. “The instructors teach you every aspect of boating – safety, techniques, navigation – you name it.” After getting the license, Graves purchased his first boat from Foxy Lady Cruises in Green Bay, and Harbor Lady Cruises was born in late summer 2008. Graves is quick to say that the success of the Harbor Lady – from customer service to marketing and special event planning – is due in large part to his staff, most of which are his own family. His daughters Emma and Allison are the ones that will most likely welcome you aboard the ship, and Graves’s wife Joyce is usually the one pouring you a drink at the boat’s bar or offering you a homemade sugar cookie for dessert. Both Emma and Joyce recently obtained their captain’s licenses, so there’s a chance that driving the boat might be in both of their futures.
really great memories, and it’s helped the girls understand the importance of a solid work ethic.” The family aspect is what makes the Harbor Lady so accessible to customers – it’s a beautiful yacht, but comes devoid of any of the pretension that is often associated with the “y” word. The SkipperLiner vessel can accommodate up to 149 passengers, and guests may enjoy the cruise aboard the upper deck or in the climate-controlled cabin. The cabin reveals a spacious great room where the majority of meals are served during the cruises, as well as a marvelous view
of the water from virtually every window. The upper deck of the boat contains a fullystocked bar as well as an open-seating deck where one can catch a few of the sun’s rays while listening to Captain Graves narrate an interesting history of Sturgeon Bay’s shipbuilding industry. For those who want to see the navigation of the boat up close, Graves is more than happy to have guests visit with him (and a lucky few can even sit down next to him) while he’s in the captain’s chair. The Harbor Lady offers a variety of cruises every day of the week, and all are organized
“You’ll usually see three out of the four of us on the boat on any given night,” Graves says. “We like to give each other at least one night off a week!” he laughs. “In all seriousness, though, working together as a family on this has been great. We’ve shared some Harbor Lady passengers take in a view of the Sherwood Point Lighthouse. doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 71
TOPSIDE TOPSIDE see the Sturgeon Bay lighthouse along the Sturgeon Bay channel.
out the evening. “It’s been a huge success,”
Other cruises during the week include a Tuesday night pasta buffet cruise, a Friday night tavern-style fish fry, and a Passengers chat with Captain Dave at the helm. Monday evening SIN night (SIN with a visitor’s interests and budget in mind. stands for “Service Industry Night”). Graves A typical Saturday will offer seven different says he created SIN night specifically for cruises – a breakfast cruise, a lunch cruise, a Door County’s service industry workers. “I dinner cruise, and four sightseeing cruises (if thought it would be a great way to give back a customer wants to board the boat without to the county’s workers for a job well done partaking in a meal, sightseeing cruises are – and also because the people on the front offered at the same time as the meal cruises lines of the tourism industry are our best for a discounted price) throughout the day. word-of-mouth,” he says. Locals who attend These tours include either a trip out to the SIN night only pay $8 to board the boat, Bay of Green Bay to see the Sherwood Point with half-price drinks available throughLighthouse, or a trip to Lake Michigan to
Buffet tribute, a Frank Sinatra tribute, a fall
Graves says. There are also plenty of specialty cruises depending on the time of year – a Jimmy color cruise, and even cruises during Green Bay Packer football season – complete with DirecTV aboard the vessel. “The Packer cruises sell out fast,” Graves says. In addition to the myriad of cruise styles that the Harbor Lady offers of its own accord, the boat is also available for special events. “Wedding receptions, family reunions, special birthdays – we really love doing these kinds of private events,” Graves says. “We’ve been working with clients over the past few winters, and we have quite a few things booked for 2011 – and several inquiries for 2012 already.” One of their clients, Teri O’Hearn and Gary Casagranda, a couple from Appleton who are getting married in October of this year, were on the Harbor Lady at the same time I was. The two were
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taking a cruise for the sake of “research” – scouting it out for O’Hearn’s bachelorette party. “I wanted to give my friends and family a different experience,” O’Hearn says, “and this cruise is exactly that.” The usually modest Captain Graves would agree with O’Hearn. “The best part of this whole endeavor has been getting to work alongside your family – and then seeing other families enjoy themselves with something you’ve provided to them. That is the reward.” He pauses, and adds, “Well, that – and getting to be on the water everyday definitely doesn’t hurt!”
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Harbor Lady Cruises is located in Sturgeon Bay, directly in front of Stone Harbor Resort on 107 N. 1st Avenue. The boat is ADA accessible and operates daily from April 15th through October 31st. For information or to purchase tickets for a variety of cruise options, please visit www.HarborLady.com or call (920) 707-5239.
Celebrating 55 Years! Abraham & Ginka Cohn welcome you to their studio gallery north of Fish Creek off Hwy 42. 3915 Gibraltar Road Fish Creek, WI 920.868.3371 Open 11am to 4pm - Closed Thursday (except by appointment)
Home Decor, Pies, Weaving, Apparel, Jewelry, Art Gallery, Beads & Classes, Acupuncture Farmer’s Market each Wednesday 10-2 doorcountyliving.com
Most shops are open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Highway 42, 1 mile south of downtown Fish Creek Autumn 2010 Door County Living 73
ON YOUR PLATE BY BRITTANY JORDT PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAN EGGERT
Hot Town, Summer in the Kitchen
Summer Kitchen co-owner Nino Jauregui.
Soup and salad: a deeply satisfying, heart-happy combination. Yet, like many classic things, it can be done to perfection reminiscent of Mom’s home cooking, or it can pale in comparison. At the Summer Kitchen, located on the north end of Ephraim, owners and brothers Nino and Armando Jauregui make a mean cup of soup. In fact, soup is such a crucial part of their modus operandi that the little multi-colored soup cups decorate the pond just outside their screened-in porch. Almost always steaming on the soup bar are delectable Spicy Tomato Dill, com74 Door County Living Autumn 2010
forting Chicken Dumpling and fabulous French Cabbage. Two other soups rotate on a daily basis for a total of five. “The good thing is just to enjoy the soup bar with every single entrée on our menu,” Nino Jauregui says. “We [get] good compliments on the soups – always, you know. Plus, we serve fruit instead of French fries most of the time.” Try the pita pocket of cashew chicken salad: filled with homemade chicken salad, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, and topped with cashews, served with a cup of soup for $12.95. The cashews add a splendid saltiness to the homemade chicken salad, which, when doorcountyliving.com
ON YOUR PLATE paired with soup, makes for plenty of food and a wonderful combination of flavors. Nino says, “At lunchtime we always have the half sandwich, fresh fruit, cup of soup and dessert special. It’s an opportunity for the customers to taste a little bit of everything.” Mushroom with Wild Rice, Chicken Tortilla and Chicken Cilantro all rotate through the soup bar. Irish Beef Vegetable makes an appearance quite often. Its perfectly cooked potatoes, cabbage and corned beef are the stuff of poetry – or perhaps a limerick. The brothers make an effort to include Mexican style soups like Black Bean with Chorizo, according to Armando Jauregui. Fresh French bread also sits on the soup bar and should never be passed up, best when buttered and dipped. “I love the French Cabbage soup,” Michael Novotny, customer since 1975, says. “I usually have the Barker [because] I love BLTs. And I love the fact that they give you fruit with it. It’s pretty cool. It’s nutritious. Unlike other places where you get something fried.” Novotny says, “My daughter comes here once every three or four years and Nino still remembers her, and her order. She doesn’t have to say a word. He says, ‘The usual?’ She nods, and he walks away. That’s the kind of service you get. When you [don’t] see a person for that long and they remember your order, that’s pretty special.” Nino and Armando, originally from a small town in Mexico, are two of six brothers living in Door County, part of a family of 10. Their four brothers are in the roofing business, Chewy & Teo’s Roofing, but Armando and Nino have been in the res-
INFORMATION ADDRESS: 10425 Highway 42, Ephraim PHONE: (920) 854-2131 WEBSITE: www.thesummerkitchen.com
doorcountyliving.com
Co-owner and chef Armando Jauregui.
taurant business since they arrived in Door County from Southern California in 1994 and 1992, respectively. “We love living here; this is a nice place to be. We are making goals, and they are coming true little by little by working hard,” Nino says. “This is a nice place to raise a family.” The Jauregui brothers worked at the Summer Kitchen long before they owned it. For over 10 years, Nino worked as a waiter, while Armando cooked. In March of 2008,
they had saved enough money to buy the restaurant. Long-time customer Jeff Warner says, “We’ve been going to the Summer Kitchen for 12 or 15 years, and breakfast is a regular thing my nine-year-old and I do. Nino was a waiter when we started going, and now we always sit at the same table. It’s a running joke with [Nino] and my son – ‘We’ve known you since you were 6 months [old].’” The Summer Kitchen offers an early bird breakfast with French toast, cherry panAutumn 2010 Door County Living 75
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ON YOUR PLATE
Nino Jauregui.
cakes, homemade granola, a large selection of omelets and blueberry oatmeal. There are also a few Mexican selections like huevos rancheros and egg burritos.
have an absolutely amazing selection of pies baked by Pam Brusky: strawberry rhubarb, banana cream pie, peanut butter pie and coconut cream pie, just to name a few.
Warner says, “I get the quiche – I really like it and it comes with warm applesauce and fruit on the side. And I’m not a big quiche fan; I don’t usually order it anywhere else. But it’s really good. My son, he always has pancakes and bacon.”
Novotny says, “They have wonderful pies. That lemon meringue…nothing will ever compare.”
After they bought the restaurant, they kept the original menu but added an entire section devoted to Mexican food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
In addition, they offer a killer bread pudding with a Door County cherry sauce and whole fresh cherries for a masterful mix of sweet and savory.
Armando says, “It was fun to make the change – adding authentic Mexican food to the menu. It’s stuff you don’t see up here. Sometimes, when people get here they don’t know we have Mexican food, but they’re excited and they’ll try it.”
“When we first bought the Summer Kitchen, we knew that we had the best soups in Door County. We wanted to show all the customers not only that we had the best soups, but also that we had the best food – fresh and homemade – that we can offer in Door County…from the sandwiches and salads, to the traditional Mexican dinners and breakfast, too,” Nino says.
