summer homes for city people

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Cover art an original work by Neal Aspinall. Magazine title, Summer Homes For City People was borrowed from a 1898 real estate brochure called “The Story of Geneva Lake,” written by F.R. Chandler, under the auspices of the Lake Geneva Village Association. Lake Photographs have been provided by Matt Mason, Kristen Westlake and Colleen Abrahamovich.

This magazine was printed by David Curry of Geneva Lakefront Realty, LLC. Any questions relating to this magazine or to future advertising may be made direct to [email protected]. Reproducing any of this content without owner consent is prohibited.

This magazine is published for information and entertainment purposes only. Geneva Lakefront Realty LLC is not responsible for any claims, representations, or errors made by the publisher, author, or advertisers. For specific details, please consult your attorney, accountant, or licensed Realtor. Geneva Lakefront Realty LLC is a fair housing broker and limited liability company in the state of Wisconsin. Listings are subject to prior sale or price change.

JUSTIN GIROUX

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Spring SunOF A WINTER QUICKLY FORGOTTEN..............................................8

70 Miles YOU HAVE CHOICES, BUT ONLY ONE SMART ONE............................10

All StarsWE ARE ALL WINNERS, EXCEPT NOT REALLY................................. 14

Hobby LobbyistDON’T BE MY FATHER............................................................... 18

The Shore PathWITHOUT IT, THINGS WOULD BE HORRIBLE................................... 22

Spring RainHATE IT, LOVE IT, COUNT ON IT................................................... 24

Lake Geneva MorelHUNTER, GATHERER, FUNGUS LOVER.......................................... 28

The MundaneWE’RE A SLAVE TO MONEY AND THEN WE DIE............................... 32

CornIT’S THE ANSWER, NO MATTER THE QUESTION............................... 36

Pure GenevaNOT LIKE MASHED PEAS, NOT AT ALL..........................................40

Gudrun Curry1914-2014..............................................................................46

Swimming LessonsMY INTRODUCTION TO LIFE....................................................... 52

The Too FamiliarI SHOULDN’T BE SO CRITICAL.................................................... 56

SummerscapeYOU’LL NEVER FIND ONE BETTER...............................................60

The TransactionTHERE’S A FOREST AND MAYBE ALSO SOME TREES........................64

JamMULBERRY, TO BE EXACT......................................................... 74

Only In StreamsLOOK AWAY FROM THE SHINY, AT LEAST NOW AND THEN................ 78

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7SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLEwww.genevalakefrontrealty.com

THAT’S ME. THERE I AM. That is, for the record, the first time I’ve put a picture of myself in this magazine. I haven’t done it before because I generally dislike those sorts of real estate promotions. The grinning-agent-picture has always felt, at least to me, like, “Look at me! Don’t I look happy and trustworthy?!” I’ve never liked that, so I’ve never done it. I’d rather let my actions do the talking, but in the event that we haven’t already met, hello.

This is the sixth Summer Homes For City People magazine. The first year that I wrote the magazine, the markets were in thorough turmoil. It was 2010 and things looked as though they wouldn’t get too much worse, but we all feared that they’d take too long to get better. Today, the markets have healed and buyers have returned in significant numbers. Prices have rebounded, which has led to equally confident buyers and sellers. While things are better, there are numerous pitfalls that await willing buyers, as misplaced market confidence can easily lead to market mistakes.

That’s why I’m here—to help buyers avoid those mistakes. There is value in this market, and my goal is to help you secure it. As the top agent in Walworth County last year ($37MM in sales), and $110MM in sales since the start of 2010, no one has a better handle on this market. Best of all, and unlike anyone else with that rare level of success in this market, 98% of my sales volume is the direct result of Lake Geneva vacation home sales.

For now, I hope you enjoy this 2015 issue of Summer Homes For City People. As with all of the other iterations of this publication, everything that follows is something I originally wrote for my daily blog that I encourage you to frequent. If you find yourself in need of some Lake Geneva real estate assistance and prefer the sort of insight that can only come from a local Realtor and his local company, I’m here all summer, all the time, ready and willing to help.

David C. CurryGeneva.Lakefront.Realty,.LLC57.West.Geneva.Street,.Williams.Bay,.WI.53191.262.245.9000.|[email protected]

8 SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLEwww.genevalakefrontrealty.com

SPRING SUN

THERE WAS STILL SNOW out there, but really none at all if you compare it to the snow cover from just a few short weeks ago. I found myself near the stream bank, crunching over browned grass that was bent all the way to the ground after long ago succumbing to that unrelenting blanket. The grass was low, long, spread out around me, mixtures of tan and brown, some pale others dark, nothing green in view except wisps of seaweed that trailed in the current, moving back and forth, back and forth, never able to be still. The sun was shining, working to warm the air even while the wind whipped through the valley, pushing that warm air against my face and hands in such a way that the air was no longer warm, but barely tolerable.

I walked for a ways, scanning the stream for signs of life, unable to see very far into the water that had been made cloudy by so much snow melt over recent days. I slipped a few times on mud that was exposed some five, maybe six feet over the surface of the stream, a sign that this little Wisconsin stream had not too long ago been violently blown out by the spring weather, just like a mountain stream might. There was little life to be seen, excepting a few black spiders that scurried over the bent, brown

grass. A clutch of turkey vultures soared over head, but looking up is not something someone does when scanning a stream, so those large birds just circled and circled, and I paid them no attention.

The line felt good in my hands, better than it felt a few weeks ago when I cast that yellow, floating line during a most brutal winter day. I worked the stream, stripping my large streamers through the quick, murky water, bend after bend, riffle after riffle, dark swirling pool after dark swirly pool. Aside from rocks and trees, nothing bit. Two hours, more or less, had passed since I first hiked downstream and my fishing companions hiked upstream. I found myself back at the road, near the bridge, next to our truck that was parked illegally, as all good fly fisherman park. Show me a fly fisher that parks his tidy car squarely in a paved lot, and I’ll show you a fly fisher with a pair of clean boots, pressed waders, a neatly arranged fly box and a camera full of landscape photos, absent fish photos.

I was sheltered from the wind now, and felt a slow urge to simply lie down on my bed of bent, faded grass, and soak up that spring sun. I think about things like that often, but I rarely do them, because as much as I wish for calm relaxation, I cannot

OF.A.WINTER.QUICKLY.FORGOTTEN


find it by being still. I pushed on, under the bridge to a slight bend in the stream, and worked my streamer upstream and across, back and forth, stripping and pausing, stripping and pausing. I missed what I thought was a nice fish, and that strike held my interest in that pool. After the near miss, it wasn’t more than three casts later that I hooked into a thrashing trout, a big, bold rainbow that saw my streamer teasing its way through the current and would not tolerate it. The fish bit, I panicked, and after a few excited moments I had that fish in my hands.

I had entirely, and completely, forgotten about winter.

I struggled with what to do next. I needed a picture, but how? I would need to lay this great fish on the grass, if only for a second, so I could snap a photo or be faced with ridicule and disbelief from my fishing friends. I pulled my phone from my pouch and proceeded to drop it into the stream. Crap. I ripped

it from the shallow bottom before it could marinate, and dried it on my shirt quickly. I threw it up onto the sunny grass, so it could dry. When I looked up to fling the phone to safety, my friends were approaching. I smiled and held the great fish high to they might see. Unrepeatable words followed, along with pictures. I released the fish soon after, and it swam quickly back to the perceived safety of a cloudy bend.

I didn’t catch a fish for the rest of the day, and I didn’t need to. I simply needed to be, to stand under the sun and not feel cold. I needed to walk on dead, dull grass, I needed to soak in the sepia tone of an early spring day. And this morning, I drove down a dry road, with sun filtering through the roadside trees in a way that it can do now, but not in the summer. The light would be blocked out by then, shielded from the morning road by so many leaves, bright and green and full. I passed one or two piles of snow, hiding cowardly on north facing slopes, and I averted my gaze because after a day

like the one above, and on a morning like this, I have no use for winter, and I have no lasting memory of it.

Spring is like that. It makes winter seem like barely anything at all. I cannot remember winter all that well, and now that my driveway has made the transition from ice to mud to dry gravel, there is little winter left to be considered. I tilled my garden yesterday, and the soil was light and dry. The slop that we needed to embrace has dried, and winter now has just one remaining stronghold- the lake. It is still covered in thick, dark ice, but it won’t be too long before it, too, has melted into spring.

I hold no animosity towards winter. I’m simply glad it’s gone, and now that it is, I have forgotten it. One day under a spring sun has the ability to erase 120 days trapped under a winter sky.

Written April 2, 2014The winter of 2013/2014 was a most miserable affair. I needed to break free of it, and break free of it I did.

KRISTEN WESTLAKE FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY | www.kristenwestlake.net


THERE IS A VERY PRETTY BUILDING in the city of Chicago located at 2550 North Lakeview Avenue. The building is called Lincoln Park 2550, but only because that name sounds a tad better than the other one, and it applies a neighborhood name that sells with a bit more vigor, and for a tad more money. I’ve been in this building, and I like it very much. It is new and fancy, and there are game rooms and movie rooms and meeting rooms. I’m betting one of those rooms is hosting a St. Patrick’s day party this weekend, but I don’t know quite which room. There aren’t many expressly Irish movies, unless you count Far and Away, so I’m betting the party isn’t in the movie room. Likely in that pretty space behind the lobby. It looks out over the community lawn area where people walk.

From this building, you can drive in many directions, except of course for straight East for any significant amount of time. To the West, you can drive. To the South, too. North is obvious, because when it comes to a weekend retreat most Midwesterners have a pre-set disposition to drive that direction. If you left on a Friday afternoon and drove due west, in 73.27 miles you’d find yourself pulling into the town of Malta, Illinois. The first house in Malta was built by a fella named Orput, which means If I had been Mr. Orput I would have named Malta Orputville, but even so. Malta seems like a nice little town, and the good news is that their water boil decree was lifted last week. While Malta may be a nice place, it is to vacation homes what I am to delicate ice dancing.

If you found yourself in need of a southerly retreat, but you wished to only drive south for a ways before turning to the East a bit and then more to the North, a 74.22 mile drive would find you in New Buffalo, Michigan. That sounds awful nice, but perhaps I shouldn’t have added the word nice. On your trip, mile 33 will put you in the heart of Gary, Indiana, which is a good thing. Living in 2550 Lincoln Park there isn’t a lot of danger, or a lot of blight, so it’s good to see these things once in a while. There are lots of advertisements for fireworks and strip clubs here, so your children would endure an education on the ways of this easterly world. Once you get the New Buffalo, you’ll be delighted to find that the town is likely closed. It does that a lot if it isn’t one of the few weeks of their curt summer.

If you drove South, and then didn’t turn to the East, 79.91 miles later you’d be in Herscher. This is a wonderful little town, though I only know that because their website declares it as fact. It’s a close knit community, which is always a good thing. Unless you live in Lincoln Park and you drive there for a weekend, because you are not really part of this fabric, and you’re going to have a hard time working your way into things. Herscher also doesn’t appear to have a lake, because if a town has a nice lake, they put it on their website. There are tractors on this website, and as a proud owner of a John Deere tractor, I do appreciate fine American craftsmanship (Hecho En Mexico), but weekend after weekend of tractoring is really just work.

70 MILESYOU.HAVE.CHOICES,.

BUT.ONLY.ONE.SMART.ONE


You could drive North from 2550, either up 41 or 94, or you could be especially unique and drive up 12 if, for no other reason, than because you enjoy a good traffic back up in Lake Zurich, and in 74.09 miles you could be basking in the eternal glow of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Your drive will not feature any blight, and you will, at no point, be in any routine danger. In fact, if you chose to drive 94, you’d be surrounded by the corn and soybean fields of northern Illinois in thirty minutes time. You could take a detour through Bristol and pass near that most

remarkable horse farm. Or you could just go north to Highway 50, and turn to the West as so many people have done for so many years. You’d drive through a few small towns along this route, and if you’re wise you’d stop at River Valley Farms for some mushrooms, and then again at Lake Geneva Country Meats for some Wisconsiny eats.

We have a lake in our town, and that’s why we feature it on our website. It’s pretty big, it’s wonderfully blue, and the area around the lake isn’t so bad either. I guess some people wouldn’t

like roads that twist around a deeply deciduous shoreline, and I suppose not everyone thinks a sunset sail over deep, clean waters is a fun way to end a Friday. Those people will likely be driving South, or West, or South and then East, because those who end up driving North are the truly discerning, but if we were all discerning, the Gary gas stations wouldn’t do nearly as much business.

