Summer Homes For City People by Geneva Lakefront Realty

WHEN ONLY THE BEST WILL DO.

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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 â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Story of Geneva Lake,â&#x20AC;? written by F.R. Chandler, under the auspices of the Lake Geneva Village Association. Lake Photographs have been provided by Matt Mason, Michael Moore, Justin Giroux 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 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com. 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.

The Launch WINTER, GET THEE BEHIND ME

Mayflies THEY AREN’T SO BAD, REALLY

Geneva Versus LAKES AND PONDS AND SEAS

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Finally A CHILDHOOD PROMISE FULFILLED, SORT OF

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Fatalism 101 APPARENTLY, SOME PEOPLE PLAN TO LIVE FOREVER

A Windy Sunday SOMETIMES, ALL IS ONLY ALMOST LOST

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A Small Cabin WHO NEEDS MORE? ............................................................... 28 My Yard A MUDDY SPACE OF BOREDOM ................................................. 34 A Legacy LET’S BUY FOR KEEPS ............................................................ 36 The Smell of Our Success IF YOU CAN SMELL YOUR LAKE, YOU BETTER FIND ANOTHER ONE.....40 The 10 Commandments SOMEONE HAD TO CARRY THESE DOWN THE MOUNTAIN ................46 Night Sounds THE SWEETEST NOISE IS THAT OF A SUMMER NIGHT ......................50 A Long Summer SUMMER’S SHORT, UNTIL IT ISN’T ........................................ 56 Fall WHY IT MAY BE THE BEST TIME OF YEAR ............................60 Wood Piers BECAUSE WHO WANTS A METAL PIER? ...............................64

HELLO AGAIN. It seems to me now that each of these annual issues develop their own theme. If that’s the case, then this 2014 edition might as well be called the “Geneva Is Better, And Here’s Why” issue. Something about real estate that is strangely forgotten, or at least dismissed, is that real estate is a competition. It’s a competition between agents, between brokers, between cities and lakes and states. Lake Geneva is far from your only vacation home option, it’s just that it’s your best option. The blog that I write at genevalakefrontrealty.com is not only where I write about sailboats and trees and this deep green shoreline, it’s where I write about this unique vacation home real estate market in a candid, in depth, articulate way that hasn’t really been done before. If you want to follow the market here, and take the increasingly rare path of actually learning about this market before you end up being breathlessly sold on some property or another, then read my blog. You can read it every day, but like the stories in this magazine, my writing is best digested slowly, over time. Reading too much of this in one sitting has been known to cause disorientation, sleepiness, and an incurable phobia of other bodies of water. For now, I hope you enjoy the 2014 incarnation of Summer Homes For City People. I write this not only as a Realtor with 18 years of full time experience (and more than $80MM in sales over the past four) but as a grown up kid who knows exactly what a Lake Geneva summer can, and should, be. If you find yourself in Lake Geneva this year and in need of your very own real estate Sherpa, I’d be absolutely honored to help. David C. Curry

Geneva Lakefront Realty, LLC 49 West Geneva Street, Williams Bay, WI 53191 262.245.9000 | dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

THE LAUNCH WINTER, GET THEE BEHIND ME

DESIGNS the cheap foam pads that are intended to be stretched over the round disc at the bottom of an orbital waxing device should be ashamed of themselves. I tore through two of those pads last week, late into two different afternoons, standing atop an asphalt driveway trying my best to scrub and polish the stubborn remains of the last boating season from the hull of my boat. The machine came with a foam applicator and a cloth buffing cover, and for a moment in the store aisle I thought I might need another foam pad, or another buffing cloth, but I passed. It was just one boat, after all, with two sides and a bottom that I wasn’t planning on waxing. Later that next day, when the first pad tore, I went back to buy more. That next pad didn’t fit. Not at all, it whipped and it flung tan colored wax into my hair and onto my shirt and onto my shoes. The accidental coverage was maddeningly impressive. So on that night I abandoned the wax, intent on doing it some other day. But that next day the water was still, the air HOEVER

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warm, the lake pulling me like nothing else. I raced from my office on that morning, down the under-repair Highway 50, honking and flashing my lights like an emergency medical worker desperately trying to get to some house somewhere to save someone’s life. I wasn’t that benevolent, but I was racing, and I was, without a single doubt, working to save a life. My own. So I poured some new wax on, working quickly, methodically, sloppily. I hadn’t the time to see this job done right. I had to—I needed to—get to the lake. So I ladled on some wax, and I rubbed it onto the hull with my cheap, piece-of-garbage new wax machine thing, and when I stood back and looked at the job that I had just completed, the hull looked like a kindergarten class had taken to it with tubes of toothpaste and sand paper. Never mind, it would have to do. There wasn’t time. I had spent so many months wishing for this day, and the quickness of my pulse and the desire in my eyes would not suffer any further, unnecessary, delay. Down Highway 50, this time West, heading for the boat launch. Lights flashing, horn