And, it’s important to think about dessert ahead of time at the Summer Kitchen. They
Their customers agree. The Summer Kitchen’s charm rises out of a mixture be-
doorcountyliving.com
tween the Jauregui brothers’ sense of humor, warmth and dedication to their clientele, and the high caliber of food served. They strive to gain the approval of every single customer and to always provide meals that are above average, excellent. “They’re really nice guys. And the quality of the food – the fresh fruit as a garnish for breakfast and the high quality ingredients – I think that’s what sets it apart more than anything else,” Warner says Whether you are looking for something sweet or savory, spicy or delicately flavorful, the Summer Kitchen’s wide range of menu choices leaves all the foodies satisfied, and no delicious crumb unturned.
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 77
ON YOUR PLATE BY MEGAN O’MEARA
Tending Their Treasure
Randy and Lisa Daubner’s English Inn
The English
Inn is an indelible piece of the Fish Creek story. Devoted patrons have been coming to the restaurant for decades, back to the days when it was the original Parkway (commonly referred to as “The Diaper Inn,” since it was an 18-year-old bar and just about anyone could get in). The building, which is estimated to be nearly 100 years old, began as a woodworking shop before becoming the Parkway. Pete and Dort (Dorothy) Kortes purchased the bar in November 1964. They gradually, painstakingly and dramatically turned the space into the restaurant of today. They chose a décor that was, in Dort’s words, “elegant and different than anything up here.” 78 Door County Living Autumn 2010
The carefully constructed dining rooms include a huge stone fireplace, numerous stained glass partitions and a spectacular chandelier made of wood and knight’s armor. The atmosphere it creates is part fine dining room, part English pub with little snugs for privacy. It is at once ornate and relaxed, formal and totally comfortable. Whether you are ordering a bottle of Dom Pérignon or an Old Fashioned, the setting works. In July 2005, the restaurant was purchased by Randy and Lisa Daubner, who previously owned Voight’s Supper Club (now the Mink River Basin Supper Club) in Ellison Bay. Their fan base, so to speak, followed them south to Fish Creek and almost at once The English Inn had the great feel of doorcountyliving.com
ON YOUR PLATE the old days of the Korteses, complete with Donnie Ray on the keyboards and head chef Eric Stitch in the kitchen. With the basics covered, they began making the restaurant their own and further enhancing the atmosphere. The first project was the outside patio. Randy explains, “We really wanted to incorporate the garden since everyone loves to be outside in the summer, so we created an outdoor seating area.” Diners can enjoy a drink outside on the front patio while waiting for a table or they can have an after dinner drink. The plush couches and chairs sit around tables that are heated for nights with a little chill in the air. Another special project, and one that can cause Highway 42 traffic to slow down in front of the restaurant, was the addition of the two mounted knights on either side of the front door, complete with lit torches. The horses themselves were brought in from “Ye Olde” Minnesota, and the knights travelled all the way from England. Randy and Lisa called Cy Turnbladh from Hands On Art Studio to see about creating the armor for the knights to wear. Never one to shy away from an art challenge, especially one without precedent, Cy took the project on. He recruited his wife Karon’s nephew, Austin Ohm, to come up from Madison to help over the winter of 2008. It took over 300 man-hours, extensive research to ensure authenticity and lots of trial and error, but they eventually came up with the right configuration and finishing. Now people travelling have another great spot to stop and take pictures. While posing, a lot of them happen to notice the menu posted outside and end up coming back for dinner.
INFORMATION ADDRESS: 3713 Highway 42, Fish Creek PHONE: (920) 868-3076 WEBSITE: www.theenglishinn.com
doorcountyliving.com
Apart from the knights, the special entrées are what draw people in night after night – specifically, the Beef Wellington with an Espagnole sauce and the pistachio encrusted halibut with a beurre blanc sauce. The menu’s variety is only surpassed by its consistency. Other favorites include the spinach salad with a hot bacon dressing, baked French onion soup and twice baked potatoes. When diners leave room for dessert, they often choose the crème brulee. While the choices have remained the same for many years, the way the servers take orders has changed notably. Instead of writing orders down in chicken scratch, the wait staff has mini hand-held computers that take the orders and send them directly to the kitchen. For some customers, it is a surprise and maybe a little too much like The Jetsons, but it only makes the dining experience better for the guests. “We have a lot of people who have theater tickets and time is a concern. All they have to do is tell their server that they have show tickets and with one touch of a button, the kitchen knows that table number eight doesn’t want to linger between courses,” Randy notes. Lisa adds, “We also have customers who want to take their time and the servers can slow the kitchen down if need be.”
in the bar after the dining room has closed. Lisa laughs, “Randy will fire the stove up at any time, as long as we are still open.” Being so well cared for is something that customers appreciate. Another technological tool that the English Inn has incorporated is From Vine to Dine. It is a computer program that can be found on their website as well as on a touch screen computer in the lounge. It makes suggestions about wine pairings with entrées, which is educational for diners and is a helpful way for the servers to get to know the extensive wine list. Some of Randy and
For those who missed dinner before a performance, including actors and theater staff, late night dinner and appetizers are offered Autumn 2010 Door County Living 79
ON YOUR PLATE
FERRY LINE
The bar area is the domain of Randy and Lisa’s son, Nick. At 19, he has worked ev-
ery aspect of the business including waiting tables and working in the kitchen, and he has decided to follow in his parents’ footsteps. “I love talking to the customers at the bar and getting to know them. This is what I was meant to do,” Nick explains. Lisa agrees, saying, “He is just like his dad and has to be here every day.” Nick’s girlfriend, Ashley Logerquist, hostesses with Lisa which is definitely a twoperson job most nights. The Daub-
Washington Island Daily from Northport Pier Autos • Passengers • Bicycles
800-223-2094 920-847-2546 info@wisferry.com • www.wisferry.com
ORIGINALITY~QUALITY~CRAFTSMANSHIP
Leather.Wood.Antler.Fiber.Glass.Ceramics 10659 N. Bay Shore Dr. ~ Downtown Sister Bay Open Every Day Except Closed Wednesdays 920.854.1811 80 Door County Living Autumn 2010
ner’s youngest son, Tommy, works in the kitchen as a fish cook. He plans to eventually go to college for a business degree. The family dynamic is evident to repeat customers. They are greeted by name by Lisa at the door, served their favorite cocktail by Nick and know that Randy is in the back along with Tommy making sure everything is running smoothly. Countless rehearsal dinners, weddings, and anniversaries have taken place over the years at the restaurant as well as life’s every day celebrations like spending time with family. In 2009, there was a reunion of past employees which was also attended by Dort Kortes. “I have so many wonderful memories of The English Inn. Our customers brought me such joy,” Dort reminisces. It is obvious that Randy and Lisa get this same joy from their customers. As such, we can all look forward to the Daubners tending this treasure with care for some time to come. 33333333333333
Lisa’s staff also accompany them to Napa, California for wine training and tasting, something from which the patrons ultimately benefit.
Massage Spa Specialties Skin Care/ Facials / Waxing Body Treatments Manicures and Pedicures Natural Health Consultations Steam Therapy Spa Packages Gift Cards
Open Year Round
3899 Old Highway Rd. Sturgeon Bay (920) 743-5380 SaguaroDaySpa.com
Featuring Door County’s Largest Selection of Wisconsin
ArtisAn Cheese at sAVOrY sPOOn COOking sChOOl
•
Hands On Cooking Classes • Register Online Open Monday through Saturday
12042 Hwy 42 • Ellison Bay 920.854.6600 www.savoryspoon.com 33333333333333 doorcountyliving.com
• • • DINING IN DOOR COUNTY
RestaurantGuide Restaurant Guide Key: $ $$ $$$ $$$$ Â BW { J B L D ( T
$5-10* $10-15* $15-20* $20* Full Bar Beer & Wine only Outdoor Seating available Kid’s Menu available Offering Breakfast Offering Lunch Offering Dinner Reservations Accepted Open during winter (hours may vary)
Restaurants are listed in alphabetical order by town. Information is subject to change. Contact individual restaurants for hours of operation. Inclusion in this directory should not be considered an unqualified endorsement by Door County Living. Restaurants are encouraged to e-mail us with up-to-date information at: dining@doorcountyliving.com.
*price range based on average dinner entrée (if available)
Bruce Alexander Chef, Owner AMAZING CUISINE CASUAL SCENE Seafood / Steaks
Fine Spirits
Open nightly for dinner Lounge opens at 4:00 pm | Dining room at 5:00 pm
Champagne Sunday Brunch Serving from 9:30 am
Catering & Special Events Open Year Round | Reservations Accepted | 920.868.3532
Hwy 42, N. of Fish Creek www.alexandersofdoorcounty.com
doorcountyliving.com
Locally Owned Family Restaurant! Serving omelette wraps, fresh bakery, and coffee
Open Daily 7am
located on Hwy 42 in Ephraim, just south of the beach
920-854-6621 www.goodeggsdoorcounty.com Autumn 2010 Door County Living 81
OUTSIDE IN DOOR
ON YOUR PLATE BY JULIA CHOMEAU
AUTUMN HARVEST CIDER RECIPE
Warm Up Autumn with Apple Cider
W
hen people think of fruit crops in Door County, what immediately comes to mind is, of course, cherries, but apples make up a significant portion of local orchards in our area as well. The harvest of many varieties starts in mid-September and lasts for about a month. When the colors on the trees start to make their transformation from the greens of summer to the spectacular explosion of reds, yellows and oranges of autumn, you can bet that the daily specials in local eateries will soon include fresh apple pie, apple crisp and hot apple cider. The difference between apple cider and apple juice is fermentation. Fermentation is the chemical process that turns sugar into alcohol which causes cider to have a little more effervescence (though a negligible alcohol content). This recipe can be made using either prepared apple cider or apple juice. This concoction makes enough for about 10 people and will last in the fridge for up to a week. The aroma that it creates is a wonderful way to welcome people into your home.
In a large pot combine: 8 cups apple juice or cider 2 cups orange juice 1 cup pineapple juice ½ cup fresh lemon juice To this juice mixture add: ½ cup of brown sugar 2 cinnamon sticks 2 tsp. whole cloves 1 tsp. allspice 1 Tbsp. ground ginger Cook over medium heat until the ingredients come to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Garnish with fresh orange and lemon slices. For an adults-only version, remove cider from heat and add ½ cup of dark or spiced rum.