Written March 14, 2014I suppose this has to do with my unwavering belief that Lake Geneva is the only weekend destination worth considering. Yes, that’s what this has to do with.

KRISTEN WESTLAKE FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY | www.kristenwestlake.net


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I WATCH A REASONABLE AMOUNT of college basketball. I do not watch it solely because I like the sport of basketball, so you won’t find me making time to watch some game between two teams that I don’t care about. I watch Big Ten basketball because I root for the Big Ten in all things, at all times. I root for Wisconsin first, because I am a Wisconsinite not just by birth, but by increasing admiration of this great state, too. In all levels of basketball, as in all sports and in real estate, there are players of varying skill.

It is easy to watch a game and root for the star players. They are good, after all, and this is why they are the stars. In sports, there is no special consideration for political or otherwise mandated reasons of fairness, there is only consideration of skill, and players are rewarded commensurate to their level. When watching these basketball games, like the one Wisconsin played yesterday against Nebraska (the team, not the movie) it’s easy to forget about the players at the end of the bench. The bench is long, it may be deep, and the player relegated to the very last chair on that bench generally looks like he doesn’t belong. He sits and he sits, and when the star players come from the floor he sometimes offers them high fives, and once in a while they return the gesture. He brings them water, too, because stardom is a thirsty throne, and then I imagine he’s happy when one of those star players says something nice to him in practice. Like, nice shot.

When we do think about this last player on this long bench, we forget one very important thing: He is also a star player. Not on this team, not right now, but on his team in his town, he was everything. He was the big man on his smaller

campus, and when the skinny subs on his old team would make a nice shot, he’d sometimes tell them so. Usually, he didn’t, which is why his position at the end of this new bench is so upsetting to him. He kind of understands that he isn’t as good as the other players, but he mostly blames the coach. If coach’d have put me in for the fourth quarter we’d have won state. No doubt. No doubt.

The players in the NBA are like this, too, except they were stars at the small town school, and then still stars at a big town school, and now in this biggest of leagues they are just players at the end of the bench. They get water for the players sometimes, but mostly they just think about how they should be playing, and how the coach isn’t all that nice, and how the cheerleaders are pretty. And in this, there is a simple truth about the lakes around Geneva Lake.

They are fine, these lakes. I say bad things about them, but mostly they’re just fine. They have water and shoreline and houses and trees. To someone who grew up somewhere far away from here, in a land where a lake is a lake is a lake, they are accepted. They are stars in the eyes of some, but only for as long as they are compared to each other. Some are better than the others, but they are all stars on a small town team. They cannot be expected to compete with Geneva Lake on this bigger stage, and so we shouldn’t forget that they’re still fine players. It’s just that they’re not true stars, and so they shouldn’t get so upset when we decline their high five.

Written March 10th, 2014Inspired by March Madness, and Wisconsin’s terrific run that was rudely interrupted by Kentucky.

ALL STARSWE.ARE.ALL.WINNERS,

EXCEPT.NOT.REALLY


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MY FATHER HAS NO HOBBIES. Not a single one. He used to play a bit of golf, but that effort only produced two lasting memories. There was the un-witnessed hole-in-one at George Williams that must have occurred sometime during the early 1980s. That feat fell on absent eyes and deaf ears, and if you watched my father play golf for a few minutes you’d understand the skepticism. The only other enduring event was a lasting phrase that my brother and I can both hear to this day. It was a pleasant afternoon on Lawsonia Golf Course, north near that Green Lake. My father was struggling, as is his golfing habit, and after ripping multiple drives into multiple directions, he swung his club in frustration and uttered the famous phrase, “I can do this.” It was more a plea, half a beg, tinged with both immediate desperation and long enduring golfing despair. We had witnessed the death of his golf game, and while we played many times since then, we have never played without someone telling the others that he could, indeed, do this.

He used to sit on his pier, often. In fact, when I was a child, before the advent of cellular telephones and even cordless ones, he ran a telephone line from his house to his pier, so that he could sit there and conduct business. It was a strong effort, and I suppose that was no different from today, when I sit on a boat in the middle of the lake, iPad and similarly branded phone sitting on the bow cushions at the ready, assuming I’m motivated enough to pick up the phone when it rings. The desire to do work from a place other than an office has always been strong, as evidenced by the 100’ of telephone cable that attached my father’s pier to his house. Even those pier sitting

days are limited now. He boats some, sails barely at all and he looks over his collection of shiny red automobiles routinely, though all of these activities are diminishing. My father is not dying, but his love of hobby is already resting in peace.

It’s because he has no hobbies that he knows not how to rest. Naps are not rest. I struggle from the exact opposite affliction. I cannot nap to save my life. This nap phobia stems from my childhood, when my parents forced me to take an afternoon nap. We didn’t have to do this at home, but on vacation, when the church camp had morning and evening activities for kids, we had to nap. We were on vacation, and we had to spend some amount of time hidden from the afternoon sun, huddled in our rented bedrooms. It was a cruel punishment, as few things are worse than spending time in a dark bedroom while hearing the squeals and laughter of the kids whose parents didn’t subscribe to this primitive form of torture. Because of that, I cannot nap now, and my parents have stolen the supposed joy that is a nap, cat or otherwise.

The childhood scars aside, the real reason I cannot nap is because I have so many other things I wish to do at any given time. I have work to do, sure, but I am not a maniacal Realtor, beholden to working at every waking second. To quote David Burge, “Follow your passion”? Bulls@%t. Find something you’re good at and that other people value. Use the resulting income to pay for your passion.” I work to afford a tenacious pursuit of hobby, and that pursuit will ultimately be my professional undoing. Can you blame me? I live here, in this land where every hobby ever worth pursuing is available to me on a daily, hourly, basis.

HOBBYLOBBYIST

DON’T.BE.MY.FATHER


Monday, I had a tick bite me. This was the first tick of 2014, but it will not be the last. I have flicked as many as 10 ticks off of me at one time, and while I have never been diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease I have also never been diagnosed with ADHD. Morel hunting and ticks go hand in hand, not happily, like a couple skipping through a field, but instead angrily and necessarily, because climbing through brush and sliding under brambles is a requirement of the great coming hunt. I hated that tick on Monday, and I cursed it for biting me, but it was not entirely unwelcome. You know when ticks don’t bite you? In January. You know where they won’t bite you in April? Inside an office building. It’s spring, and I’m nothing if not an outdoors-man of a soft sort, and so a tick bite is a rite of passage, a signal that I have made it from winter and into spring, which is where I spent the last six months hoping I would end up.

We all know that spring is simply a necessary transition from that place where we didn’t want to go to the place where we wish to be. Without spring, we’d shovel one day and boat the next, and that sounds somewhat appealing but would be, in practice, absolutely disorienting. When the summer does come, after Morel Season and before Boating Season, we will have so many hobbies at our disposal. There is swimming and sailing, boating and fishing, shore path walking and town shopping. There is morning golf and afternoon tennis, and sometimes there is morning tennis and afternoon golf. There is ice cream licking and firework watching. There is lazy Saturday breakfast making and sunny Sunday sunning. There is early morning fishing and earlier morning skiing. There is evening boating to evening dining, and there are slow cruises home, through that inky dark water and under that bright starred sky.

There are hobbies to indulge in, and the time is coming. The lake and sun are working overtime to rid us of this icy blanket and the season of The Hobby has nearly arrived. I don’t doubt that you can have hobbies in the city. It’s just that those hobbies are sort of lame, and they are boring. If you disagree, spend one Saturday on the flesh blanket that is a Chicago beach, and spend the next Saturday lounging on a white pier that juts out into this deep blue lake. Vacation homes are fun, yes, and the appliances matter and so does the material of the floor. But more than shelter a vacation home is really just a launching point for all those hobbies that you’ve not yet found time to practice.

Written April 9th, 2014I really was bitten by that tick. And I really did think it was a good thing, because it meant I was doing something right.

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I COULD NEVER LIVE in a small condo in the city. My brother does this, the city living in the small condo. I don’t really know how he does it either, what with his childhood spent at the lake, which isn’t in the country if you’re from the lake, but if you’re from a small condo in the city it sure is. He lives in a small space, with hundreds of neighbors above and below him, and on the sides, too. The only walls that aren’t common are the ones that face the outside, that face the lake and the park and the city. Those windows are the view that saves that small place, but the living is tight, the hallways narrow, the ceilings somewhat low.

At most lakes, it’s tight, too. The lots are tight, the views are narrow, the lots restricted. If you have a weekend house on Any Lake, USA, that’s nice. It probably has a nice lawn, with a metal dock, and a fire pit where you burn sticks, sure, but also the cardboard. If you wish to see the lake, you can jump on your pontoon boat, and float past the weedy shallows where the reeds crowd and the mill foil creeps, and you can push to deeper water for a ride. You’ll spin around that lake in no time flat, and you’ll return to your narrow lawn. The fire pit is still smoldering, so that’s good.

You can walk to one edge of your lawn, and survey the neighbor’s property. He has a nice metal dock, too, and his fire pit is sort of like yours except he uses an old oil barrel that his brother cut in half with a torch from his work. It only smelled like oil and fuel for a few weeks, and now it’s just a rusty ring that he burns his trash in, but also some sticks now and again. You can walk to the other

side of your lot, looking over that other neighbor’s lawn. His lawn is nicer than yours, and his pier is as well. He doesn’t have a fire pit, because he checked with the township and they told him that it wasn’t allowed. He’s so naive.

This is the extent of your lakeside exploration at this lake. You can walk your property, and look after its edges. You can get in your boat, and float those green waters. Or, you can go for a walk, the one your wife likes to take, and it’ll force you to follow the roads around and around. The roads are fine, they really are, but they’re dangerous because people rarely follow the speed limit in those parts. It doesn’t matter if they’re safe or not, as they are your only walking option. At this house, on this lake, when you walk and you boat and you sit on your front lawn around the smoky fire pit, you don’t feel particularly trapped.

You don’t feel trapped simply because you don’t know better. You don’t know what a shore path is like. In fact, you don’t understand the concept at all. It would be okay for your neighbor to walk into your front lawn, so long as you were out in that lawn and you were talking about the level of the lake or the other neighbor’s new car. But you wouldn’t walk through his lakeside lawn and onto the next, and so on and so forth until you ringed the lake. You couldn’t, anyway, because of the fences and the BEWARE OF DOG signs that may or may not be telling any particular truth. The shore path that would allow you to do this isn’t something anyone feels comfortable with, so you’ll just be forced

THE SHORE PATHWITHOUT.IT,.THINGS.WOULD.BE.HORRIBLE


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to find contentment in your hemmed in weekend.

It dawned on me yesterday, as I sat lakeside watching the day unfold, that the shore path remains something of utmost importance, but at the same time remains completely and entirely taken for granted. What if we couldn’t get around in this manner? What if, when my family decided to walk to Pier 290 yesterday for lunch, we had to walk away from the lake, up the hills and down the roads and into the parking lot? It sure was a whole lot nicer to walk down a cobbled path of stone and grass, with the lake always at our right, until the way home when it was at our left. When we sat at those fine tables and ate in that glorious setting, the lake was never out of view.

When I sell homes here, or at least when I try to, I’m sure to mention the shore path. I can see buyers struggle to understand the importance of it, and instead, just shrug it off as an oddity of the market. I wish this wouldn’t be the case. The shore path is pure magic, and without it we’d all be tucked into our little plots without the freedom to roam.

Written June 23rd, 2014TThe story itself explains the motivation. I was watching the shore path in action, and it was a beautiful thing.


IT’S RAINING AGAIN. Sitting in a dark house, with stone walls and large timber framing that reaches from wall to wall, exposed. There’s rain outside, pittering and pattering against the old windows, gentle streams of falling water flowing over and off the porch roof. It’s light out, but not entirely light, dusk maybe. It isn’t dawn, that’s for sure, but it looks like dawn, because dusk and dawn always look the same. The hills outside the windows are misty and green, the sky gray, but warm. The fire inside crackles and warms the stone hearth. We have a hot cup of coffee, a thick plaid blanket, and a comfortable chair. Lamp light is nice. It’s raining, gently, rhythmically, necessarily.

This rain is nothing like that rain.

This rain falls in the way that lead pellets fall from the barrel of a just fired 12 gauge. It has been blasted from the sky, repeatedly, sometimes straight down, other times sideways, pushed with the wind that howls through these buildings and over these trees. This rain is an angry rain, a cold rain, the sort that feels like it would surely kill us for sport if we were left out in it for too long.

It’s raining today, now, as it did last night, for the length of it. There is rain in the forecast today, too. Then some more tomorrow, and Wednesday and then Thursday and I’m assuming Friday and

Saturday and probably Sunday. It’s raining like crazy, and while we switched seasons some time ago we really just turned our white precipitation clear, and we turned those February lows into April lows. It would be easy to look out today, and this blowing rain, and think that we have not come all that far.

But we have. We have turned away winter. We have beaten the snow, the ice, and we have turned mostly brown into mostly green. We are losing the battle this week, but the war has already been won. This is just clearing out the last pockets of resistance. Forty-three degrees with wind and clouds has proven a stubborn enemy, yes, but it cannot last.

There is an alternative to this rain and this cold,

SPRING RAINHATE.IT,.LOVE.IT,.COUNT.ON.IT


and it’s cold and sun. Cold and sunny with gale winds is no more fun than cold and rain with gale winds. In fact, I think cold and rainy is more versatile than cold and sunny. If it’s cold and sunny we’ll feel some forced need to go out and do something under that sun. We’ll rake some remaining leaves, prune some renegade shrubs, caulk this or paint that. Cold and rain doesn’t allow any of that, and I’d prefer a Sunday like the one past, when I didn’t feel any particular need to do anything particularly productive.

If it weren’t for this rain, we wouldn’t have all this green. If it weren’t for these showers we couldn’t have our flowers. Rain is annoying, and the people in

this coffee shop this morning have been keen on announcing that each time they hustle in from the damp. They walk in, shaking and scared, as if they have just been thrown down a mountain river and escaped only by clinging to a lifesaving branch until help came. Another one just told the counter girl that it’s really raining outside. As if the windows weren’t clear.

Without rain, we would have drought. Drought in the spring is especially difficult, as it leaves our buds dry and our grass weak. Without spring rain, our other lakes that are really just drainage ponds wouldn’t have enough water to make their owners feel content in their

bad decision. Without all this rain, we couldn’t wash the last bits of salt from our streets. Without this rain, our corn and soybeans wouldn’t be germinating as they should, which would make commodities traders push their prices high. I like this rain because I like $3.99 boxes of cereal.

So today, let’s just enjoy the rain. Tomorrow, let’s enjoy it, too. Besides, my boat still isn’t in, and without it I have no particular use for sunshine.

Written April 28th, 2014It had been raining for a long time. Like a really, really long time.

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HE ASKED IF FINDING 230 makes the game any less fun. His question was meant to imply that there would be no fun in finding these if they were, in fact, not difficult to find. I asked him if he caught 30 trout in an hour, if he would then find it tedious and retreat to his car and drive home. His question was fair, my rhetorical response was, too, because there are times when you can spend an entire day hoping for one trout to rise to your fly, and there are entire seasons when finding a few mushrooms is so very difficult to do.

That’s why there has to be commitment to the goal, dedication to the fungus. This isn’t a fungus that waits for anyone, and if you time your first several expeditions poorly then you’ll likely have spent all of your motivation capital by the time the magical day arrives. It’s is the same as salmon fishing in tributaries in the fall. If, during a cool September afternoon, you take a drive and pull on your waders and soak a fly for the afternoon with nary a take, this shouldn’t be a surprise. If you do that many times without any success, by the time the run has arrived and the big, silver fish are biting there is a very, very good chance that you won’t be up for the challenge, because you’re tired, and you’ve already driven too much for too little. This is the way it is with mushrooms, and a few early trips where the skunk never leaves your back is enough to spoil an entire season of hunting.

And hunting, it is. I’ve said this many times before, and it falls on deaf ears and blind eyes. Not mushroom blindness, mind you, which is a condition that afflicts all mushroom hunters, but

metaphorical blindness, the sort that afflicts those who read these words but cannot understand this story. The morel hunt is fleeting, and it is dangerous, and this is why yesterday afternoon I took to the woods with a mushroomy friend and we hunted. He donned camouflage, while I own none. Lest you think I ignored by Mother’s Day responsibilities, I’ll have you know that I roasted a turkey in my wood fired oven, fed many family and friends, shot some clay pigeons (or, generally towards them), practiced throwing some axes, which sounds scary and dark but is, in fact, far less scary and dark than hunting morels in a thunderstorm while trespassing.

The turkey hunter wouldn’t stop his calling. At first, we assumed they were real turkeys, the live, bearded kind, but after too many warble warble warble calls, it was apparent that there was a man in those woods, calling turkeys close enough to him so that he might shoot at them. We made every effort to look nothing like turkeys, and we did our best not to be pulled into his shooting zone by his consistent, alluring calls.

There is no way to know if a particular morel hunt will be successful. The weather can be right, the rain right, the month right, the trees in the proper stage of leafing out, the grass in the proper stage of greening up, and still there’s no way to know if where you are is where you should be. This is akin to fishing in Geneva Lake. It is a wonderful lake, full of big fish, but finding them in those depths on any given day is equal parts sonar and luck. Morel hunters, we have no such sonar.

HUNTER,.GATHERER,.FUNGUS.LOVER

LAKE GENEVA MOREL


The first mushroom was a lonely one, stuck in a random place, growing alone with no friends, no family. We pinched his top anyway, and walked on. Another one here, one there, strays, mostly. This is how morel hunting is, usually. A few mushrooms will be found in close proximity to the others, but many, many others will have sprouted in random locations. We hunters struggle with this, and when wandering a woods it is nearly impossible to know if you should be walking towards the west, or the east, so you generally walk in a circle of sorts, avoiding the turkey calls and the roads. It wasn’t long after those first few outliers that we found one, a bright, beautifully blonde one. And then another. And another. And then so many others that we didn’t know quite what to do.

The instinct, when one walks upon a prodigious flush of morels, is to snatch them up as quickly as possible, even though they are stationary prey and they have no means by which to

flee. Even so, we greedily grabbed at them, pinching each one off and accumulating a great pile of conquered quarry. When the frenzy was over, we had at least 60 mushrooms, all pulled from one 15 x 15 section of scabby dirt. When ticks are crawling on your stomach and your sides and up your back, you’re aware of it, mostly, but when so many mushrooms must be picked there’s really not enough time to wipe the ticks away. Lyme’s disease is just an urban legend, except one that’s for country folk, right?

Having giddily stashed our blonde and gray prizes in our packs, we pressed on. There were other flushes like that one, though none quite as prolific. We walked through rain, through property we didn’t own, narrowly avoiding the hunter and whispering to avoid detection. Two hours after we stepped foot into those woods, we returned to the car, where we raced off into the rain to find a covered shelter where we

could count and divide. We pulled the morels out quickly, two by two, each accumulating our own pile, and when we were done, we had a combined 230 morels. In the entirety of my mushroom finding life, which spans only a few years, I have perhaps found 230, in total. In two hours on that soggy mother’s day, the numbers were in: 230 morels, 30+ ticks removed, one large tear in my jeans, at least three bloody scratches from the brambles, and two thorns that I worked out of my palms many days later. It was a very good day.

When the hunt morphs from a spirited, but exhausting, search for a small handful of seasonal delicacies and turns into a smashing success of simple reaping, is the effort any less rewarding? It’s a rhetorical question, able to be answered only by those who have stumbled through the thorns.

Written May 12th, 2014The glow of that successful morel hunt had not yet worn off, so I wrote to tell you about it.

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SOMETIMES, WORK IS BORING. My younger brother works in a forge, where I’ve been told he does all sorts of things, but mostly he stands in place and punches in directions that a machine can follow. In the summer, it’s beastly hot in there. In the winter, he stands in place punching in directions, but his fingers are frozen and his breath hangs in the inside winter air. In the spring, he stands and punches directions into that machine. Same for the fall. He’ll do this for 12 hour shifts, mostly six days a week, and he’ll do it until he can retire or he dies, whichever comes first. From my view, there’s no way his job is not exceedingly boring.

My other brother works in a city with tall buildings and bright lights. He has worked in that city for years, at different jobs, never particularly enjoying much security at whichever desk he sits. He is smart, smarter than me, and he works in that corporate world that I’ve only read about in books and watched on silver screens. His job

involves numbers, lots and lots of numbers, constantly numbers. He is probably bored, but perhaps his work is less boring than it is tedious. It’s stressful, too, and there may be no worse job than one that combines the mundane of numbers with over-doses of stress. My brother will work there until he retires, or until another job comes along, or until he dies, whichever comes first. From my view, there’s no way that his job is not difficult to love, and irrepressibly boring.

My friends, they work, too. They work in trades and they work in offices, and one works in living rooms of random strangers, singing each night and strumming a guitar in exchange for a small paycheck and perhaps a pot-luck dinner. The ones who work in trades curse the heat in summer and they curse the cold in winter, and when they’re not working, they curse. The office working friends are still young enough to have hope that they’ll someday be something, but mostly they’ll be in vinyl ranch homes in rural towns, and

WE’RE.A.SLAVE.TO.MONEYAND.THEN.WE.DIE

THE MUNDANE


they’ll eat at Chili’s on Tuesdays because kids eat free, and they’ll go to church on Sunday because they’re more disciplined than I am. Either way, they’ll work in that office or the others will work in that field, or some will work in those constructions sites until they retire or die, whichever comes first.

I sit here, at this large desk that’s really just a built in shelf, and I write on this keyboard a few mornings a week, and some days I show houses to nice couples from Lake Forest and from River North. Some times, I show houses to rude people, those who are mean or disloyal or otherwise unlikable in a way that has very little bearing on my reality or theirs, and those are the days that I’d rather just be fishing in knee-deep water, surveying the run that’s just around the next bend, scanning for the dimple of a

rising trout. Or I’d rather be afloat, with a phone number that no one knows and a face that no one recognizes, with nothing on my horizon but the rising sun on one side and the setting sun on the other. Some days, I sit on that boat or I wade that stream and I fear the day that no one knows my phone number and no one recognizes my be-jowled face, and I think I should get back to that desk that’s really just a long shelf, and I should type on that keyboard.

I won’t be selling a Lake Geneva vacation home to either of my brothers. I won’t sell a vacation home to my tradesman friend, nor will my musician friend buy one from me, unless he concocts just the right mixture of rhythm and rhyme and his songs play on the real radio, not just the subscription one. I will never sell a lakefront home to my friends who live in

corn field ranches, to those who work in the morning until the night for meager scratch that they are grateful to earn. But to those who are sitting at their own desk this morning, to those who have both job security and means, to those who have spent their own time wishing for something different, for some place different, for a way to live a life that they’re not living now, to those I’d say we have this year to make a change. Mondays are stressful. Tuesdays are boring. Wednesdays are tedious. Thursdays are intolerable. Fridays, they’ve always been a mix of the prior, but they can be exciting. They can be a portal to another world, to another life, to a boat adrift and a sail filled with wind.

Written December 14th, 2014I’m consistently confused by those who have the capability, but not the desire, to purchase a vacation home here.

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www.moonlightmasonry.com • 262.206.3850 • Lake Geneva


I HAVE MADE A HABIT OF taking one teensy tiny vacation per month. It lasts two days. I load my family into the good old family truckster, and we drive West and a bit North, for about three hours. It’s far, this mini vacation, but it isn’t a vacation that I take more than once a month, and I only go during the four months of summer, so the drive isn’t all that bad as it might be if I owned an actual vacation home that distance from my house. If that were the case, we all know I wouldn’t go there very often, on account of it being three hours away from my house. For reference, see anyone you know with a vacation home in Door County or anywhere in Michstakegan, because six hours round trip for one full day of vacation is something even professional semi-truck drivers would balk at.

But about this little town, where we go. It has only few things worthwhile. There’s a pizza shop, with pretty bad pizza. There’s a store where they sell Norwegian things, much like the store that Lake Geneva used to have before it went out of business due to a lack of Norwegian trinket buyers and plummeting interest in lutefisk and

general failure to appreciate lefse. For all of these non-things to do, there is one thing that I’m very pleased with in this little town, and that’s the grocery store. It’s a small store, but it’s large enough to be sufficient for all grocery needs. Think of the Green Grocer, but bigger. This store, this co-op— it’s rather meaningful.

This store smells like some sort of natural oil or fragrance, but it would be easier to say that it smells like—Hippie. There’s a dash of farm stand in the aroma, but mostly, Hippie. Oily and herb-y and natural-y. Still, I like the store and I like the way people look at me like I have absolutely no business being there. They think this because I don’t smell the same, and I don’t look the same, and I drive through the parking lot much faster than they do. I’m also taller and far more handsome. But still, the store.