FROM SCRATCH For those of you willing to take this recipe a little further in the “homemade” category, here is a simple way to make your own apple cider without the need for heavy equipment such as a fruit press. 10 apples of various varieties, peeled and cored. ¾ cup sugar 4 Tbsp ground cinnamon
Add all of the ingredients in a large pot and cover with water. Boil, uncovered for one hour. Simmer, covered, for 2 hours. Let cool and mash the apples with a potato masher (there is no need to drain). Pour entire mixture through a strainer into a container and refrigerate for up to a week or freeze for up to a year. 82 Door County Living Autumn 2010
doorcountyliving.com
• • • DINING IN DOOR COUNTY Algoma Caffe’ Tlazo 607 4th. St. Hwy. 42 (920) 487-7240 www.caffetlazo.com $ Â{ B L D T
Sturgeon Bay Birmingham’s 4709 N Bay Shore Dr. (920) 743-5215 $$ ÂJ L D T Blue Front Café 86 W. Maple (920) 743-9218 $$ BW J L D T( Company Store Café 306 S. 3rd Ave. (920) 746-8000 $ BW { B L D T Cherry Hills Lodge & Golf Course 5905 Dunn Rd. (920) 743-4222 www.golfdoorcounty.com $$ Â{ J B L D (T
Donny’s Glidden Lodge Restaurant 4670 Glidden Dr. (920) 746-9460 $$$ Â{ J D (T Fatso’s 46 Green Bay Rd. (920) 743-6300 ${JLDT Gilmo’s Bar & Bistro Wavepoint Marina Resort 3600 County CC (920) 824-5440 $ { Â J L D (T Hot Tamales 26 E. Oak St. Sturgeon Bay (920) 746-0600 $ BW T J B L D Idlewild Pub & Grill 4146 Golf Valley Dr. Sturgeon Bay (920) 743-5630 $ Â{ L D ( The Inn At Cedar Crossing 336 Louisiana St (920) 743-4200 www.innatcedarcrossing.com $$$ Â J B L D (T
Java on Jefferson 232 N. 5th Ave. (920) 746-1719 ${BT
Neighborhood Pub & Grill 1407 Egg Harbor Rd. (920) 743-7018 ÂJ L D T
Kick Coffee 148 N. 3rd Ave. (920)746-1122 ${BLT
The Nightingale Supper Club 1541 Egg Harbor Rd. (920) 743-5593 $$$ ÂJ D T
Ladder House 38 S. 3rd Ave. (920) 743-3315 $$ ÂJ L D (T Mandarin Garden 512 S. Lansing Ave. (920) 746-9122 $$ BW L D T Mill Supper Club 4128 Hwy 42/57 N (920) 743-5044 $$ ÂD (T My Sister’s Café 325 N. 3rd Ave. (920) 743-1991 $BLT The Nautical Inn 234 Kentucky St (920) 743-3399 www.andysnautical.com $$$ Â L D ( T
Outdoor Dining • Live Music • Tiki Bar Transient Boat Slips Available
Sunset Grill 3810 Rileys Point Rd. (920) 824-5130 www.sunsetgrilldoorcounty.com $$ Â{ J D (T The Cabin 4680 Bay Shore Dr. (920) 743-2421 $$ ÂJ D (T
Scaturo’s Café 19 Green Bay Rd. (920) 746-8727 $ BW { J B L D (T
Trattoria Dal Santo 147 N. 3rd Ave. (920) 743-6100 $$$ BW D (T
Sonny’s Pizzeria 43 N. Madison (920) 743-2300 $$ L D BW J(T
Egg Harbor
Stone Harbor 107 N 1st St. (920) 746-0700 www.stoneharbor-resort.com $$$ Â{ J B L D (T Stone Harbor’s full-service restaurant & pub offers beautiful water views for elegant yet casual dining. With an all-youcan-eat lunch salad bar seven days a week and live entertainment every weekend, you’re sure to have a great experience here at Stone Harbor.
Bistro at Liberty Square 7755 Hwy. 42 (920) 868-4848 www.libertysquareshops.com $$$ Â { J B L D ( We strive to bring you the best food, wine, and beer in Door County with variety to please everyone. Our menu features tasty breakfast items, specialty sandwiches, gourmet pizzas, and daily selected entrées. Everything made fresh with quality ingredients while you enjoy the ambience of Door County.
Classic Cuisine • Spectacular Sunsets Across from the Sister Bay Marina
Dinner from 5:00 p.m. out our website for schedules &Every rates. Live Check Entertainment Weekend! www.stoneharbor-resort.com Open Nightly Fantastic Off-Season Room Rates! Reservations accepted 920-854-9419
Visit our website for our monthly on-line cooking class
Check out our website for schedules & rates. innatkristofers.com 107 North First Ave • Sturgeon Bay, WI • 54235
920-746-0700 or 877-746-0700 www.stoneharbor-resort.com
doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 83
• • • DINING IN DOOR COUNTY Bistro 42 5806 Hwy 42 (920) 743-9463 $$$ BW L D ( J
Door County Coffee & Tea Co. 5773 Hwy 42 (920) 743 8930 ${JBLT
Boneyard Texas Pit BBQ 6214 Hwy 42 (920) 746-0093
Double Delites 7818 Hwy. 42 (920) 868-2221 $T
Carlsville Roadhouse 5790 Hwy 42 (920) 743-4966 ÂLDT Carrington Pub & Grill 7643 Hillside Rd. (920) 868-3205 www.thelandmarkresort.com $$$ Â{ J B L D (T Casey’s BBQ and Smokehouse 7855 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3038 $$ ÂJ L D (T Chocolate Chicken 7821 Horseshoe Bay Rd (920) 868-3983 www.chocolatechicken.com ${ Cupola Café 7836 Hwy. 42 (920) 868-2354 ${
Greens N Grains Deli 7821 Hwy. 42 (920) 868-9999 $ L T{ The Greens N Grains Deli features a wonderful selection of vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and raw food cuisine. In its second year, the new deli also highlights a juice bar with freshly-pressed veggie juices, fruit smoothies, healthy bakery, a tea bar and organic coffees. Hof Restaurant at the Alpine Resort 7715 Alpine Rd (920) 868-3000 www.alpineresort.com $$$ Â { J B L D ( John Henry’s 7740 Hwy. 42 (920) 868-1303 $$ Â { L D T
Log Den 6626 Hwy. 42 (920) 868-3888 www.thelogden.com $$ Â {J L D (T Mojo Rosa’s Cantina 7778 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3247 $Â{J L D (T The Orchards at Egg Harbor 8125 Heritage Lake Rd. (920) 868-2483 orchardsateggharbor.com $ L Â { Shipwrecked Brew Pub & Inn 7791 Hwy 42 (920) 868-2767 shipwreckedmicrobrew.com $$$ Â{ J L D T Stonehedge Golf Course 4320 Cty. E (920) 868-1861 $ Â{ J L D Trio Restaurant Hwy 42 & County E (920) 868-2090 $$$ BW D Country French/Italian cuisine served in a casual bistro atmosphere nightly May - Oc-
tober. Enhance your dinner with a selection from our international wine & beer list. Finish with one of our homemade desserts. Limited reservations available for large parties. The Village Café 7918 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3342 $ BW { J B L D T Whatcha Have 7821 Horseshoe Bay Rd. (920) 868-2724 $ BW { L D
Jacksonport JJ’s of Jacksonport Hwy V and Hwy 57 (920) 823-2700 $ ÂJ L D { T Travel to Jacksonport for the liveliest setting around! Enjoy Mexican and American dishes and fantastic margaritas – a local favorite! Mike’s Port Pub & Grille 6269 Hwy 57 (920) 823-2081 $ ÂJ L D T
Mr. G’s Logan Creek Grill 5890 Hwy 57 (920) 823-2112 $$ ÂJ D T Square Rigger Galley 6332 Hwy 57 (920) 823-2404 $ ÂJ B Town Hall Bakery 6225 Hwy 57 (920) 823-2116 $ BWJ B L
Baileys Harbor AC Tap 9322 Highway 57 (920) 839-2426 $ Â{ L D T The Blue Ox 8051 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2771 $ ÂL D { Cornerstone Pub & Restaurant 8123 Hwy 57 (920) 839-9001 $$ Â { J B L D T
unty Tradition Since 190 A Door Co 6 Great Food Ice Cream Specialties
Wilson’s Home-Brewed Draft Root Beer
& IC EOutdoor CR E A MSeating P A R LO R Family Atmoshere Open Daily 11am May-Oct.
Wilson’s & IC E CR E A M P A R LO R
9990 Water Street • Ephraim 920-854-2041 • www.WilsonsIceCream.com 84 Door County Living Autumn 2010
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner ~ Traditional Fish Boils Overnight Lodging
4225 Main Street • Fish Creek • (800) 624-1987 • whitegullinn.com doorcountyliving.com
• • • DINING IN DOOR COUNTY Coyote Roadhouse 3026 County E (920) 839-9192 $$ Â{ J L D T Custard’s Last Stan 8080 Hwy. 57 (920) 839-9999 ${ Espresso Lane 8037 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2647 ${BLT Florian II Supper Club 8048 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2361 $$ Â J D Gordon Lodge Restaurant & Bar 1420 Pine Dr. (920) 839-2331 www.gordonlodge.com $$$$ Â { B L D ( Harbor Fish Market & Grille 8080 Hwy 57 (920) 839-9999 www.harborfishmarket-grille. com $$$$ Â{ J B L D (T Highland Club at Maxwelton Braes 7670 Hwy 57
(920) 839-2321 www.maxwelton-braes.com $ ÂL D (T P C Junction Corner of A & E (920) 839-2048 $Â{JLDT Pen Pub County Hwys A & E (920) 839-2141 $ Â{ L D T Restaurant Saveur 8041 Hwy. 57 (920) 839-2708 $$$$ ÂJ{ L D (T Our cuisine draws from flavors from around the world with strong Latin influences and a foundation based on classic French technique. From South American churrasco to Italian Osso Buco, we truly endeavor to offer an experience that awakens your palate and excites your senses. Our wine list features hand-picked wines from around the world with strong emphasis on Chile and Argentina. We also offer a full bar with specialty items such as Brazilian cachaca, Chilean pisco, and housemade sangria. It is with utmost sincerity that we welcome you
to our establishment. Closed Mondays. Sandpiper Restaurant 8166 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2528 $ { J B L Yum Yum Tree 8054 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2993 $LD
Fish Creek
Eclectic World Cuisine
Alexander’s Contemporary Cuisine & Fine Spirits 3667 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3532 www.alexandersofdoorcounty.com $$$$ Â{ J D (T Specializing in seafood, steaks, contemporary cuisine, catering and special events (fully licensed and insured). Bar opens at 4:00pm, dinner at 5:00pm. Sunday brunch starting at 9:30am.