Most of their items, I like. The produce is nice, so is the meat, though Lake Geneva Country Meats has way better meat. Everything is expensive. If Whole Foods = Whole Paycheck, then Co-op = Gross Monthly Income, pre

IT’S.THE.ANSWER,.NOMATTER.THE.QUESTION

CORN


tax, of course. In this store, there are some bumper stickers. They say the sorts of things you’d expect them to say. WISCONSIN. GOT MILK? Stuff like that. Most of the stickers I like, and I agree with, excepting one. This one is small and plain. The sticker is all black and evil, with simple block white lettering. CORN IS NOT THE ANSWER.

This is what it says. I have driven through the valleys by this town, those swampy, silty, sandy valleys. Their corn is usually impish, small, and not boasting much by way of ear parts of the stalk that contain the actual edible bits. Their corn is lame, and if corn today is three-something a bushel, I’m guessing farmers there will not all be getting new F250s this year. CORN IS NOT THE ANSWER, says the sticker. Taunting the farmers there who are trying so hard to make it be. I say to the incense burning, quinoa eating, oil lathering

hippies: If corn isn’t the answer, what on earth was the question?

The phrase must be somehow anti-big farming, anti-ethanol. It must have a seething hatred for Monsanto, somehow masked by the simple appearance of the statement. I’m guessing it was penned by someone who drove around their town for a while and looked at their sad corn, and declared it to be anything but the answer to anything. I drive around Lake Geneva a lot. Every day, all day. I drive so much you’d think I was paid by the mile. I see corn here, lots of it. Nine foot corn, bursting with ears that are overwhelmed with kernels. I see Walworth County corn, and I’m pretty sure it’s the answer. But this is horse corn, field corn as my Grandma May would prefer us to call it, and that might be the answer when it comes to feeding the world, but when it comes to feeding my family on summer evenings, well, I suppose that corn is still the answer.

This sweet variety is everywhere right now. It’s for sale at farmstands and at grocery stores. Co-ops have it, too, flaunting their own sayings by putting it in their vegetable cases. Of course the grand-daddy of all corn stands is Pearce’s, and the stand just so happens to be right down the road from my house, and I’m pretty happy about that. This weekend, you’ll be at the lake. If you’re not going to be at the lake, we should chat about that. Assuming you’ll be here, because all of the other cool people will be, take a drive to Pearce’s at the corner of Highway 67 and County F, just west of Williams Bay and north of Fontana. Buy some edible stuff. Buy some corn. Because if it’s summer and the question wonders what’s for dinner, then the answer must be corn.

Written August 8th, 2014Having just returned from a brief trip to this far away county, I was taken by the weak nature of their corn, and the antagonistic bumper sticker.

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I WANT TO CALL THIS INCREDIBLE HOUSE a cottage, because it feels sort of like one, but it lacks cottagey deficiencies, which elevates it from pure cottage form to some greater level of home, one with cottage elements and charm, yes, but it has all of that and so much more sophisti-cation that might need to be seen to be understood. The property is part of Lake Geneva Manor, and it’s a very short walk to the lake and downtown Lake Geneva. There’s a large stone wall that separates this home from the rest of the world, and once inside that gate you’re treated to a setting that’s more resort like than summer cottage-ish.

Inside, the home has three bedrooms, three finished living areas, a fireplace, a poolside sunroom, and two kitchens- perfect for preparing poolside fare. The home itself feels like a finely polished jewel box, with nothing left un-done. But the true magic of this home is in the lush landscape, the way that the terraced gardens create a decidedly luxurious oasis. These perennial gar-dens frame the pool and patio areas, allowing an owner the rare opportunity to be completely private while still being just minutes from the lake and town. The saltwater pool is accented by a massive outdoor fireplace, because of course it is. $995,000

1606 MAIN ST, LAKE GENEVA

David C. Curry, GRI262.745.1993

[email protected]

FEATURED

Listing


BABIES ARE FED MASHED PEAS. The pea jar is opened, perhaps warmed so that it is warm, but never hot, and then a plastic spoon labeled BPA FREE stirs the pea mush. The baby sees this, the great care taken in preparing this meal. Once the mash is warmed and the spoon has stirred, there’s a small dollop of green pea paste on that spoon. The spoon must now be an airplane, or a train, or a car, or something to make the delivery of this mush fun. The sounds, the swirls, the flight path from jar through air to mouth. The baby sees this, too. The mash comes close, and the pilot teases the baby’s mouth open to insert the sustenance. The baby is willing, if confused, and the mush is placed in the food receptacle. Then, all wait.

The baby sours, his face crinkles as it will throughout his entire life whenever something unsavory graces his lips. The mash is spit, spewed really, out of the baby’s mouth and down his chin. The pilot wipes it up and tries again. Parents, pilots, we are nothing if not steadfast. But the baby is onto something here, not just because he dislikes the taste of mashed peas, because most of us do. No, he’s onto something because there’s nothing savory about liquidy green. Some people drink thick green drinks, filled with algae and seeds and grains that I mispronounce. These people are strange, because most of us, from baby to adolescent to adult to old-timer, we know that natural-ish green liquid is not at all cool. It’s not only not cool to drink on purpose, it’s worse to drink on accident.

My children swim, a lot. They swim every day. There is no exaggeration in that statement. Every single day they swim. From late May until late September, they swim. One day a week they may

miss, but on other days they’ll swim at two separate times, therefore making up for the skipped session. They do not have many water toys to play with. There is no water trampoline, those wretched things that people think are fun. There is only a pier, or two, one diving board, and a narrow shallow section where kids can stand, if they wish. My kids do not wish, because standing isn’t swimming and swimming is simply what they do best.

When they swim, it isn’t like when you swim. They swim under the water most of the time, with their eyes open, scanning for things to see. They see fish, lots of them. When other kids put on swim masks or goggles to see the crayfish under those shallow water rocks, my kids just open their eyes wider and snatch the crayfish. They are proficient, which is to under appreciate their proficiency. They swim, with open eyes, from pier to pier, under the piers and around them, behind the boats on buoys and yes, under them, too. They are watery creatures, as fish like as any 11 or 8 year old can ever be. I am incredibly proud of this.

They also swim with their mouths open. A lot. I notice this sometimes, and I noticed it last night. My daughter and I decided, after the gale winds blew all day, that it was time for a sail. The time was approximately 7 pm. The wind had quieted, but I figured it was still virile enough to push our little boat back and forth across the Bay. We raced to the lake, rigged the boat, and pushed off. Shortly thereafter, I was proven wrong. The wind had died too much, there was no sail to be had. So we limped back to the pier and decided to, instead, swim. My daughter jumped from the boat before it had reached the pier. I followed, and we pulled the boat to the ramp.

NOT.LIKE.MASHED.PEAS,.NOT.AT.ALL

PURE GENEVA


We dove from the pier, my daughter intent on showing me all the games she plays with her friends when they swim. The games seem fun, especially for eight year olds. They are just games about jumping into the water, from the pier, diving or cannonball, cannonball or jackknife. Backwards dives that find the diver hiding under the pier before rising for a breath. The games are best played by kids, but I still enjoyed the enthusiasm. I also enjoyed watching my daughter swim with her bright eyes wide open, looking up at me on the pier while she pushed her way under the water.

That water, it is so clear. It was clear last night, gin clear, so rare and so special and still, mostly under appreciated.

I dove in several times, and immediately reverted back to my childhood self. I wouldn’t say I was drinking that clear water, because I wasn’t. But I wasn’t making efforts to keep that cool water from my mouth, either. What a treat to swim in a lake that had been stirred all day by boats and by wind, and to still feel that the water is so clear, so pure, that it just might want to be sipped.

There are other lakes, most of the other ones, that will encourage the opposite. You’ll be as a child, being served mushed peas, and you’ll swim, sure, but you’ll take special care to keep that mixture from your mouth and far away from your open eyes. Come to Geneva, let the water rinse your eyes, and if you get a bit in your mouth, it won’t bother you. Not one bit.

Written July 28th, 2014I love swimming in Geneva, and I swam like crazy that night. I don’t so much love swimming in other lakes, because water should not be green.

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1014 SOUTH LAKE SHORE DRIVE, FONTANA

FEATURED

Listing


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Abt.com

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1200 N Milwaukee Ave | Glenview, IL | 847.544.2209


Abt.com

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1200 N Milwaukee Ave | Glenview, IL | 847.544.2209

IF YOU WANTED A SPRAWLING lakefront home, with 165’ of dead level frontage and you wanted that home to be newer, built of the highest fit and finish and construction pedigree, generally speaking you’d have to waste two years and build that home. There are plenty of newer, beautiful homes on the lake that boast these credentials, but these homes are currently being enjoyed by their proud owners, which means you can’t buy them. There are other homes, large ones with small lots or small ones with big lots, but rarely do they hit all of the items on the most discerning wish list.

1014 South Lakeshore Drive, situated on Fontana’s wildly desirable southern shore, doesn’t want for anything. The Engerman built home wasn’t built all that long ago, but the current owner decided to elevate its finish and functionality to the highest level. The home was built without any lakeside porches, which is tantamount to lakefront sacrilege, and so one large-scale addition later we not have not one, but two lakeside porches. We have ample decks, incredible views looking north all the way past Conference and Cedar Points. I could list what we have, but it’s better to sum it all up: We have lakefront perfection.

While some of our world class lakefront homes border on the serious, this lakefront home is classic without being stuffy. It’s comfortable, open, and as built for large-scale entertaining as any home you’ve ever seen. There is a three slip pier, lit tennis/basketball court, carriage house with full amenities and a four car garage. The main house boasts seven fireplaces, five bedrooms including a bunk room with kitchen, baths, and private stair.

The 2.8 acre property is thoughtfully designed with dazzling perennial gardens framing large swaths of lawn. As with the rest of the property, everything is in place and impeccably maintained. To build new when this home is available for immediate weekend fun would be an egregious mistake. Enjoy Lake Geneva in the most stylish way possible, and make 1014 South Lakeshore your lavish family retreat. $7.95MM


[email protected]

www.1014southlakeshore.com


DURING THE YEAR OF 2004, Gudrun was the most popular name given in Iceland to newborn baby girls. It also happened to be the name that a pair of first generation Norwegian immigrants gave their first-born daughter in the year 1914. My grandma, as the memorial card read, grew up in a small Chicago flat with her twin sister Elsie and her two younger siblings- Edna and Florence. Two of the sisters had passed away before the year 2014; Elsie of a heart condition while just in her 50s, Florence of pure old age a year or two ago. Edna lived a couple months more than Gudrun, passing away last month at the nursing home across the street from my first house in Williams Bay.

My grandmother grew up in the city, and as with most people of a certain age, her past now needs to be brushed with a wide brush and a healthy splatter of detail-smoothing paint. She grew up in the city, attending high school but not college. She took a job doing something menial, we’ll assume. Her work history as known to me didn’t develop until sometime later, when she would become a roving Avon saleslady, walking her route in Arlington Heights near her home on the corner of White Oak and Vail. Was she a great saleslady? I don’t really know. I do know towards her later years people would buy Skin-So-Soft from her, and I always assumed they did so because they

wanted to help her out, not because the wanted their skin to truly be all that soft.

As I sat in the memorial last Saturday, I watched and listened as a crowd of gray and graying heads spoke of my grandmother. They praised her, as people are wont to do at memorials, and when the overheard projector showed images of her life, from infancy to what would be her deathbed, I didn’t expect to moved by what I saw. It wasn’t that I didn’t expect my 99 year old grandmother to die, but there was something rather absolute about watching images of a generation that is now, at least for my family, entirely and completely gone.

My grandmother first came to Lake Geneva as a child, though I’m not sure if it was as a real little kid or as a teenager. I do know, from the lore and the photos, that she visited Lake Geneva frequently in the summer months, where she and her sisters would dance at the Riviera Hall. It was said that she liked dancing, but I’m well aware of what it was my grandmother was looking for on these shores. She wanted to meet a man, preferably a rich man, who would buy her a house on this lake. That had to be her dream, and when she met my grandfather, who himself found Lake Geneva by way of two dead parents and a sentence to live with relatives in an old house in the Maple Park District, I’m

1914-2014

GUDRUN CURRY


guessing she thought he was somehow something that he wasn’t.

He was an orphaned Lake Geneva kid, likely the kind that smoked cigarettes and eyed the pretty ladies at the dance hall. He was a good man, if a lush, and some part of the family history is lost between the time that he met my grandma and the time they settled into a small house in Niles, or maybe it was an apartment, and welcomed my father into their house in the year 1944. My grandma had married a milk man and started a family, a far cry from the life she envisioned living while she twirled away on that wooden, lakeside dance floor.

Later in life, my grandfather would become a maintenance supervisor at Harper College. My grandmother and her sisters remained close through their lives- unnaturally close- and I imagine that gave life to my grandfather’s smoking and drinking habits. I know that part of the story from first hand experience, though it would be strange if I admitted today that my grandma’s relationship with my great aunts spawned

my own drinking and smoking habits. I do neither, thankfully. Watching my grandpa—the man who taught me to fish— slowly choke to death on his own mucus was counted as a lifetime lesson learned for this kid.

Some years after my grandma dreamed of owning a home on this lake, her son bought his own lakefront home. It’s a curious dream that came full circle in a most astounding way, as instead of finding a dashing millionaire to whisk her away to these shores, she instead found it was her own school teacher son who would provide the house and the pier that she would swim from, with remarkable joy, until her very mid-90s.

I suppose there are many things I’ll always remember about my grandma. The memorial celebrated her love of jokes, but now that she’s gone I can admit to finding her jokes mostly lame. I think she told them not to make people happy, as was the consensus at the memorial, but to make herself happy by receiving false laughter and superficial attention. I’ll instead

remember my grandma for her lifelong devotion to her family, and her simple love of this lake. She wasn’t impressed by shiny appliances and shiny cars, though she would marvel at each. She didn’t care about money, not one bit. If her purse had a thin stack of two dollar bills she was rich enough. She found peace in a swim under a sunny sky, and she wouldn’t for a second pretend she’d rather be anywhere but here.

As my part time Realtor, full time school-teacher father would seldom sell homes, she found it particularly surprising to learn that I had sold “a” house. She’d be so happy when that would happen. Now, I’m stuck in a rut where I must sell lots of houses to keep pace, lots of big ones with shiny appliances and coiffed lawns. She wouldn’t have cared much for these houses, as to her, a pier was a pier was a pier, as long as it jutted out into this lake, and as long as the water was deep enough for a swim. I’m going to miss my Grandma Curry.

Written June 24th, 2014Without my Grandma, I’d never know that some people love to go swimming with bow-legged women, and dive between their legs.


THIS FOUR BEDROOM FOUR AND A HALF BATH ABBEY SPRINGS home might be the perfect vacation home. It’s large- those four ample bedrooms, all those baths, a loft and finished lower level. It has an open floor plan, with kitchen, dining room and great room spilling into each other. It has loads of outdoor space with the large deck and screened porch. It’s on the challenging Abbey Springs Golf Course, close enough to see the lovely, rolling fairway, but not so close that any privacy is sacrificed. The kitchen is dazzling with stainless and granite, and the great room with its soaring ceiling boasts a large stone fireplace. Abbey Springs offers residents golf, tennis, indoor and outdoor pools, private restaurants, and a sandy beach and pier system on Geneva. It’s a perfect setting, and this is the perfect house. $765,000

FEATURED

Listing

62 SAINT ANDREWS TRAIL, FONTANA


[email protected]


ENTIRELY AND COMPLETELY UNRIVALED in this market, Lakewood Estates offers buyers the opportunity to build their dream home on pristine Wisconsin land, just minutes from downtown Lake Geneva. This lush residential property sits on 336 acres surrounded by 1,000 acres of Wisconsin nature preserve of the most picturesque land Wisconsin has to offer. Offered for sale are large lakefront and countryside lots, each with views of water or the private 18 hole golf course, each within walking distance of the equestrian center, the skeet shooting range, and the private member’s clubhouse.

Beautiful green fairways and luscious leafy trees line this magnificent 71.3 USGA ranked 18-hole golf course. This members-only 120-acre course includes 42 bunkers and several water hazards, three sets of tees for different skill levels, and a 4,000 square foot club house with full bar, men’s and women’s locker rooms, card area, and screened-in porch and patio with grilling area. Rediscover the leisurely game of golf, unhurried by long lines at the first tee, completely and thoroughly enjoyable at your own pace, because it’s your own private club.

If you love horses like we do, you’re in luck. Begin with a trot around the indoor heated riding arena and then continue onto our vast outdoor pastures. Adventure around the property’s nature trails and even further into 1,000 acres of Department of Natural Resources Preserve.

The 75-acre lake is the focal point of this enchanting property. Its calm, clear waters are ideal for waterskiiing, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, and paddle boarding. The lake is stocked full of bass and northern pike, as well as numerous pan fish like crappie, perch and blue gills and more.

For your private tour of Lake Geneva’s most exciting new offering, please contact David Curry. Lots priced from $450,000.

LAKEWOOD ESTATES


[email protected]

FEATURED

Listing

www.lakewoodestatesgolfclub.com


Fabricators of Custom Canvas Covers

639 Kenosha Street - Walworth across from Sentry Foods

262.275.5067

BOAT COVERS · PORCH CURTAINS · MARINE UPHOLSTERY

PIER CANOPY SALES & SERVICE · CANVAS SEWING · CONTRACT SEWING


Fabricators of Custom Canvas Covers

639 Kenosha Street - Walworth across from Sentry Foods

262.275.5067

BOAT COVERS · PORCH CURTAINS · MARINE UPHOLSTERY

PIER CANOPY SALES & SERVICE · CANVAS SEWING · CONTRACT SEWING

THIS LAKEFRONT HOME ISN’T GOING to require much of you. It was built in 2008, and it’s been maintained beautifully by the same family ever since. Fresh to market this summer, this five bedroom lakefront has the sorts of new-home amenities that you’d expect. There’s a wonderful-ly open floor plan with a two-story great room that opens onto a spacious lakeside deck. There’s a loft upstairs along with three additional bedrooms, and there’s a finished lower level that walks out to the lakefront lawn. You’ll find two fireplaces, a heated two car garage, and plenty of room for the whole family. Enjoy this western exposure for long lake views, sunsets, and full afternoon sun. Lounge on your sturdy private pier with canopied slip, and walk to town from this Lake Geneva location. Newer construction isn’t easy to find on the lake, unless, of course, you’ll come look at this home with me. $2.699MM

946 MARIANNE TERRACE, LG


[email protected]

FEATURED

Listing


IT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN that hard to find me. The sun was out, the grass was growing, my orange and white Simplicity lawn tractor had at least fifty cents of Herb’s gas in the tank. I couldn’t be reached by cell phone, because it was 1989 and only Miami drug dealers and my friend Eric’s dad had those. If I wasn’t on Liechty, and I wasn’t at Doc’s eating Williams Bay’s newest delicacy- the egg roll- then I had to be on Elmhurst Street, mowing those lawns. The apartment building counted as just one lawn, with one weekly bill, but it felt like many lawns because of all the sidewalks that broke that wide lawn down into six mini-lawns. That’s where I was, and that’s where my mom found me.

I was late. It was whatever day of the week I had swimming lessons, and I was late. There wasn’t time to ride my lawn mower home, to hitch up the little trailer that bore my name and phone number to the back bumper of that orange tractor. There was no time. I’d have to leave the tractor there, with the trailer next to it, with the blower and the weedwhip and the small red cans of mixed and regular gas. I jumped into the station wagon.

I spent many hours at the Williams Bay beach. This is where I took a lifetime of swimming lessons under the tutelage of the red swimsuit wearing girls that worked for the Water Safety Patrol. This is where I took lessons, but this isn’t where I learned to swim. I learned to swim and dive at the Loch Vista Club pier. First in the shallows, near the slippery rocks and those slippery steps. Later, I would swim in and around the boats and the

buoys, clinging to the underside of stringers and hanging to the top of horses. I learned to swim at that pier, but I learned about proper strokes and older women at that beach.

I learned other things there, too. I learned that if I ever found myself in the middle of a lake or an ocean, and I had fallen into that water with my clothes on, that I should take off my pants. While treading water, I was to tie each leg into a knot, somewhere between the knee and the cuff. Then, while treading water, pants-less, I was to hold the pants with both hands, by the waist band, and throw those pants over my head and down into the water. The goal here was to capture air in the pants, so that I could float longer in the middle of whatever watery grave I was treading water in. I remember working at this for quite some time, and while I passed the test, I was as certain then as am I now: This pant flotation device would never actually work. Instead, your pantless body would wash onto a beach some days later and the people there would wonder just what it was you had been doing.

This must have been the last year of these lessons, where the wheat is beaten from the chaff, and those of us proficient in tying pants into lifesaving devices went on to greater things while those who couldn’t fell away, destined for nothing, ever. This last year was less swimming and more survival, less lessons and more cruel punishments that were devised by older people and implemented by high school girls with tanned faces, zinced noses, and red swimming suits. Each session featured something different, something more strange than

MY.INTRODUCTION.TO.LIFE

SWIMMINGLESSONS


the next. It was like Navy Seal training, without the supervision and protein bars and fame.

One time, we had to tread water holding a rock over our heads. The rock, looking back, must have weighed ten pounds or so. Maybe less, maybe a lot more. When these sorts of drills took place we had to move to the outer edge of the Western pier, presumably so that the younger children couldn’t see what would happen to them if they stuck with these swimming lessons. Learned the front crawl, check. Learned to float, check. Learned the backstroke, check. Learned to dolphin kick, check. Learned to tread water with just your legs while holding a boulder over your head under the watchful eye of a tanned, red suited taskmaster? Um, check?

When someone is drowning, they are rarely passive. People only slip quietly under the surface to die in movies and album covers. What actually happens is a horribly frantic death flail, which is why people who try to save drowning people usually end up drowning along with them. Drowning people are straight jerks, and they’ll cling to you and drag you under no matter how large of a rock you can hold over your head. To prepare us for this inevitability, we had to fight off drowning victims. In this exercise,

the victim would be the tanned lesson giver. I paid very close attention when she described what was about to happen.

She would be in the water, and one by one, we would have to approach her, drag her to safety, and presumably be rewarded with some sort of victory kiss. The last part was unclear. The girl promised that she would try her best to drown us, and that we had to use the various moves that we had learned. The moves were like, you grab my arm and I push it away, you grab my neck and I use some evasive maneuver similar to paint-the-fence. It didn’t seem so hard, and whether I went first or I went last I cannot remember, but I can vividly remember my turn.

The girl, with the tan skin and the red suit, was treading water about 15 feet from the pier. She was fake screaming, fake flailing her arms, creating all sorts of ruckus. I jumped in, attempting to use that jump they teach that keeps your head from going under water so as not to lose sight of the victim. I approached her cautiously, not only because she was drowning but because I was 12 and she was 17. I would have been nervous no matter the occasion, if I were bringing a pack of gum to a gas station attendant who was the same age, I would have been just as nervous. This was less a

swimming test and more a social one.

When I was close, she lunged. She grabbed me around the back of my head, pulling my face towards her red swim suit. It was fantastic and frightening at once, and though I didn’t really want to, I used a wax on/off movement and deflected her hug. She played along nicely after that, and allowed me to tow her back to the pier, my tow hand dangerously close to her armpit. I had passed the test, and I had enjoyed every minute of it.

Swimming lessons stopped for me that year. I never went on to become a lifeguard. I never rode one of the patrol boats, with wayfarers and a zinc nose. I just went back to the orange and white Simplicity and mowed more lawns. Swimming lessons in pools are fine, but swimming lessons in pools prepare you for a life of swimming in pools. Swimming lessons in the lake are the best, and each beach on Geneva still offers those same swimming lessons from those same red suits. Check watersafetypatrol.org and get your kids signed up this summer. If you have a 12 year old son, chances are he’ll love it, even if he acts like he doesn’t.

Written April 25th, 2014My wife had been asking about signing our kids up for swimming lessons- in a pool. I cannot abide swimming lessons given in pools.

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Tickets on sale May 5 at musicbythelake.comPerformances take place at the Ferro Pavilion on the shores of Wisconsin’s Geneva Lake.

SATURDAY, JUNE 27 | 7:30 p.m.

Michael FeinsteinSinatra Centennial CelebrationGrammy Award-nominated entertainer and “Ambassador of the Great American Songbook” pays tribute to Frank Sinatra.

LAKE. MUSIC. MAGIC.Music by the Lake 2015 seasonPresented by George Williams College of Aurora University

SUNDAY, JULY 12 | 4:00 p.m.

John Pizzarelli QuartetWorld-renowned jazz guitarist, singer and bandleader performs classic pop, swing and stylish modern jazz.

SATURDAY, JULY 18 | 7:30 p.m.

BoDeansLegendary rock band entertains with chart-topping hits such as “Closer to Free,” “Idaho” and “Fadeaway.”

SUNDAY, JULY 26 | 4:00 p.m.

Doktor Kaboom!Look out! Science is coming!

Interactive show amuses all ages with explosive comedy, exploring the fun of science.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 | 7:30 p.m.

Arrival from SwedenThe Music of ABBA

World’s most popular and best-selling ABBA tribute band performs hits “Dancing Queen,” “Mamma Mia” and “Take a Chance on Me.”