Lunch & Dinner Closed Mondays
Bayside Tavern Main St. (920) 868-3441 $ÂJLDT For an unpredictably great time, visit Fish Creek’s favor-
8041 Hwy. 57 Baileys Harbor 839-2708 www.restaurantsaveur.com
It’s a... A Door County Favorite for Over 20 Years A Lunch Door County Favorite Over 20 Years & Dinner Daily •for Sunday Brunch Lunch & Dinner Daily • Sunday Brunch
Innovative New American Cuisine Wine Spectator Award Tapas,Wine and Martini Bar
RESTAURANT WITH GAS Breakfast Sandwiches & PUMPS! Subs Made Fresh to Order! located in front of Pamida
DELIVERY NOW AVAILABLE TO LODGING ESTABLISHMENTS in Sister Bay & Ephraim
Now Serving Chicken!
Patio Dining Available
Sister Bay Mobil • (920) 854-6700 doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 85
• • • DINING IN DOOR COUNTY ite tavern. Serving cocktails, beer and our famous Bayside Coffee. Our short-order menu features hearty homemade soups, sandwiches, burgers, home-made pizza, Friday fish fry and Smilin’ Bob’s Chili. Open daily, year round! Blue Horse Bistro & Espresso 4158 Main St. (920) 868-1471 ${BLT Cooper’s Corner Corner of Main St. and Hwy 42 (920) 868-2667 $$ ÂJ LD{ T The Cookery, Inc 4135 S. Main St. (920) 868-3634 www.cookeryfishcreek.com $$ BW { J B L D T Offering a fresh twist on classic dishes, The Cookery’s menu features entrées prepared from start to finish in the restaurant’s kitchen. Lunch and dinner are prepared with fresh, local (when available) ingredients and served daily. Saturday
and Sunday breakfast menu featuring whole wheat oatmeal pancakes, house made biscuits and jam, and omelets with seasonal ingredients. Outdoor porch seating available. Waterview wine bar offering light fare and desserts. Certified by Travel Green Wisconsin. English Inn 3713 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3076 $$$ ÂJ D (T Randy and Lisa Daubner cordially invite you to enjoy Olde World Class with traditional supper club portions at The English Inn. “A Door County dining tradition.” Open year round. Live entertainment 5 nights a week in summer, weekends in winter. Gibraltar Grill 3993 Main St. (920) 868-4745 $$ BW J { L D Greenwood Supper Club Intersection of County A & County F (920) 839-2451 $$$ ÂJ D T
Julie’s Park Cafe & Motel 4020 Hwy. 42 (920) 868-2999 $$ { BW J B L D( Julie’s Park Cafe & Motel is a family owned and operated business located at the entrance to Peninsula State Park. Since 1998, we have been offering breakfast (all day), lunch and dinner along with free wireless Internet, vegetarian options, and beautiful outdoor patio dining. We are also pet friendly and kid friendly. Reservations accepted. Luna Café 4192 Main St. (920) 868-1133 www.lunacafe.com $ Mr. Helsinki 4164 Hwy 42 (920) 868-9898 $$$ BW D T Not Licked Yet 4054 Main St. (920) 868-2617 {LD
“Best Perch in Door County” – Door Audio Tours
Country FrenCh & ItalIan hwy 42 egg harbor • (920) 868-2090 • trIodoorCounty.Com
Experience a Classic Family-Owned American Supper Club
Joe Jo’s Pizza and Gelato
Specializing in home-made thin crust pizza made to order
since
1964
Put your taste buds to the test: offering 18 gelato flavors!
Vot ed piz best z Dine In until 8:00 pm No a in rth Carry Out until 9:00 pm Do ern or! Closed Wednesdays after Fall Fest
Family-friendly dining! Our family welcomes yours!
Open Daily at 11:00 am
Wi-Fi Accessible
(920) 854-5455 • 10420 Water St. • North Ephraim 86 Door County Living Autumn 2010
920-854-2841 SisterBayBowl.com
lunch|cocktails|dinner doorcountyliving.com
• • • DINING IN DOOR COUNTY Pelletier’s Restaurant Founder’s Square (920) 868-3313 $$ BW { J B L D ( Stillwater’s by the Bay 4149 Main St. (920) 868-9962 ${JLD Sonny’s Pizzeria 3931 Hwy 42 (920)868-1900 ${LDÂ( Summertime Restaurant 1 N Spruce St. (920) 868-3738 www.thesummertime.com $$$$ ÂJ BLD{ (T Villaggio’s 4240 Juddville Rd. (920) 868-4646 $$ BW { J D ( Whistling Swan 4192 Main St. www.whistlingswan.com (920) 868-3442 $$$$ BW D (T White Gull Inn 4225 Main St. (920) 868-3517 www.whitegullinn.com $$$$ BW J B L D (T Serving breakfast (including America’s Favorite, White Gull Cherry Stuffed French Toast, as featured on Good Morning America) as well as a full menu daily 7:30 – noon; sumptuous lunches served daily noon – 2:30; traditional Door County fish boils served Wed., Fri., Sat. and Sun. evenings in summer and fall and on Fri. evenings in winter; candlelight dinner served from the menu on the evenings when there is no fish boil. Reservations recommended for evening meals. Wild Tomato Wood Fired Pizza and Grille 4023 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3095 $ BW { J L D Newly re-opened in 2009, the Wild Tomato Wood-Fired Pizza and Grille (formerly Digger’s Pizza) is a fresh new restaurant with not only great wood-fired pizzas, salads, sandwiches and burgers, but also a new attitude toward giving to the community, using sustainable products and creating an affordable restaurant using the best ingredients available. Gluten free options available.
Ephraim Chef’s Hat 9998 Pioneer Lane (920) 854-2034 $$ {JB L D (T
doorcountyliving.com
Good Eggs South Ephraim (920) 854-6621 ${BL Good Eggs: You are one! Breakfast cabana across from the water in south Ephraim. Joe Jo’s 10420 Water St. (920) 854-5455 $JLDT Specializing in home-made thin crust pizza made to order. Put your taste buds to the test – offering 18 gelato flavors! Leroy’s Waterstreet Coffee 9922 Hwy 42 (920) 854-4044 ${BLT Old Post Office Restaurant 10040 Water St. (920) 854-4034 www.oldpostoffice-doorcounty. com $$ B D { J( Second Story Restaurant 10018 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2371 www.ephraimshores.com $$ J B L D ( Summer Kitchen 10425 Water St. (920) 854-2131 $$ { J B L D Wilson’s Restaurant 9990 Water St. (920) 854-2041 ${JLD Wilson’s Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor has been located in the heart of Ephraim since 1906. A classic Door County landmark that possesses the enchantment to take even the youngest visitors back in time with its old-fashioned soda fountain and ice cream specialties, home-brewed draft root beer, flame broiled burgers and juke boxes playing the classics.
Sister Bay Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant 10698 N. Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-2626 $$ BW J B L D T Base Camp Coffee Bar 10904 Hwy 42 (920) 854-7894 ${BLT Carroll House 2445 S. Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-7997 $JBL DC Deli 10663 N. Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-4514 $ BW { J B L D
Open Weekends ‘til mid-October
Sterling Silver
Open Daily Downtown Sister Bay (920)-854-2429 • www.solbjorg.com
and
LaPuerta of Sister
Bay
Hwy. 42, North end of Sister Bay 920.854.4513 OPEN 5:00 Tuesday-Thursday 11:00 Friday-Saturday Closed Sunday & Monday
of
Jacksonport
6301 Hwy. 57, Jacksonport 920.823.2700 OPEN 5:00 Tuesday-Wednesday 11:00 Thursday-Saturday Closed Sunday-Monday
MEXICAN & AMERICAN FOOD ~ World Renowned Margaritas ~
www.jjswaterfront.com
Where The Food Is As Excellent As The View InnovatIve Menu • Full Bar • extensIve WIne lIst
open tuesday through sunday at 5 p.m. 10947 n. Bay shore Drive, sister Bay 920.854.5491 reservations recommended www.jjswaterfront.com
he English Inn BAR & Dining Room Open THE ENGLISH INN Daily: May - November $1.00 OFF Weekends: December - April Any Dinner or Special (Nightly: Christmas - New Year’s Eve) NIGHTLY FEATURES Plus Full Menu Including Over 60 Entrees. Beef Wellington served Nightly $16.95 Friday Night Fish Fry: All-you-can-eat Perch, Whitefish, Walleye, Cod, Bluegill, or Smelt 3713 Hwy. 42 Fish Creek • Call For Reservations • Gift Certificates Available 920-868-3076 •theenglishinn.com Autumn 2010 Door County Living 87
• • • DINING IN DOOR COUNTY Door County Bakery 10048 Hwy. 57 (920) 854-1137 www.doorcountybakery.com $$ { B L T Door County Ice Cream Factory 11051 Hwy 42 (920) 854-9693 ${JLD Drink Coffee 10647 N. Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-1155 ${BLT
of the picturesque village of Sister Bay adjacent to the scenic Sister Bay Marina, patrons can take full advantage of the spectacular Door County sunsets over the waters of Green Bay as they enjoy the restaurant’s exceptional fine dining cuisine. Featuring Midwestern dishes inspired by French culinary traditions. JJ’s/La Puerta Restaurant 10961 Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-4513 $ Â{ J L D T Travel to the north end of Sister Bay for the liveliest setting around! Enjoy Mexican and American dishes and fantastic margaritas – a local favorite!
Fred & Fuzzy’s Waterfront Bar & Grill 10620 Little Sister Rd. (920) 854-6699 www.LittleSisterResort.com $ Â{ J L D
Mission Grille Intersection of Hwy 42 & 57 (920) 854-9070 www.missiongrille.com $$$$ Â{ J L D (T Exceptional cuisine and fine spirits, Gourmet Magazine Selection, Wine Spectator Award past 11 years.
at
Sarah’s Snack Shop Hwy 42, Cedar Shops (920) 854-5977 Sister Bay Bowl 10640 N Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-2841 $$$ ÂJ L D T Famous for its Friday Night Perch Fry and its Prime Rib, this throwback to yesteryear is located in the heart of Sister Bay. Open year round, the Sister Bay Bowl features a full dining room, grill and bar, and Northern Door’s only bowling alley.