SATURDAY, AUGUST 8 | 7:30 p.m.

Creedence Clearwater RevisitedReunited band members celebrate iconic classic singles such as “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”

Designing Quality Custom Homes for Over 30 years!

RusseLl J. DePietro, [email protected] in Wisconsin & Illinois

Arch i t ect ure / E ng i n eer i ng / Des ignCUSTOM RESIDENTIAL · COMMERCIAL · INDUSTRIAL · RENOVATIONS

262.728.9300 www.depietrodesign.com


Barrington

Pools, Inc.


FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT, or so they say. The girl that places my groceries into paper, or sometimes plastic, bags says that, or at least she said that once when I was in line about to check out. She didn’t say it to me, but she said it to the girl who had the better job, the one who grabbed and pulled each item over the scanner. That girl, too, agreed that familiarity breeds contempt, and they were quite sure of it. There was no debate. I wasn’t all that sure, and I’m still not all that sure. I think familiarity breeds criticism, which can be construed as contempt, but is, in fact, a form of love.

This is how I feel when I drive these roads, and wrap around these shores. There are no more surprises for me here. There is no road that I haven’t traveled down, no corner that I can approach with any sense of mystery. I know all of it. I know my road and I know your road, I know where each starts and where each leads. My eyes see the views that they have captured for all of my 36 years. There has been no time spent away, no prodigal departure and no celebrated return. There wasn’t a time when I didn’t see this view, no time when I missed the change in a road, a change in a house, or any change in the pattern.

This familiarity has become my curse. Because there is no new route to explore, no new drive to wander down, there is just the review of the known. When eyes are no longer discovering newness, they look deeper into the familiar. Familiar eyes can critique what new eyes can only marvel at. I see a sunrise and I love it. I do. I take

it in and I appreciate every ray and every glint, and when that sun peeks over the Cedar Point horizon I have not yet lost the ability to marvel at it. But the familiarity of the scene causes my eyes to wander, to look away from the spectacle and down to the shore, and south some, to see a home that still has its Christmas lights up in April, and I think that’s a shame. The small bit of blight stands in the way of perfection in the way I prefer it.

Or when I drive the lake, and I see magnificence to my right, where those lakefront lanes lazily bend towards the water. How I love that view. But I cast my eyes left, to a section of property here or there that has one too many road unworthy cars in the drive, a blue tarp flapping in the breeze over just one corner of a pop up trailer. It is the Fairmont Edition, which we all know to be one step above the Leisure model, but still. It’s a blight, and my eyes are now drawn to these rare occurrences with vicious regularity.

This lake is remarkably clean, but on certain days when the boats whip and the wind joins in, I can’t help but look at a dirtied section of water and think it is a shame. I can’t look at it and think I don’t need to make an excuse for it. I can’t look at it and not wish that the lake would handle itself better, that it would be on its absolute best behavior. This isn’t its best foot, I’d think, and it shouldn’t be shoreward where I, and these buyers, can see it. In the face of 5400 acres of sparkling clear water, I find myself struggling to accept a few cloudy water bays on a few windy days.

I.SHOULDN’T.BE.SO.CRITICAL

THE TOOFAMILIAR


If I were new here, and these were new views and new roads, I wouldn’t think this way. I’d be distracted by the wide grasp of this natural and built beauty, and I wouldn’t dwell on two dead trees near a point that attracts too many vultures. I’d see only the green canopy beyond those trees, and I’d see the hawks and the eagles, and the robins and the bluejays, and I’d see the majestic homes sprinkled into the scene, and I wouldn’t care one bit about those trees. But, those trees. They’re all I see, because I know the green and the birds and the homes, and this is something that disrupts my familiar view, so I dwell on it.

Today, I’ll drive. I’ll make my way around this beautiful lake at least once, or, as is my mile-chugging habit, probably twice. I’ll drive past the things I know, down the roads I know, and I’ll do my darndest to focus on the perfect. It is all around, after all— everywhere I look here. I’ll do my best to view it with new eyes, which should distract me from the things that I know well enough to dislike. I’ll try my best, but when tax season arrives and the Statue of Liberty starts spinning that tax sign, all bets are off.

Written January 9th, 2014I don’t like seeing blue tarps covering stationary objects, though I’m trying hard to see past them.


PAUL & SHARK YACHTING Italian Made, Nautically Inspired ClothingBILLS KHAKIS Timeless Classics, Made In America

ALLEN EDMONDS World’s Finest Shoes, Made In WisconsinPETER MILLAR Luxurious Apparel For A Lifetime Of Style

TRUEFITT AND HILL Quality Shaving Products Since 1806TOMMY BAHAMA Island Inspired Clothing And Accessories

ROBERT GRAHAM Sophisticated, Eclectic Style ROBERT TALBOTT The American Dream, Realized

HARRIS TWEED Hand Woven in the Western Isles of ScotlandPERU UNLIMITED Distinctive Alpaca Sweaters for Gentleman

HABERDAPPER CARRIES THE FINEST IN MEN’S CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES

o n b r o a d s t r e e t

253 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin 262.248.7700www.haberdapper.com

If You’re Looking For Fine Men’s Clothing, Accessories And Gifts, As Well AsExceptional Customer Service, Haberdapper Is The Place To Visit


102’ OF BEAUTIFULLY LEVEL north shore frontage. 2.7+ acres of delicious, deciduous depth. Snake Road approach. In-ground, 40 x 20 lakeside swimming pool. Tiki hut at the lakefront. Guest studio with heated garage and office space. Large rambling home perfect for large scale entertaining. This property lacks for very little, if anything at all. Thoroughly renovated and expanded by Chris Hummel in the early 2000s, this lakefront home functions like a private resort. Over 7000 finished square feet, five bedrooms, five and a half baths, and an oversized pier. Some lakefront homes are stoic and cold. This one is lively, bright and fun and ready for all varieties of lake-based fun. $3.399MM


[email protected]

N2201 BONNIE BRAE, LINN

PAUL & SHARK YACHTING Italian Made, Nautically Inspired ClothingBILLS KHAKIS Timeless Classics, Made In America

ALLEN EDMONDS World’s Finest Shoes, Made In WisconsinPETER MILLAR Luxurious Apparel For A Lifetime Of Style

TRUEFITT AND HILL Quality Shaving Products Since 1806TOMMY BAHAMA Island Inspired Clothing And Accessories

ROBERT GRAHAM Sophisticated, Eclectic Style ROBERT TALBOTT The American Dream, Realized

HARRIS TWEED Hand Woven in the Western Isles of ScotlandPERU UNLIMITED Distinctive Alpaca Sweaters for Gentleman

HABERDAPPER CARRIES THE FINEST IN MEN’S CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES

o n b r o a d s t r e e t

253 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin 262.248.7700www.haberdapper.com

If You’re Looking For Fine Men’s Clothing, Accessories And Gifts, As Well AsExceptional Customer Service, Haberdapper Is The Place To Visit

FEATURED

Listing


I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO FLORIDA in the summer. The reason for this abstention is because I have all of my faculties about me, and I have increasingly little interest in going there in the winter time, let alone in the summer time. This is because there’s no place I’d rather be than Lake Geneva in the summer, which is a statement that I’ve said throughout my life, and I mean it more today than I ever have. If I were to break the chains of sanity and travel to Florida in August, I imagine the things I’d see. I’m guessing there would be palm trees with those long, sharp leaves. I’m thinking there would be some impatiens and rhododendrons. Perhaps some dense green shrubs, with fat, thick leaves. I assume Florida in August looks just like Florida in January, and I find no fun in that.

Today, the landscape at my house is pretty decent. It’s all relative, landscaping, and my decent would be someone else’s crappy, just as it would be someone else’s incredible. There are varying ways of judging a landscape, and I’m trying to make mine a tolerable mix of wild and kempt, of neat and natural, of rugged and refined. Out front, there is a vast jungle of weeds and grass, some so high they could reach a basketball rim without even trying. There is mostly grass though, the remnants of the farmer’s field that was where my house is now. The grass is nice, and earlier this season it was green. Now it’s still green down near the base, but the tops are waving seeds of gold and tan, bent from their own weight and bent in whatever direction the winds wishes them to bend. It’s nice.

Inside of that wild boundary, the one so wild that my wife asks me to move the sprinkler if it’s too near that edge because of the “wild animal sounds”

that emanate from the grassy darkness, there is lawn. It’s pretty nice, this lawn, and considering I sowed it all in the dark, Johnny Appleseed style but without the handsome satchel, it’s pretty nice. There was no thoughtful preparation of the soil before I scattered those seeds. Instead, a bulldozer pushed the dirt sort of smooth on a Monday and on a Tuesday I threw grass seed on top of it. A year and a bit later, it’s nice.

Against the house there are plants that I bought from the nursery on Dam Road two November’s ago. I didn’t buy what I thought would look nice, I just bought what last remnant bits she had to sell at a steep discount before winter began. I planted most of those shrubs and flowers late into the fall, or early into that winter, whichever way you prefer to see it. Nearly two years later, they are growing and flowering and bushing and vining. The Hydrangeas are sending out beautiful cone shaped heads, with ivory petals that turn to pink on the edges. The shrubs are pushing out berries, blue and red, so that the birds might eat from them this winter when there’s very little else on hand. The roses are bursting with blossoms, red and pink, but mostly red.

The cone flowers are tall now, carrying big, showy heads of seeds and petals that the bees enjoy more than anything else I have here. The black eyed Susans are my favorite, and those small one gallon plants are now many, many more gallons large. They are blooming profusely, and I love them for it. There are some other things here, too. Small deciduous shrubs that spread and bloom with pale purple blossoms, dotted with yellow in the centers. I don’t know what they are called, because when a shrub is only $5, you buy it and then figure all

YOU’LL.NEVER.FIND.ONE.BETTER

SUMMERSCAPE


the rest out later. They mapley looking shrub that was very tall last year, is less tall now, but that’s because it didn’t so much enjoy the past winter, and I had to coerce it back to life. It’s fine now, the leaves turning from purple to, well, to purple.

There are grasses in this house-side garden as well. These are like the large ones that are out in the field, but they’re more civilized, and mostly contained to the clump they came in when I bought them last fall from the Shopko parking lot. They were $3, so the gamble was hardly high stakes. They look nice now, and they blend with everything else, with the blossoms and the leaves, with the petals and the stalks. Everything works right now. In August, in the Midwest, there is very little that isn’t pretty.

Even our weeds are pretty, which is why I brought home a hastily gathered milkweed arrangement for my wife the other day. I was fishing and kept finding

my line tangled in these tall, purple flowers that hung from the stream side like intentional nuisances. I tore my line from them repeatedly, cursing them for being in my way. After some time of the cursing, I realized that these were, in actuality, beautiful flowers. So I clipped them, and I searched online to buy some seeds that I might scatter across the weedy/grassy portion of my very front lawn. I was cutting the milkweed arrangement when I noticed the wild daisies growing in huge, towering clumps. These were wild as well, and who in their right mind can walk through six foot tall flowers without cutting a few down and bringing them home to a water-filled vase?

The goldenrod is out now, as well. My wife is keen on telling me that it was always out, it just wasn’t blooming. Whatever the case, the goldenrod is in bloom. Yes, it’s an allergy bomb, but the suffering is beautiful. Huge fields of this

brilliant weed are found anywhere you look now, as long as you’re looking to the countryside and not to the cityscape.

The lakeside lawns today are filled with hydrangeas and showy perennial flowers of all makes and models. The grasses are tall, the shrubs vibrant and green, the lake as dazzling in whatever shade of blue you wish to see it in. As I age, I do not find myself drawn to further adventures down some far away road. I do not wonder what the Alps look like in the summer, nor question the landscape of Oregon in the fall. I simply spend more time pausing now, looking at the ever changing landscape of this Midwestern county, and I can say without any equivocation, there is no prettier landscape in this world than that of Wisconsin in the summertime.

Written August 20th, 2014At the peak of the summer season, I had no choice but to sit back and marvel at the incredible perfection that is the Midwestern landscape.

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It’s rather humbling to put these addresses and these sales prices all in one place like this. But the simple truth is that Geneva Lakefront Realty is not just a clichéd business name, it’s also business model and a mission statement. You have plenty of choices for representation in this market, but wouldn’t it be smart to choose the Lake Geneva company with an outstanding track record? Local representation with a narrow focus yields results, and in this case, over $110MM in results since 2010.

66 Oak Birch Williams Bay$1,225,000

7 Dartmouth Road, Williams Bay$1,225,000

556 Sauk Trail Fontana

$1,313,000

1540 Lakeshore DriveLake Geneva $1,335,000

190 Circle ParkwayWilliams Bay$1,440,000

274 Sylvan LaneFontana

$1,495,000

1530 North Lakeshore DriveLake Geneva$1,530,000

6 Upper Loch Vista DriveWilliams Bay$1,610,000

N2280 Folly LaneLinn

$1,650,000

1599 East Lakeside LaneLinn

$1,725,000

1588 North Lakeside LaneLinn

$1,800,000

60 Oak BirchWilliams Bay$1,810,000

W4190 Southland RoadLinn

$1,925,000

N2319 Geneva Oaks TrailLinn

$1,925,000

W2904 Hollybush DriveLinn

$2,000,000

Lot 7 LoramoorLinn

$2,000,000

N1595 East Lakeside LaneLinn

$2,150,000

412 Harvard AvenueFontana

$2,269,000

1100E South Lakeshore DriveFontana

$2,475,000

507 North LakeshoreFontana

$2,850,000

976 South LakeshoreFontana

$2,950,000

2224 North Bonnie BraeLinn

$3,005,000

1554 North Oak ShoresLinn

$3,100,000

N1878 Black Point DriveLinn

$3,250,000

N1621 East Lakeside LaneLinn

$3,575,000

1100C South Lakeshore Dr.Fontana

$3,700,000

W3821 Creek LaneLinn

$5,195,000

1014 South Lakeshore DriveFontana

$5,885,000

GENEVA.LAKEFRONT.LISTINGS.SOLD.BY.DAVID.CURRY.SINCE.2010

1014 SOUTH LAKESHORE DRIVE, FONTANA

SOLD LAKEFRONT LISTINGS

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THERE WAS A TIME, not all that long ago, when I bought old houses and did my best to fix them up. I can’t say that I enjoyed this, but there was some uncontrollable urge to do it anyway. If I liked a location of a house, and I could buy it cheap, there were several times when that’s just what I did. First there was a small house on Clover Street Williams Bay. I had a contract to buy that decrepit house for $40,000. When it was almost time to close, the seller told me he wanted $46,000. I don’t remember being upset, though I’m sure I was. I bought the house anyway, and I paid $46,000. Some years later, after I spent many dollars and much of my labor on fixing that old house up, I sold the property for around $190k. I don’t remember the six thousand dollars that the seller extorted from me prior to the closing, because it didn’t matter.

Later, I bought a house in Fontana, and then one near Knollwood. The Knollwood house was made of stone, which made it both oddly unique and rather charming. The sand used in the mortar was collected from the beach in town, so there were snails and shells and random bits of living things forever mixed into the walls of that house. On the day of the closing, my lender called. Because of an issue with the condition of the home (it wasn’t livable by any standard), I had to come up with an additional $17,000 towards the down payment. That increased requirement would have represented a large portion of my liquidity at the time, and though I imagine I was very upset, I

closed on that house and I began doing the hard work that would need to be done.

I hand dug out a section of the crawl space, just enough so I could install new floor joists. I re-framed the exterior walls of that stone house, and I leveled the entire first floor via shims and strips of wood. A couple of years later, when I sold that home for $270k, or thereabouts, I didn’t recall the $17,000 last minute down payment increase. I didn’t remember it because it didn’t matter. I took the proceeds check and bought a condo to live in while I built a new home in Geneva National.

Two years ago, I saw a For Sale By Owner sign on a dumpy house on North Walworth Road. It was a small house that didn’t look like anyone should be living in it. I called. The owner told me he wasn’t selling it yet, which left me wondering if the For Sale sign wasn’t a bit misplaced. A drawn out negotiation and several weeks later, I closed on the property. At the closing, the survey that was prepared showed a little barbed-wire fence that looped lazily across the back of the lot. The lot extended about 20’ beyond that fence. The title company didn’t want to insure the property that extended past the fence. I was upset. I argued. I lost. I closed that day, paying $124,000 for a piece of property that may or may not be 10 acres. I closed because I didn’t care about that 20 feet. The lot was 10 acres, more or less, and I knew my value didn’t hinge on that last few feet. The value is apparent today, as is my happiness with

THERE’S.A.FOREST.AND.MAYBE.ALSO.SOME.TREES

THE TRANSACTION


my property, barbed-wire fence or not.

These are tales that I tell to help prove a point. Perspective is everything in real estate. The minutiae can be paralyzing, and any deal without snags and disappointments isn’t much of a deal at all. If we are to have a few grains of salt to make it through a normal day, be sure to bring a satchel of them to any real estate transaction. Can I

assume that each of the scenarios above involved people who were purposefully trying to impose on me? Possibly. Can I assume that had I balked at any of those perceived slights that I wouldn’t be where I am today? Most obviously. The key here is to not let the battles of any real estate deal allow you to lose sight of the true goal: Vacation home bliss. That bliss only manifests itself after some trials and a few tribulations, when

you’re sitting on a white pier over clear water watching the sun fade beyond a deep green shoreline. At that time, none of the nonsense that you endured to get to that point matters.

Written on May 28th, 2014I was working on a deal where every inconvenience was perceived to be a very significant problem, and at that time I did my best to remind that client that there’s a larger goal that requires our focus. The deal closed.

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880 SOUTH LAKESHORE DRIVE APT 1RL, LAKE GENEVA

FEATURED

Listing


Offered.at.$5.995MM


OTTO YOUNG WAS BORN IN PRUSSIA in the year 1844. He moved to London, then to New York. He made his fortune in Chicago, and in 1901 he built his limestone masterpiece, dubbed Youngland Manor, on the eastern shore of Geneva Lake. After decades of meticulous restoration, the entire first floor of his palatial lakeside retreat is available for sale. The spaces are unlike anything most have ever encountered, with dedication to the restoration and preservation of original finishes typically reserved for public buildings of cultural importance.

Before construction began the budget was set at $150k. Several years later in 1901, the completed project cost $2MM. When you gold plate your light fixtures, budgets tend to swell. Those original fixtures still light the rooms in this apartment, and each sconce and chandelier is equally unique and inspired. As the current owner recently marveled, “Not a day goes by that I’m not struck by something new- a detail, a curve, a carving.” It should be added that there is awe in the simple way the sun pushes through the spaces, spilling from one room and into another as the day fades. After all, this is a 114 year old lakefront home, and it was built brilliantly by the son of an architect who understood the value in framing a view.

This is a lakefront property that we all know. If you’ve walked the shores, captained a boat, or toured the shoreline with a tour guide, you know this house. It cannot be ignored, with its limestone walls and massive scale. But there’s something more here, something less foreboding than the name this property was given nearly 70 years after it first rose from this shoreline. This home represents the story of two men, even though there have been far more involved in the building from inception to today. The first, of course, is the original owner. Otto Young.

Lest we think of Otto as an ostentatious magnate who wished the world to marvel at his limestone monument, consider Otto as less that and more this: A guy from Chicago who wanted his wife and kids to have a place to spend their summer, away from the heat and stress of the city. Consider he bought his boat before he built his house, a move common to this day.

Consider he set out to build this house for that low sum of $150k, and gilded his way to a $2MM build. There are owners around Geneva of late that have built homes for $10MM or more—Otto spent the equivalent of $55MM. Strip away all of the stoic, black and white history of this building and realize that Otto Young was a simply a buyer who wanted his lakefront home to be something special, and he got so caught up in that goal that he spent a bit too much money. This is a common affliction of lakefront owners for all of history.

The headline read, “Otto Young Dies At Country Home.” He had a fabulous home on Calumet in Chicago, near Marshall Field’s home, but he chose to spend his final days battling tuberculosis at the lake, gazing out over the waters, cherishing those sunsets. He frequented Palm Beach in the winter months, but upon the worsening of his health in October of 1906, he didn’t opt for the warm weather of southern Florida. Instead, he headed up the lake, even as fall turned to winter, and the vibrant colors of autumn turned dim. Otto Young died December 1, 1906. Newspaper accounts state that upon completion of his lakefront home, he spent most of his time there, even though he maintained his Calumet residence. The shame of Mr. Young’s story is in the timing of it all. See, Mr. Young built the home in 1899, but it wasn’t until sometime in late 1901 until he truly got to enjoy his expensive masterpiece. Then, like a bad Alanis Morissette song, Mr. Young died just four short years later.

The ownership from Mr. Young through today is extensive, and complicated in and of itself, and that is to be expected. There has been little constant here at this Manor since the Young family relinquished control of the building and it fell into various hands with various uses and even more varied intents. The property was many things, but what matters most is that the building remains. It would have been remarkably easy to demolish this building in the 50s or 60s or certainly the 70s, back when development of Geneva was occurring rapidly and estates were being cut to pieces to serve the need for more lakefront homes, more lake access homes, more condominiums.


The story continues in the 1970s, when the current residence for sale was a restaurant, serving the finest French fare in the most dazzling setting imaginable. The story finds a vacation home owner dining at the restaurant often, enjoying the fanciful scene and the food and those marble surroundings.

That diner quickly became fond of the space, and throughout those years a deal was struck between this patron and the owner: the first floor was to be sold. What follows is legal intrigue, as the difficult task of separating a first floor from a wholly owned building took time and money, perhaps more of each than anyone had bargained for. What transpired after the legal tumult is the remarkable bit of the tale, as the new owner set about restoring his new lakefront gem, and doing so in a way that honored the original builders and the original owner. It would have been so easy at this time to look at a wall clothed in 100 year old fabric, bits damaged by a century of moisture and neglect, and opt to remove it in favor of a more manageable material. On a lake famous for paying lip service to history but one that has been long documented in its disdain for the art of preservation, this owner took the alternate route and what ensued was three decades of painstaking, period correct restoration.

There are palaces the world around that are fanciful and detailed. If this building were a reproduction, a replication, a visually exciting but substantively false display of this ornate style, that would be acceptable but not preferred. What makes this building so incredibly unique is the original condition of it all. The light fixtures that adorn this residence were recently estimated to be worth well over one million dollars, a value earned by the authenticity and bespoke nature of these gold plated sconces and chandeliers. The flooring that was damaged over time was either repaired or replaced, but it was replaced with the same variety of wood, sourced from wherever it could be found, no matter the cost or the difficulty. The building is authentic, original, and in such condition that it can now be certain that this stone manor will anchor that eastern shoreline of Geneva for centuries to come.

The owner, having cherished this residence for more than 30 years, has determined that it is time to let this property pass to the next deserving steward. The work has been done, the fabrics and stone and previous metals cleaned and revitalized. What is left now is the truest form of that original owners vision, having only been modernized where necessary to provide modern mechanical conveniences. The 12,000 square feet of finished space includes two parking stalls in the underground garage, and a boatslip on the private piers. There is a massive pool on the roof, a tennis court, and ten gated lakefront acres. This is truly the most spectacular space in the Lake Geneva market, but it likely owns that same title for the entirety of Wisconsin. And that’s why it comes back to those two men. The man who built his dream home, and the one who made sure it remained one. $5.995MM


[email protected]

www.880southlakeshore.com


If you find yourself bored at Vista Del Lago, then you’re not really trying. This four bedroom loft unit is fantastically renovated and ready to infuse your weekends with a jolt of fun. There’s a canopied boatslip, tennis courts, indoor pool, swim pier, and a detached garage to store your toys. Lakeside living with four bedrooms and all those amenities within walking distance to downtown? Exactly. $575,000

Clean and neutral lakefront condominium at Fontana Shores. A perfect lakeside retreat that isn’t only affordable to purchase, it’s affordable to own. Two bedrooms, two baths, parking immediately outside of your private entry. The unit has fresh paint and carpet, and has absolutely fantastic views of Geneva Lake to the West, North, and South. Gordy’s, Chuck’s and the Fontana beach await just a block away. Allow this to be your perfect lakefront launching point for all things Lake Geneva. $369,900


[email protected]

Nicely remodeled three bedroom home in Williams Bay’s Cedar Point Park. Open kitchen, dining, and living rooms with hardwood floors and plenty of light. Large fireplace in living room with ample deck off dining room. Three main floor bedrooms and three fabulous bathrooms with elevated, unexpected finishes. The walkout lower level will make for a great game room or additional sleeping space. Quality landscaping, well maintained, ready for summer 2015. $349,000

High above the west end of Geneva Lake you’ll find this picture perfect two bedroom lakefront penthouse. Lots of lakefront condos have great views, but these views are so very much better than those views. From Fontana’s downtown all the way beyond Cedar and Black Points, this view is the absolute best. Like new construction, with two bedrooms, a gas fireplace, access to a private lakefront pier, available buoy, shared lakeside patio with grills, and plenty of parking. Turn key offering for immediate weekend fun. $489,000

ENDORSEMENTS:

“In addition to thoroughly knowing the Lake Geneva market, David is smart, fair and gets it done for his clients.”