Sub Express at Sister Bay Mobil 2579 S. Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-6700 $ {JB L DT It’s a restaurant with gas pumps! Daily lunch specials, fresh subs, pizza, breakfast bagels, muffin sandwiches, smoothies, and more. Drivethru service available. The Waterfront 10961 Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-5491 $$$$ { ÂD( T “The Waterfront” features upscale elegant dining overlooking the beautiful Sister Bay waterfront. Our menu features Door County’s finest steaks, and innovative fresh fish and seafood. Look for The Waterfront when you’re in Door County. It promises to be a memorable dining experience!
ish • watch tef i th h w e e
•e
The Inn At Kristofer’s 10716 Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-9419 www.innatkristofers.com $$$$ BW D (T The Inn at Kristofer’s offers waterfront fine dining at its best. Situated at the north end
Patio Motel & Restaurant 10440 Orchard Dr. (920) 854-1978 ${BLD
three meals a day and nightly dinner specials. Beer and wine available.
Sister Bay Café 10667 N Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-2429 www.solbjorg.com $$ BW { J B L D T Located in the heart of the village, the Sister Bay Café is a full service restaurant with a Scandinavian flair. Serving
su
t• se n
Husby’s Food & Spirits 10641 N. Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-2624 $ Â{ J L D T
th
Northern Grill & Pizza 10573 Country Walk Dr. (920) 854-9590 $ Â{ J L D T
The Shoreline Restaurant Moretti’s 10649 N. Bay Shore Dr. (920) 854-6610 $ BW { J L D
ish • watch
Ellison Bay Chef Andy’s Hillside Inn 11934 Hwy 42 (920) 854-4477 $$$ Â D J (
INOpen GILLSFor ROCK Lunch The Shoreline & Dinner Open Daily For Lunch & Dinner th e
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at
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e
hi
Restaurant IN GILLS ROCK
Full Full Bar Bar
920.854.2950 Sorry No Reservations
Open Daily For Lunch & Dinner Full Bar
Mink River Basin 12010 Hwy 42 Ellison Bay (920) 854-2250 $$ Â{ J B L D (T Rowleys Bay Restaurant 1041 Hwy ZZ Rowleys Bay (920) 854-2385 www.wagontrail.com $$ Â B L D ( T. Ashwell’s 11976 Mink River Rd. (920) 854-4306 $$$$ Â{ J D (T The Viking Grill 12029 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2998 door-county-fish-boil.com $$ ÂJ B L D
Gills Rock/ Northport GT Coffee 12625 Highway 42 (262) 719-5104 www.GalleryTen.com $BL{T Northport Pier Restaurant 215 Hwy 42 (920) 854-9911 www.wisferry.com $ BW B L Shoreline Restaurant 12747 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2950 www.doorcountydining.com/ shoreline $$$ Â { J L D Start at the top of the county in Gills Rock. Come to the Shoreline Restaurant, where every meal is served with a view overlooking the western waters of Green Bay. We serve lunch and dinner from 11am to 3pm and 5pm to 9pm, May through October,
Give the gift of Door County
920.854.2950 Sorry No Reservations
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Peninsula Players Celebrates 75 Yethr opy Issue ars
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Health Ca re in the Do or
The Niagara Escarpment Valmy Thresheree The Pottawatomie Lighthouse Restaurant & Lodging Guide AM 2/26/10 9:53
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88 Door County Living Autumn 2010 dclv08i01.in
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• • • DINING IN DOOR COUNTY featuring whitefish and nightly specials. Along with our numerous whitefish specialties, we have many other nightly features.
Washington Island Albatross N7W1910 Lobdells Point Rd. (920) 847-2203
Bread and Water 1275 Main Rd. (920) 847-2400 ${BLDT
Fiddler’s Green 1699 Jackson Harbor Rd. (920) 847-2610 $ BW { L D T
Sailor’s Pub 1475 South Shore Dr. (920) 847-2105 $$$ Â{ D (
Cellar Restaurant Main Rd. (920) 847-2655 $$ { J L D (T
Karly’s Bar 1265 Main Rd. (920) 847-2655 $$ Â{J L DT
Sunset Resort 889 Old West Harbor Rd. (920) 847-2531 $B
Deer Run Golf Course and Resort Main & Michigan Rds. (920) 847-2017
Nelsen’s Hall Bitters Pub W19N1205 Main Rd. (920) 847-2496 $ Â{ L D T
Washington Hotel 354 Range Line Rd. (920) 847-2169 $$$$ BW { L D (
Opening April 29!
Open Daily
6:59 am to 9:01 pm!
FOR AN UNPREDIC TABLY
G R E AT T I M E
• vegetarian items • breakfast all day • outdoor patio
• reservations welcome • children’s menu FREE s • espresso bar wireles t
interne
Home of the Bayside Coffee and
Smilin’ Bob’s Chili DOWNTOWN FISH CREEK (920) 868-3441
Located at the Fish Creek entrance to the Peninsula State Park (920) 868-2999 • www.juliesmotel.com relax@juliesmotel.com
have you been to our wine bar?
serving great small plates like bison sliders with cabernet onions, bacon wrapped dates, and a door county cherry and apple salad. and that’s not to mention the wine flights, wisconsin microbrews, desserts and espresso. all with a great view. lunch & dinner daily / breakfast on weekends / wine bar 4135 main street / fish creek / 920.868.3634 / cookeryfishcreek.com doorcountyliving.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 89
lodgingGuide • • • STAYING IN DOOR COUNTY
Lodging facilities are listed in alphabetical order by town. Information is subject to change. We encourage readers to contact these establishments for more specific information. Inclusion in this directory should not be considered an unqualified endorsement by Door County Living. Innkeepers are encouraged to e-mail us with up-to-date information at: lodging@doorcountyliving.com.
Sturgeon Bay Along The Beach B & B 3122 Lake Forest Park Road (920) 746-0476 Bed & Breakfast $105 - $135 Amenities: Cable, Full Breakfast, Waterfront AmericInn Lodge & Suites of Sturgeon Bay 622 S Ashland Ave (920) 743-5898 Hotel/Motel $59-$175 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Indoor Pool, Sauna, Pets With Approval, Meeting Rooms The Barbican 132 N 2nd Ave (920) 743-4854 Bed & Breakfast $115-$220 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Cable/Movies Bay Shore Inn 4205 Bay Shore Dr (920) 743-4551 Resort $79-$309 Amenities: Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Waterfront, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Tennis, Boating, Fishing, Playground, Bike Trails, Meeting Rooms Beach Harbor Resort 3662 N Duluth Ave (920) 743-3191 Resort/Hotel/Motel $69-$210 Amenities: Smoke Free, Waterfront/Beach, Jet Ski & Bike Rentals, Cottages & Rooms
Black Walnut Guest House 454 N 7th Ave (920) 743-8892 Bed & Breakfast $135 - $145 Amenities: Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Smoke Free Bridgeport Resort 50 W Larch St (920) 746-9919 Resort $69-$299 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, High-Speed Internet, Smoke Free, Waterfront/ Beach, Wheelchair Accessible, Fitness Center, Outdoor Pool, Indoor Pool/ Water Park, Sauna, Tennis, Fishing The Chadwick Inn 25 N 8th Ave (920) 743-2771 Bed & Breakfast $110-$135 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Movies Chal A Motel 3910 Hwy 42/57 (920) 743-6788 Hotel/Motel $34-$64 Amenities: Non-Smoking Rooms, Museum Chanticleer Guest House 4072 Cherry Rd (920) 746-0334 Bed & Breakfast $120-$275 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Continental Breakfast Cherry Hills Lodge & Golf Course 5905 Dunn Rd (920) 743-4222 Resort $89-$155
90 Door County Living Autumn 2010
Amenities: Restaurant, Full Breakfast, Smoke Free, Outdoor Pool, Golf Course, AAA Official Appointment Program Member The Cliff Dwellers 3540 N Duluth Ave (920) 743-4260 Resort 85-$230 Amenities: Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Waterfront, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Boating, Fishing, Bike Trails, Townhouses, Cottages & Rooms
Hearthside Inn B & B 2136 Taube Rd (920) 746-2136 Bed & Breakfast $65-$750 Amenities: Full Breakfast, TV/ VCR, Country Dance Barn Holiday Motel 29 N 2nd Ave (920) 743-5571 Hotel/Motel $39-$70 Amenities: Continental Breakfast, Refrigerators, Cable, Pets with Approval
Colonial Gardens B & B 344 N 3rd Ave (920) 746-9192 Bed & Breakfast $100-$175 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Full Breakfast
The Inn At Cedar Crossing 336 Louisiana St (920) 743-4200 Bed & Breakfast $75 - $190 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Restaurant, Continental Breakfast Cable/Movies, Smoke Free
Comfort Inn 923 Green Bay Rd (920) 743-7846 Hotel/Motel $89-$145 Amenities: Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Internet, Indoor Pool, Microwaves & Refrigerators
Inn The Pines 3750 Bay Shore Dr (920) 743-9319 Bed & Breakfast $120 - $150 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Continental Breakfast, Cable/ Movies, Smoke Free
Garden Gate B & B 434 N 3rd Ave (920) 743-9618 Bed & Breakfast $50-$120 Amenities: Full Breakfast, Cable/DVD/CD, Smoke Free
Little Harbor Inn 5100 Bay Shore Dr (920) 743-3789 Bed & Breakfast $120 - $175 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Smoke Free, Waterfront
Glidden Lodge Beach Resort 4676 Glidden Dr (920) 746-3900 Resort $140-$375 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Waterfront/Beach, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Sauna, Tennis, Meeting Rooms
The Pembrooke Inn 410 N 4th St (920) 746-9776 Bed & Breakfast $80-$120 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Breakfast, Smoke Free
Quiet Cottage B & B 4608 Glidden Dr (920) 743-4526 Bed & Breakfast $180-$225 Amenities: Full Breakfast TV/ VCR/DVD/CD, High Speed Internet The Reynolds House B & B 111 S 7th Ave (920) 746-9771 Bed & Breakfast $69 - $160 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Smoke Free Sand Bay Beach Resort & Suites 3798 Sand Bay Point Rd (920) 743-5731 Resort $85-$299 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Kitchen or Snack Bar, Indoor Pool, Sauna, Game Room, Fish Cleaning Facilities, Coin Operated Laundry, Meeting Facilities, Library Lounge Sawyer House B & B 101 S Lansing Ave (920) 746-1640 Bed & Breakfast $90-$200 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Breakfast, TV/CD Scofield House B & B 908 Michigan St (920) 743-7727 Bed & Breakfast $84 - $220 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free Snug Harbor Resort 1627 Memorial Dr (920) 743-2337 Resort $50-$169 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirldoorcountyliving.com
STAYING IN DOOR COUNTY • • • pool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront, Boating, Fishing, Water Skiing, Playground, Cottages & Rooms, Pets With Approval Stone Harbor Resort & Conference Center 107 N 1st Ave (920) 746-0700 Resort $99-$501 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Restaurant, Lounge/ Bar, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Boating, Bike Trails, Hiking Trails, Snow Shoeing, Meeting Rooms, Business Traveler Services Stroh Haus B & B 608 Kentucky St (920) 743-2286 Bed & Breakfast $60 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Breakfast, Outdoor Swimming Pool, Wedding Garden, Gathering Room Westwood Shores Waterfront Resort 4303 Bay Shore Dr (920) 746-4057 Resort $79-$289 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Waterfront, Wheelchair Accessible, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Boating, Fishing, ATV Trails, Snowmobiling, Meeting Rooms, Business Traveler Services White Lace Inn 16 N 5th Ave (920) 743-1105 Bed & Breakfast $70 - $135 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Breakfast, Cable/ Movies, Wheelchair Accessible White Pines Victorian Lodge 114 N 7th Ave (920) 746-8264 Bed & Breakfast $85-$150 Amenities: Fireplace, Full Breakfast, Cable. Certified Green, Chemical and Fragrance Free
doorcountyliving.com
Egg Harbor Alpine Resort 7715 Alpine Rd (920) 868-3000 Resort $70-$186 Amenities: Restaurant, Lounge/Bar, Kitchen Facilities, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront/Beach, Outdoor Pool, Tennis, Boating, Fishing, Golf Course, Playground, Bike Trails, Hiking Trails, Cottages & Rooms, Meeting Rooms The Ashbrooke 7942 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3113 Resort $99-$210 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Sauna Bay Point Inn 7933 Hwy 42 (800) 707-6660 Resort $225-$259 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Continental Breakfast, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, NonSmoking Rooms, Waterfront, Meeting Rooms
An elegant all seasons adult retreat with ample amenities to relax & refresh. For all the intimate details visit www.ashbrooke.net 7942 Egg Harbor Road, Egg Harbor, WI ~ 920-868-3113
Toll free 877-868-3113
Proud to be completely smoke free!