– BOB & TERRI, Fontana, WI

“Real estate pricing can be opaque and seemingly random. David understands the subtle aspects of the Lake Geneva market and can make sense of the price discovery process. He also devised our negotiation strategy which resulted in our side getting the best of the transaction. There’s no better advocate to have on your side if you’re considering a lakefront purchase.”

– DAVE & SUSAN, Chicago, IL

“I was in the market within a 6 month span during 2012, seeking to acquiring a vacation home. My search encompassed 7 lakes spanning from Michigan to Wisconsin and previewing 49 homes. I ended up narrowing the search to Lake Geneva and worked with a agent for some time, with an unsuccessful search. A business contact referred myself to David as being an industry expert within the Lake Geneva market, and the rest is history. I found a great house, followed by referring David to two other friends who were in the market. One purchased a home and one may in the future.”

– ARTHUR, Chicago, IL

“We first came to know David through the reading of his Blog. His well written words were beautifully teamed with historical perspective, savvy insights, and common sense. We were intrigued. We scheduled an appointment and immediately knew that we had found our realtor. David reintroduced us to the lake we had known as youngsters and educated us about the market, guiding us every step of the way in our ultimately successful search for a home. Hire David and you can be assured that he will listen to you, he will laugh with you, and his love and knowledge of the lake will lead you to something wonderful!”

– DAN & PATTI, Glenview, IL

“Dave has helped me with two lakefront purchases, and he simply knows the Lake Geneva market better than anyone. That knowledge is why I have him currently ranked #1 in my North American Realtor Power Rankings.”

– BRIAN S., Chicago, IL


N1546 FOREST HILLS COURT, Linn Township — Here’s a wonderfully secluded South Shore Club home with partial lake views tucked away at the end of very private Forest Hills Court. High end finishes include alder floors, beamed living room with fieldstone fireplace, richly paneled first floor den or office, and elevator between floors. Four bedrooms, four baths, numerous built-ins and custom touches. Enjoy rare privacy within the luxurious South Shore Club, where the amenities—marina, lakefront piers, swimming pool, tennis courts, clubhouse—are close but not too close. Most economically priced South Shore Club home as of this printing, $1.675MM

N1546 FOREST HILL COURT


[email protected]

FEATURED

Listing


A DIVISION OF ACKMAN GLASS & MIRROR

Celebrating 37 years in Business!

262-245-6023www.lakegenevawindowanddoor.com

202 N. Elkhorn Rd. Williams Bay, WI [email protected]


THERE ISN’T A TRUE MASTER BEDROOM SUITE. There isn’t a huge basement, where you can put a pool table. And there isn’t a Viking stove. There isn’t any of this, but what difference does any of that make? You have a sweet garage where you live. That same house, the one that you live in, has a super sweet master suite. It has a pool table in the basement! It has a huge Viking stove and a double- glass-fronted-Sub-Zero. It has it all, or so you think. You know what it doesn’t have? 50 feet of level lakefront on Geneva Lake. You know what else? It doesn’t have a pier. A big sturdy white one in the traditional H style. It doesn’t have any of that stuff, and that’s why you need to come visit Oriole Lane with me. $1.299MM

FEATURED

Listing


[email protected]

W4275 ORIOLE DR, LINN TNSP

A DIVISION OF ACKMAN GLASS & MIRROR

Celebrating 37 years in Business!

262-245-6023www.lakegenevawindowanddoor.com

202 N. Elkhorn Rd. Williams Bay, WI [email protected]

I WAS ONCE TOLD THAT I SHOULDN’T DESCRIBE A HOUSE as being charming because that implies that the home is somehow unsubstantial. I think that was bad advice, and I plan to describe this lakefront home as charming both now and forever, because that’s exactly what it is: charming. Hardwood floors, two fireplaces, vaulted ceilings, and a massive lakeside deck make this lakefront home a turn key proposition. The pier is large and perfect, and at the water’s edge there’s a rare boathouse with hardwood floors and a most charming kitchen and bathroom. It’s charming, it’s ready for immediate occupancy, and it’s just $1.485MM

FEATURED

Listing


[email protected]

4160 WEST LAKEVIEW, LINN TNSP


IF YOU PICK A BASKET FULL of mulberries, you’re in luck. You now have a tremendous basket full of mulberries! Your basket full will look luscious, and the contents will glisten in that sun, but once you walk them from your tree to your counter, some will have started to leak. You’ll have mulberry stains on the inside of your basket, those woven wooden strips matching your own fingers, all stained and purple. On the countertop, it’ll be best if you set this leaky basket directly onto a towel, not onto the marble. The towel should be dark, maybe purple, as a white towel will only soon match those woven strips and your fingers and everyone will be stained.

Or, put the basket in your refrigerator. I’ve done this, often. But mulberries in the refrigerator don’t keep that well, at least not much better than they keep on your countertop, atop the towel, which isn’t well at all. You’ll eat some mulberries, maybe in pancakes and maybe on ice cream and certainly without accompaniment. But that supply is so strong, the basket deceivingly deep, and try as you might, you cannot eat them all. Not one to waste, you seek a method to preserve. But which method is best? Clean and freeze? No. Pulverize and boil with sugar? Of course.

Mulberries are tasty and common, but they pose problems. When you pick a strawberry, as I picked basketfulls this summer in my smallish but remarkably prolific patch, you can pour them out onto a cutting board and you can nip with your fingers or slice with a knife, and the green umbilical top where that berry was fed easily goes away. The strawberry is tough enough to endure this, but the mulberry is not. The mulberry cannot be approached with a knife, or it’ll ink as a squid, only with delicious purple juice. The body will collapse and that glistening berry that looked so important and proud on that branch and then in that basket will be nothing but a puddle of mulberry sauce. The solution is the food processor, which doesn’t discard the small, bendy stems but instead ups the fiber content of the jam and renders those stems indiscernible from the seeds and the fruit and so much juice.

When the spring garden was young, it was really nice. There was a lot of freshly tilled dirt, and some meandering rows filled with the seeds that I had bought in the dead of winter. After some time and water, there were sprouts. Tender shoots of young life poking up in those crooked rows. In the spring garden, the rows were identifiable. In

MULBERRY,.TO.BE.EXACT

JAM


the now garden, the fall garden, there is no more discernment. All that is left is a sturdy blanket of weeds and thistles, and some bits of vegetable matter scattered in between. There are a few peppers and some squash, and some pumpkins and a few other things that my wife contends are Brussel Sprouts, but I contend they are nothing of the sort and are, instead, just weeds that cleverly mimic something good and edible. There are also tomatoes, mostly green ones.

Much like the mulberries, there are too many tomatoes to eat. So we must preserve those, too. We could blanch and skin and freeze, but that’s not what we have done, nor what we may someday do. We will wash and knife off the tops and any poor looking bits, and we will bake the remainder of the flesh, skin, seeds and all. We’ll slice them in half first, and salt and pepper them, and add a bit of sugar because that makes nearly everything better. We’ll pour on some olive oil, and we’ll bake and we’ll bake, for hours and hours, until

those fresh tomatoes have turned to slightly dehydrated fruit, the flavor both intensified and concentrated, the huge pan full of tomatoes having reduced in volume by a half (actually way more).

Into the boiled jars they go, the lids twisted down tightly so that when the jar and the tomato jam cools, the vacuum will finish the tightening. There are several of these jars in my cabinet now, alongside the mulberries and the strawberries and the blackberries and the rare mixture of the three: The Triple Berry. The tomato supply is running low, so this week I’ll take a few hours and process another 10 jars full, late into the evening my oven will do its work, baking and drying those ripe red fruits until they are ready for their respective jars. I do this with all of these fruits because I want to make these things last. I want to take what I am given and stretch the bounty. I don’t want to waste what I have, and I’d much prefer to eat jarred jam from my own garden come January than jarred jam from the Smucker family garden.

Last weekend, the weather was perfectly ripe. It was beyond ideal, as it is yet again today. This late weather is rare, and it is fleeting, and while it won’t die on the vine it will certainly be pushed away by an ornery cold front, perhaps never again to return except briefly on the heels of a brisk south wind sometime during this next month. Unlike my berries and my garden fruit, there is no preservation method capable of extending this season. This is why we must be gluttons and devour it until we are sick, and once we feel that we cannot take another moment under that warm sun, then we must gorge on more of it anyway. Sanitized jars cannot contain 77 degree September days, so please bask under these skies while they shine warm, because soon enough they’ll be the sort of memory that we’ll have to talk about together, and debate whether they even happened at all.

Written September 29th, 2014Summer was getting late, and I wanted to make sure everyone was aware just how little of summer we had left. Also, I really like jam.

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Public Fishing

Public Fishing Available Mon - Sat 9-4 Sun 9-3

$8.75/lb live weight Includes poles, bait, licensing

Fish in our ponds and have the

culinary team prepare your catch as a shore lunch

Wednesday - Sunday 11 - 3

N 301 Cty Rd H / Palmyra, WI 53156 / (262)495-2089 / www.rushingwaters.net

Nestled within the Kettle Moraine State Forest lies Rushing Waters Fisheries, the nation’s premier, all-natural Rainbow Trout farm.

at The Trout House

Open for Lunch and Dinner Wednesday - Saturday: 11-9

Breakfast Buffet and Lunch

Sunday: 9-12 Buffet 12-3 Lunch

On Farm Dining Retail Store


THE LAKE WAS THERE, right where it is now, when I was a child the same age as my son is now. The lake back then was big, and it was blue, and if I went out in a fishing boat I could hope to catch bass and pike and trout but I would expect to catch bluegills and bullheads and maybe a crappie, if the season was right. Back then, I watched the lake and wondered about it. I wondered what was under that surface, and it didn’t matter if the surface was still and calm or it if was whipped and bold, it was still the lake and I was still curious. I see it today, when I drive past in a hurry or slowly ply it with a hull, and I think the same thing. What’s going on down there? My son in the boat, might wondering either the same thing or wondering nothing at all, who could tell?

There is an old picture of me in a boat, a boat without an engine. There are recent pictures of me now, in a boat, a boat with an engine, but that engine doesn’t work well or often, so the boat without the engine in that old picture is basically the same thing. Except that boat is smaller, made of only plastic, without a console or any seat aside from the strip of delaminating plywood that stretched from one side to the other, just big enough for a kid to sit on. In that picture, I’m sitting in that boat. I’m too old to be doing such a thing, at least too old by the way we see

things today. I must have been thirteen and I was oblivious to the spectacle that was a thirteen year old boy out in a dingy barely as long as he was tall. I’m sitting in that boat with ice all around me and on top of the entirety of the lake, excepting the small path in the ice that I had broken through to form a one way route from the shore.

I had paddled out a ways, but not really far at all, and I had done this for a reason that I cannot know now. Would my son still do something like this? He’s smart and he’s strong, which means he’d probably look to a little boat and look to a frozen lake and wonder who would ever want to combine the two. I did, and when I look at the picture now,

ONLY IN STREAMS

LOOK.AWAY.FROM.THE.SHINY,AT.LEAST.NOW.AND.THEN


from this perspective of several decades later, I still think it would be fun to sit in that little boat and break through that bit of ice. I still wonder about that lake, and what’s under that surface, and I wonder if I’m not so grown that I wouldn’t do the same thing again this spring, when the ice softens enough so that a child, or his adult self, could paddle through it, breaking off chunks along the way.

In a stream that I know, one of those that brings fresh water from a hillside and down into this lake, there are brown trout. There are always brown

trout there, in this stream, but never too many of them and never any remarkable specimens. Today, there are big trout, Seeforellen strains, the sort that comes from deep mountain lakes in Europe. Their ancestors made that journey here as eggs so many years ago, and here they are, doing what they do, running up small streams and spawning, breeding to make more trout for my son to show his son someday so many years from now. I’ve been watching these trout, feeling not like a father showing these fish to his son, but feeling like a boy showing these fish to his friend.

Will he feel the same when he’s me and no longer only him? Will the memory of the places and the things and the small boats with ice around them be the same? Or will he go as I see kids now going, endlessly onto the next sparkly thing, away from the small streams with salamanders and frogs and sometimes giant German trout and into the distance looking for whatever might be next?

Written January 14th, 2015I’m fascinated by the trout in Geneva Lake. I hope my son continues that tradition.

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915 MAIN ST. MUKWONAGO, WI. 262-363-4061

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MUKWONAGO

2606 MAIN ST. EAST TROY, WI. 262-642-4700

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EAST TROY

10901 HIGHWAY 50 • KENOSHA 262-694-9300

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