Relax & Refresh
AWAKEN YOUR SENSES IN DOOR COUNTY
Cape Cod Motel 7682 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3271 Hotel/Motel $69-$79 Amenities: TV/ Movies, Refrigerator, Playground The Cornerstone Suites 6960 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3005 Resort $130-$220 Amenities: Whirlpool, Full kitchen, Deck Door County Lighthouse Inn B&B 4639 Orchard Rd (920) 868-9088 Bed & Breakfast $105-$175 Amenities: Whirlpool, Full Breakfast, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Private Deck Egg Harbor Lodge 7965 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3115 Resort $100-$325
Awaken to the sound of waves lapping the shore. Linger over breakfast as the morning light glistens on the water. Kayak the harbor, bike to a lighthouse. Fifteen guest rooms each with in-room whirlpool, fireplace, balcony & a view of the harbor. Romance & relaxation are yours! Visit our website for honeymoon packages and virtual tours. On the shore of Baileys Harbor Door County, Wisconsin
1-800-769-8619
www.theblacksmithinn.com
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 91
• • • STAYING IN DOOR COUNTY Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Non-Smoking Rooms, Outdoor Pool, Tennis The Feathered Star 6202 Hwy 42 (920) 743-4066 Bed & Breakfast $110-$130 Amenities: Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, TV/ VCR, Refrigerator, Wheelchair Accessible, Pets Allowed The Landing 7741 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3282 Resort $61-$233 Amenities: Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Playground, Bike Trails, Snowmobiling Landmark Resort 7643 Hillside Road (920) 868-3205 Resort $89-$240 Amenities: Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Balcony/ Patio, Steam Room, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Tennis, Shuffleboard, Playground, Game Room, Fitness Center, DVD/TV, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Wireless Internet, Library, Lounge, Restaurant, Laundry, Meeting Rooms Lull-Abi Inn of Egg Harbor 7928 Egg Harbor Rd (866) 251-0749 Hotel/Motel $89-$189 Amenities: Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Non-Smoking Rooms, Bike Trail Mariner Motel & Cottages 7505 Mariner Rd (920) 868-3131 Resort $60-$140 Amenities: Kitchen Facilities, Smoke Free, Outdoor Pool, Waterfront/Beach, Walking Trails, Bikes, Canoes and Row Boats, Cottages & Rooms Meadow Ridge 7573 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3884 Resort $130-$350 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Indoor/Outdoor Aquatic Center, Exercise Room, Recreation Center
Newport Resort 7888 Church St (920) 868-9900 Resort $79-$257 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, High-Speed Internet, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Meeting Rooms Shallows Resort 7353 Horseshoe Bay Rd (920) 868-3458 Resort $65-$350 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, High-Speed Internet, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront, Outdoor Pool, Tennis, Boating, Fishing, Playground, Bike Trails, Cottages & Rooms, Pets With Approval, AAA Official Appointment Program Member Shipwrecked Brew Pub & Inn 7791 Hwy 42 (920) 868-2767 Bed & Breakfast $69 - $129 Amenities: Restaurant, NonSmoking Rooms
Jacksonport Innlet Motel 6259 Hwy 57 (920) 823-2499 Hotel/Motel $50-$150 Amenities: Whirlpool, Restaurant, Lounge/Bar, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Wheelchair Accessible, Snowmobiling Square Rigger Lodge & Galley 6332 Hwy 57 (920) 823-2404 Hotel/Motel $75-$250 Amenities: Whirlpool, Restaurant, Lounge/Bar, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront/Beach, Sauna, Cottages & Rooms Whitefish Bay Farm 3831 Clark Lake Rd (920) 743-1560 Bed & Breakfast $115 - $125
92 Door County Living Autumn 2010
Amenities: Full Breakfast, Smoke Free
Baileys Harbor Baileys Harbor Ridges Resort & Lakeview Suite 8252 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2127 Resort $52-$210 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Wheelchair Accessible, Playground, Bike Trails, Hiking Trails, Snow Shoeing, Cross Country Skiing, Snowmobiling, Cottages & Rooms, Meeting Rooms, Pets with Approval Baileys Harbor Yacht Club Resort 8151 Ridges Rd (920) 839-2336 Resort $79-$249 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Boating, Fishing, Tennis, Playground, Bike Trails Baileys Sunset Motel & Cottages 8404 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2218 Resort $38-$120 Amenities: Kitchen Facilities, Non-Smoking Rooms, Playground, Hiking Trails, Cottages & Rooms Beachfront Inn at Baileys Harbor 8040 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2345 Hotel/Motel $67-$169 Amenities: In-Room Coffee, TV, Internet, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront/Beach, Indoor Pool/Water Park, Sauna, Pets with Approval Blacksmith Inn 8152 Hwy 57 (920) 839-9222 Bed & Breakfast $115-$275 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast
Gustave’s Getaway, 1887 Historic Log Home 2604 Grove Road - Office (920) 839-2288 Cottage $135-$195 Amenities: Seclusion, Privacy, Fireplace, A/C, Full Kitchen/ Bath, Coffee/Tea, WiFi, Pets with Approval, Satellite TV, DVD, Picnic-Campfire areas w/ firewood, 50 acres w/private year-round Nature Trails, Wildlife Viewing, Sports trailer parking area, Smoke-free. Gordon Lodge Resort 1420 Pine Dr (920) 839-2331 Resort $130-$250 Amenities: Whirlpool, Restaurant, Lounge/Bar, Cable/Movies, Waterfront/Beach, Fitness Center, Outdoor Pool, Boating, Fishing, Tennis The Inn at Windmill Farm 3829 Fairview Rd (920) 868-9282 Bed & Breakfast $110-$125 Amenities: Fireplace & Library, Full Breakfast, Smoke Free Journey’s End Motel 8271 Journey’s End Ln (920) 839-2887 Hotel/Motel $50-$150 Amenities: Fireplace, Kitchen Facilities, Limited Food Service, Non-Smoking Rooms, Cottages & Rooms, Pets With Approval Kangaroo Lake Resort 2799 North Kangaroo Lake Dr. (920) 839-2341 Resort $125-$175 Amenities: Cottages, Kitchens, Smoke Free, Water/beach, Fireplaces, Playground, Fishing, Boating Maxwelton Braes Golf Resort 7670 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2321 Resort $80-$115 Amenities: Whirlpool, Restaurant, Bar/Lounge, Outdoor Pool, Golf Course, Banquet Hall, Cottages & Rooms The New Yardley Inn 3360 County E (920) 839-9487 Bed & Breakfast $105-$150
Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Breakfast Orphan Annie’s 7254 Hwy 57 (920) 839-9156 Hotel/Motel $95-$125 Amenities: Kitchen Facilities, Wheelchair Accessible, Smoke Free The Rushes Resort Western Shore of Kangaroo Lake (920) 839-2730 Resort $139-$295 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Waterfront, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Boating, Fishing, Tennis, Cross Country Skiing, Playground Square Rigger Harbor 7950 Hwy 57 (920) 839-2016 Hotel/Motel $90-$120 Amenities: Microwave, Refrigerator, Water View
Fish Creek AppleCreek Resort Hwy 42 & F (920) 868-3525 Resort $52 - $250 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, High-Speed Internet, Indoor Pool, Cross Country Skiing, Snowmobiling, Cottages & Rooms By-The-Bay Motel Hwy 42 (920) 868-3456 Hotel/Motel $59-$155 Amenities: Smoke Free, Water View Cedar Court Inn 9429 Cedar St (920) 868-3361 Hotel/Motel $69-$325 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Outdoor Pool, Cottages & Rooms Evergreen Hill Condominium 3932 Evergreen Road (800) 686-6621 Resort doorcountyliving.com
STAYING IN DOOR COUNTY • • • $89-$204 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Kitchen, Cable/ Movies/VCR, Smoke Free, Indoor Pool Fish Creek Motel & Cottages 9479 Spruce St (920) 868-3448 Hotel/Motel $58-$175 Amenities: Complimentary Coffee, Cable, Water View, Cottages & Rooms Harbor Guest House 9480 Spruce St (920) 868-2284 Resort $115-$275 Amenities: Fireplaces, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Waterfront, Boating, Cross Country Skiing, Snowmobiling Hilltop Inn Hwy 42 & County F (920) 868-3556 Resort $79-$199 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Restaurant, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Outdoor Pool, Cross Country Skiing, Snowmobiling Homestead Suites 4006 Hwy 42 (800) 686-6621 Resort $75-$189 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Continental Breakfast, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Cross Country Skiing, Snowmobiling, Playground, Meeting Rooms
doorcountyliving.com
Julie’s Park Café & Motel 4020 Hwy 42 (920) 868-2999 Hotel/Motel $49-$71 Amenities: Restaurant, Cable, Smoke Free, Pets Allowed, Trailer Parking Little Sweden Vacation Resort Hwy 42 (920) 868-9950 Resort $175-$350 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Fitness Center, Outdoor Pool, Indoor Pool, Sauna, Tennis, Playground, Bike Trails, Hiking Trails, Snow Shoeing, Cross Country Skiing Main Street Motel 4209 Main St (920) 868-2201 Hotel/Motel $49-$96 Amenities: Cable, Themed Rooms, Smoke Free Parkwood Lodge 3775 Hwy 42 (920) 868-2046 www.parkwoodlodge.com Resort $55-$217 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Wheelchair Accessible, Indoor Pool, Tennis, Playground, Bike Trails, Hiking Trails, Cross Country Skiing, Snowmobiling Peninsula Park-View Resort W3397 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2633 Resort $49-$199
Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, HighSpeed Internet, Non-Smoking Rooms, Wheelchair Accessible, Outdoor Pool, Cottages & Rooms Settlement Courtyard Inn 9126 Hwy 42 (920) 868-3524 Resort $72-$224 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Continental Breakfast, Kitchen Facilities, Lounge/Bar, Cable/Movies, High-Speed Internet, Wheelchair Accessible, Smoke Free, Outdoor Pool, Bike Trails, Hiking Trails, Snow Shoeing, Cross Country Skiing, Snowmobiling Thorp House Inn & Cottages 4135 Bluff Ln (920) 868-2444 Bed & Breakfast $75-$215 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Breakfast, TV/VCR, Cottages, Rooms & Beach House The Whistling Swan Hotel 4192 Main St (920) 868-3442 Bed & Breakfast $135 - $185 Amenities: Restaurant, Lounge/Bar, Continental Breakfast, Cable/Movies, HighSpeed Internet, Smoke Free White Gull Inn 4225 Main St (920) 868-3517 Bed & Breakfast $155-$295 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Breakfast, Restaurant, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible
Ephraim Bay Breeze Resort 9844 Hwy 42 (920) 854-9066 Resort $53-$169 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Cable/Movies, NonSmoking Rooms, Waterfront/ Beach, Outdoor Pool, Cottages & Rooms Eagle Harbor Inn 9914 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2121 Bed & Breakfast $69-$237 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Kitchen Facilities, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Sauna, Meeting Rooms Edgewater Resort 10040 Water Street (920) 854-2734 Resort $79-$419 Amenities: Whirlpool, Restaurant, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront/ Beach, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Cottages & Rooms Ephraim Guest House 3042 Cedar St (920) 854-2319 Resort $75-$185 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, Smoke Free The Ephraim Inn 9994 Pioneer Lane (920) 854-4515 Bed & Breakfast $110-$195 Amenities: Full Breakfast, Smoke Free
Ephraim Motel 10407 Hwy 42 (920) 854-5959 Hotel/Motel $45-$95 Amenities: Continental Breakfast, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Outdoor Pool, Playground Ephraim Shores 10018 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2371 Resort $75-$210 Amenities: Whirlpool, Restaurant, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, Smoke Free, Waterfront/Beach, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Playground Evergreen Beach Resort 9944 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2831 Resort $75-$140 Amenities: Cable/Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront/Beach, Outdoor Pool, Playground French Country Inn of Ephraim 3052 Spruce Lane (920) 854-4001 Bed & Breakfast $65-$100 Amenities: Fireplace, Breakfast, Smoke Free, Common Area Harbor View Resort 9971 S Dane St (920) 854-2425 Resort $130-$185 Amenities: Fireplace, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Cottages & Rooms High Point Inn 10386 Hwy 42
Autumn 2010 Door County Living 93
• • • STAYING IN DOOR COUNTY (920) 854-9773 Resort $80-$328 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Playground, Meeting Rooms The Juniper Inn B & B N9432 Maple Grove Rd (920) 839-2629 Bed & Breakfast $85 - $195 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Breakfast, TV/VCR Lodgings at Pioneer Lane 9996A Pioneer Lane (800) 588-3565 Hotel/Motel $65-$175 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool Cable/Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Wheelchair Accessible Pine Grove Motel 10080 Hwy 42 (800) 292-9494 Hotel/Motel $91-$108 Amenities: Whirlpool, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Wheelchair Accessible, Waterfront/Beach, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool Somerset Inn 10401 Hwy 42 (920) 854-1819 Resort $59-$169 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/ Movies, Smoke Free, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool Spruce Lane Lodge 3038 Spruce Lane (920) 854-7380 Hotel/Motel Amenities: Studio Suites with Kitchen Trollhaugen Lodge 10176 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2713 Hotel/Motel $67 -$155 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Breakfast, Kitchen Facilities, Smoke Free, Cottages & Rooms, Hiking Trail, Cable/ DVD/CD, AAA Approved, Log Cabin, Wi-Fi Village Green Lodge Cedar Street (920) 854-2515
Bed & Breakfast $85-$170 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Continental Breakfast, Cable / Movies, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Outdoor Pool Waterbury Inn 10321 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2821 Resort $85-$187 Amenities: Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Playground, Snowmobiling
Sister Bay
Birchwood Lodge 10571 Hwy 57 (920) 854-7195 Resort $79-$219 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Fitness Center, Outdoor Pool, Indoor Pool, Sauna, Tennis, Snowmobiling, Meeting Rooms
Country House Resort 2468 Sunnyside Road (920) 854-4551 Resort $70-$330 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Continental Breakfast, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, HighSpeed Internet, Non-Smoking Rooms, Wheelchair Accessible, Waterfront, Outdoor Pool, Tennis, Meeting Rooms Edge of Town Motel 11902 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2012 Hotel/Motel $40-$80 Amenities: Cable/Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Pets with Approval The Inn At Little Sister Hill 2715 Little Sister Hill Rd (920) 854-2328 Resort $79-$179 Amenities: Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Outdoor Pool, Playground, Bike Trails
Bluffside Motel 10641 Bluffside Ln (920) 854-2530 Hotel/Motel $39-$150 Amenities: Coffee & Doughnuts, Cable/TV, Refrigerator
Inn On Maple 2378 Maple Dr (920) 854-5107 Bed & Breakfast $85 - $125 Amenities: Full Breakfast, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free
Century Farm Motel 10068 Hwy 57 (920) 854-4069 Hotel/Motel Amenities: Pets Allowed
Liberty Park Lodge 11034 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2025 Resort $65-$149 Amenities: Fireplace, Continental Breakfast, Cable TV, Use of Boat Slips, Beach, Game Room, Cottages & Rooms
Church Hill Inn 2393 Gateway Dr (920) 854-4885 Resort $65-$174 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Limited Food Service, Full Breakfast, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Fitness Center, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Meeting Rooms Coachlite Inn of Sister Bay 2544 S Bay Shore Dr (920) 854-5503 Hotel/Motel $45-$125 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Continental Breakfast, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms
94 Door County Living Autumn 2010
Little Sister Resort 10620 Little Sister Rd (920) 854-4013 Resort $75-$165 Amenities: Fireplace, Limited Food Service, Restaurant, Lounge/Bar, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Waterfront, Tennis, Boating, Fishing, Playground, Bike Trails, Cottages & Rooms, Meeting Rooms Moore Property Services 10553 Country Walk Drive (920) 854-1900
Resort $120-$455 Amenities: Kitchen Facilities, Cable/TV, Non-Smoking Units, Waterview, Indoor Pool, Tennis, Washer/Dryer, Dock Nordic Lodge 2721 Nordic Dr (920) 854-5432 Resort $60-$160 Amenities: Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Indoor Pool, Bike Trails, Cottages & Rooms Open Hearth Lodge 2669 S Bay Shore Dr (920) 854-4890 Resort/Hotel/Motel $59-$125 Amenities: Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Indoor Pool Patio Motel 10440 Orchard Dr (920) 854-1978 Hotel/Motel $42-$74 Amenities: Restaurant, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Playground Pheasant Park Resort 130 Park Ln. (920) 854-7287 Resort $88-$274 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Kitchen, Smoke Free, Outdoor Pool, Indoor Pool, Exercise Facilities, Game Room, Children’s Play Area, Conference Room Scandinavian Lodge 10506 Hwy 57 (920) 854-7123 Resort $90-$260 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Sauna, Tennis, Playground, Bike Trails, Meeting Rooms Village View Inn 10628 N Bay Shore Dr (920) 854-2813 Hotel/Motel $45-$95 Amenities: Continental Breakfast, Cable/Movies, All
Non-Smoking Rooms , Refrigerators, Downtown Location Voyager Inn 10490 Hwy 57 (920) 854-4242 Hotel/Motel $55-$95 Amenities: Whirlpool, Cable/ Movies, Non-Smoking Rooms, Outdoor Pool, Sauna Woodenheart Inn 11086 Hwy 42 (920) 854-9097 Bed & Breakfast $85-$129 Amenities: Fireplace, Full Breakfast, TV Yacht Club at Sister Bay 10673 Regatta Way (866) 951-0974 Resort $107-500 Full kitchen, Fireplace, Indoor Pool, Fitness Center, Tennis, Marina, Waterfront, Hiking Trails, Non-smoking, Cable/ Movies
Ellison Bay Anderson’s Retreat 12621 Woodland Drive (920) 854-2746 Resort Amenities: Swimming Pool, Fishing, Outdoor activities Cedar Grove Resort P.O. Box 73 (920) 854-2006 Resort $275-$2350 Amenities: Full Kitchen, Beach, Tennis, Boat Slip Rental, Exercise Room, Playground Hillside Inn of Ellison Bay 11934 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2928 Hotel/Motel $48-$98 Amenities: Continental Breakfast, Restaurant, Lounge/ Bar, Smoke Free, Wheelchair Accessible Hotel Disgarden B & B 12013 Hwy 42 (920) 854-9888 Bed & Breakfast $65 - $125 Amenities: Continental Breakfast, TV/VCR, Smoke Free, Waterfront
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STAYING IN DOOR COUNTY • • • Maple Grove Motel of Gills Rock 809 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2587 Hotel/Motel $65-$85 Amenities: Non-Smoking Rooms, Pets with Approval The Parkside Inn 11946 Hwy 42 (920) 854-9050 Hotel/Motel $59 - $79 Amenities: Continental Breakfast, TV/VCR Wagon Trail Resort & Conference Center 1041 Hwy ZZ (920) 854-2385 Resort $59-$359 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Restaurant, Kitchen Facilities, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Waterfront, Fitness Center, Indoor Pool, Sauna, Tennis, Boating, Fishing, Playground, Bike Trails, Hiking Trails, Cross Country Skiing, Snowmobiling, Cottages & Rooms, Meeting Rooms
Gills Rock Harbor House Inn 12666 Hwy 42 (920) 854-5196 Bed & Breakfast $129-$159 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Continental Breakfast, Refrigerator, Microwave, Gas Grill, Satellite TV, Sauna, Bike Rental, Pets Allowed, Cottages & Rooms On The Rocks Cliffside Lodge 849 Wisconsin Bay Road (888) 840-4162 Hotel/Motel $305 - $775 Amenities: Fireplace, Whirlpool, Full Kitchen, TV/VCR, Waterview
When was the last time you checked Door County’s Pulse?
Shoreline Waterfront Motel 12747 Hwy 42 (920) 854-2606 Hotel/Motel $59-$119 Amenities: Continental Breakfast, Restaurant, Lounge/Bar, Smoke Free, Waterfront
Washington Island
Bitter End Motel 1201 Main Rd. (920) 847-2496 Hotel/Motel Amenities: Refrigerator, Microwave, Restaurant Deer Run Golf Course and Resort 1885 Michigan Road (920) 847-2017 Resort $79-$100 Amenities: Continental Breakfast, Restaurant, Lounge/Bar, Cable/Movies, Smoke Free, Golf Course
Dor Cros Inn 1922 Lobdell Pt. Rd. (920) 847-2126 Resort $78-$157 Amenities: Kitchenettes, Grills, Cabins & Rooms Findlay’s Holiday Inn 1861 The Inn Road (920) 847-2526 Hotel/Motel $95-$135 Amenities: Full-Service Restaurant Gibson’s West Harbor Resort & Cottages 2206 West Harbor Road (920) 847-2225 Resort $30-$90 Amenities: Waterfront, FamilyFriendly, Rooms & Cottages Sunset Resort 889 Old West Harbor Rd. (920) 847-2531 Resort $94-$112 Amenities: Breakfast, NonSmoking, Tennis, Waterfront/ Beach, No Phone & TV in
Acquaint Yourself With The Warm Hospitality At The Attractively Priced Village View Inn
Rooms, Bonfire Pit, Nature Trail The Townliner 1930 Townline Rd (920) 847-2422 Hotel/Motel $64-$115 Amenities: Kitchen, Refrigerator, TV Viking Village Motel Main Rd. (920) 847-2551 Hotel/Motel $65-$120 Amenities: Fireplace, Kitchen Facilities, Pet-Friendly, Grills The Washington Hotel, Restaurant & Culinary School 354 Range Line Rd (920) 847-2169 Hotel/Motel $89-$179 Amenities: Fireplace, Continental Breakfast, Restaurant, Cooking School, Private 3-Bedroom Cottage on Property.
Open May - October
Door County’s resource for the news, arts & entertainment.
Located on Bay Shore Drive In the Heart of Sister Bay - Tour Our Website At www.village-view.com (800) 854-2813
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Relax & Recharge
online guide to restaurants, lodging, galleries, events and more check it. read it. use it. doorcountyliving.com
Gustave’s Getaway, a restored historic 1887 Door County Log Cabin, is your all season vacation home retreat. Privacy and seclusion is yours on our 50-acre retreat. Pets on approval, fireplace, air conditioned, full kitchen/ bath, picnic-campfire area, WiFi, Satellite TV/DVD, 3 miles private recreational trails, wildlife viewing, hunting (inquire), seasonal specials.
2602 Grove Road, Baileys Harbor | 920-839-2288 For full details, visit: www.gustavesgetaway.com
Mention this ad for a complimentary welcome gift – not valid with other offers – expires 12-31-10. Autumn 2010 Door County Living 95
• • • STAYING IN DOOR COUNTY
FEATURED ACCOMMODATION BY JACINDA DUFFIN
town, which is literally just a few blocks away. Though bustling during the summer and fall months (full occupancy often means 80-plus guests per night) and impressively active during the spring and winter seasons, guests are particularly surprised at the quiet intimacy of the property. Eagle Harbor Inn is comprised of 32 suites and nine bed and breakfast (B&B) rooms. The traditional B&B rooms, located in the main building, include a full breakfast that incorporates fresh local produce and timetested recipes (some that have been served at the B&B for over 75 years) and cater to those who like the friendliness of a B&B – specifically, meeting new people and lively conversation at the breakfast table. All B&B rooms offer turn-of-the-century warmth and décor, with contemporary conveniences like cable television and private baths.
Eagle Harbor Inn With a colorful backdrop of blooming flowers in summer and crisp evergreens in winter, the notable red sign at the south end of Ephraim announces that you’ve found Eagle Harbor Inn. Not that you need a sign to tell you where you are: Eagle Harbor, the wide blue waters bordered on one side by the bluffs of Peninsula State Park and on the other by the picturesque Moravian-founded village of Ephraim, is perhaps the most photographed area of Door County. This accessible shoreline hosts pontoon boats, sailboats, swim-
mers and para-sailors. Just a stone’s throw away, innkeepers Craig and Natalie Neddersen welcome visitors to one of Door County’s most charming accommodations. From the main street of Ephraim, you could easily miss the modest entrance to the inn, which offers just a peek at quaint, white clapboard buildings, front porches and impeccably groomed gardens. The property itself borders Water Street for a small stretch, and then – much to guests’ delight – fans out into five private acres, giving the sense of being far away from the hustle of down-
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If traditional B&Bs aren’t your style (specifically, meeting new people and lively conversation at the breakfast table!), you might opt for one of the elegant suites, located in six separate, architecturally-distinct houses, catering to those who prefer a more private retreat. All suites include a whirlpool tub, double-sided fireplace, down comforter and pillows, and an efficiency kitchen complete with range, refrigerator and coffeemaker (though, trust me, you’ll be tempted by the homemade breakfast basket, which you can order to be delivered to your room at the civilized hour of 8:00 am). No matter which type of room you choose, afternoon treats of cookies, bars
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FEATURED ACCOMMODATION
and lemonade are served on the patio and in the main dining area. Either an asset or a detriment, depending upon your needs, is the exceptionally reliable cell phone reception and wireless internet access throughout the grounds. A commons area, available for rent, provides the ability to host private weddings and parties for up to 75 guests. A state-of-the-art workout room, indoor pool and sauna round out the facility.
In a county full of quality accommodations, the Neddersens have managed to set Eagle Harbor Inn apart. First and foremost, they’ve paid respect to the history of the property, which has operated as a Door County destination resort for nearly a century. When the Neddersens purchased the property in 1994, it was comprised of the inn (still in existence), a small log cabin (donated to the Ephraim Foundation) and a series of small cottages (which have been moved to another area of the county). For decades, families have enjoyed summering here, and the Neddersens – realizing the need to update the facility, but not wanting to lose the ambiance – smartly chose to build quality, classic structures in “old Ephraim farmhouse” style.
INFORMATION ADDRESS: 9914 Water Street, Ephraim PHONE: (920) 854-2121 or (800)-324-5427 WEBSITE: www.eagleharborinn.com
“We intentionally designed the buildings to feel old, to have modern conveniences and comforts, but also to feel cozy,” says Natalie. “And because we are on-site innkeepers, we care even more. We live here, too, so it matters to us that it retains an intimate and attractive feel.” “The size of the rooms, the size of the weight room and pool, and the scale of the actual buildings,” says Craig, “are very important. Guests often comment on how refreshing it is to stay in a place that’s appropriately sized for their needs, and is dedoorcountyliving.com
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signed to fit the scale of the community as well.” The Neddersens decided early in the process to open the property to outside investors by offering each of the 32 suites for separate purchase, in a style of ownership known as “resort condominium ownership.” These owners are represented by a board, have input as to how the association operates and functions, and can use their units for family vacations, weekend getaways, and for friends and family. Though this style of ownership is not specific to Eagle Harbor Inn, as resort condominiums are popular in many vacation areas of the state, it is unusual to find a resort condominium that has both the stability of multiple owners but is operated (and partially owned) by the original owners. This lends familial, small-business warmth that’s often lacking in other, similarly designed developments. “It’s been fantastic,” states Natalie. “It’s offered many people the opportunity to own a piece of Door County, while providing us with partners who care as much about the success of the business as we do.” And successful it is: 64 percent of guests are returning guests or have been referred by
friends who’ve stayed at the inn. Over the past 15-plus years, the Neddersens have paid careful attention to what folks are asking for. Many come to relax and spend most of their time in their room, in front of the fireplace or on their private porch, and for those guests, the inn continues to offer quiet relaxation. As Door County continues to attract the silent sports sector, the inn has added a locked bike and kayak room, and welcomes the busyness of folks who use the inn more as a launching point while they take advantage of the county’s trails and waterways. For guests or non-guests wanting to host small dinner parties or weddings, the inn offers creative catering events in the Commons building. In the winter, which has historically been a more quiet time, rates and room packages encourage mid-week and weekend stays, and afternoon treats include hot mulled cider and oatmeal cookies. The inn even offers monthly rates for those lucky enough to enjoy an extended stay in Door County. In any season, if you’re looking for quality accommodation paired with genuine hospitality, this unassuming and impressive establishment should be at the top of your list.
98 Door County Living Autumn 2010
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BICYCLE THE BACKROADS OF DOOR COUNTY
Ride for Nature To benefit The Ridges Sanctuary Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin
June 18, 2011
Century Ride | 50 mile | 25 mile | 15 mile family ride visit ridefornature.com for more information or call 920.421.1509.
PRESENTED BY:
doorcountyliving.com MAJOR SPONSORS:
Supporting Sponsors: True North Real Estate • Baileys Harbor Community Association • Markey Springs The Ride for Nature is a Peninsula Pacers/Door County Half Marathon event