MICHAEL MOORE PHOTOGRAPHY | www.michaelmoorephotography.com

honking, panicked excitement so thick I could barely see through the truck windshield. The launch was full, but not full in the way that it might be on a sunny Saturday a month or two from now, so I pulled in and set the transmission from drive and into reverse, the boat inching closer and closer to its watery reunion. When the gentleman whose sole job it is to charge water lovers for access came close, I didn’t wait for him to question my Florida tags on the boat and preemptively told him that the registration was in Wisconsin but that I hadn’t changed the lettering yet. This has been my line for the past three years, and I intend to use it in future years as well. I figured this up front admission saved me 5, perhaps 10 seconds, and those seconds felt like minutes and the minutes like hours and the hours like an entire winter of the cruelest torture. The boat fired on the first crank,

which is normal, unless you own my boat, because then it is not. It fired, it smoked, it caused a widereaching commotion. Had the nature conservancy across the street not been performing a scheduled burn, there’s little doubt that my smoke would have stood alone as a hazard, and fire trucks from all around would have raced to spray my engine down. The boat started, but sputtered, and sputtered some more, and by the time the engine quit, the trailer and the truck had long been gone from the launch. I was stuck, sort of, and I floated and bobbed for a while, mindlessly mending some old fishing line and arranging a few lures, trying to avoid the stares from shore from the people walking past who knew that no one, ever, launches their boat in the spring only to sit on it 100 yards from shore and tinker with fishing poles. After time, the boat started. A switch that should have been off was

set to on, and once that was remedied, the engine purred, as best it can. I throttled up and plied the calm waters, the wind in my face, the sun on my back, this new world at my disposal. I had spent many months gasping for air. The suffocating winter was harder on me than I believe any winter before it to have been. There were times when I didn’t think I’d make it through to see buds on trees and greening grass. I had been trapped. Trapped from each day since last November through the moment before that old white boat slipped from its trailer and pushed into the lake. I was, after all that time, finally, entirely, and completely free. I was as Houdini, having escaped from a plight that almost no one thought escapable. After an afternoon on the water, I am refreshed, replenished. My faith in humanity has been restored. What does the lake look like this year? It looks as it always has. Big, beautiful, and capable of saving at least one life. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

MAYFLIES THEY AREN’T SO BAD, REALLY

DO NOT KNOW what a June bug is. I

don’t know what sort of bug it is, but I think it’s a beetle. I also don’t know if it’s a June bug, as the month would suggest, or if it’s a Joon bug, which is how I think the spelling is of that movie alongside Benny, which also might be Bennie, but who knows. I know certain things about June bugs. I know that they are bugs, and I know that while they likely arrive sometime in June they most certainly do not only exist during the month that I assume to be their namesake. My daughter’s name is May, but she exists the same in May as she does in June, which is to say that she exists solely for the purpose of torturing her brother and making him feel as though she gets special treatment. She does, but not just in May because her name is May. Mayflies—I know more about these than I do the bugs that may or may not be beetles that come after the flies. Mayflies aren’t really flies at all. They do fly, but they do not buzz against windows and spoil picnics and grossly touch everything in the way that garbage flies do. Perhaps calling them garbage flies is inappropriate, like calling field corn horse corn, but as I recall fruit flies are more like small bugs, or gnats, than they are like flies, so I’ll assume that fruit flies are like gnats and garbage flies are the flies that we think of when we think of flies. Which is often, in summer. Mayflies, they’re a summer bug, too, which is back to our point about those flies existing, at least sometimes, outside of May.

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This is the time for these bugs. In fact, it might be past the time for these bugs. They were buzzing while I was working, buzzing in great dark clouds over piers and in front lawns and buzzing next to lilacs as they bloomed and made all the world smell like the pages of Glamour magazine. They were in these large schools, roaming about without moving much at all, hovering, really, hanging out in front lawns and near bushes and over piers and over expanses of calm spring waters. These bugs can, at first, seem daunting. There are many of them, but the swarm doesn’t instill fear like a swarm of bees would. And they don’t instill disgust in the way that a mass swarm of flies would, be those flies garbage flies or fruit flies, it doesn’t matter much. They’re still flies, and a whole mess of them is unsettling. I’m sure I saw some of these dark schools of Mayflies during their namesake month, but I can’t remember them this year because I didn’t take any time to smell any roses, or to pick any dandelions, or to walk along the shore path near the water where these bugs like to hang out. I haven’t done these things because I haven’t had the time, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t see some Mayflies this year. I did. I saw plenty of them, just not the huge swarms of them that I remember seeing during other Mays from other years. I remember one year when they were particularly impressive. I fished off the Loch Vista pier, casting a thin line with a small hook looped through the face of small, silver minnow. I don’t feel good about doing that to

those minnows, but I do feel good about watching a small red and white bobber slip under the still surface, and I feel equally as good about reeling in a smallmouth bass before gently unhooking it and releasing it back to its watery home, so the minnow part is unfortunate but I find that its end justifies my means. I remember one late afternoon, late enough where the sky was dark but the light hadn’t yet faded enough to be considered night, and I was doing that casting and standing and reeling. The buzz from the Mayflies was pronounced—loud even—and I felt great privilege being on that pier

in that scene, watching my bobbers. I’d look away at times, just for long enough to see the cloud of Mayflies dip too close to the water so that the wings of the lowest members would dimple the surface and stick together. The bugs that met the water in this way would stay there, glued to the surface of the calm lake, where they’d lie without hope until a small bluegill would ascend from the depths and sip them, implying politeness while being anything but. I watched the scene play out, the falling to the water to become a meal, the bobbers dipping under the surface, the smallmouth pulling away as best they could, the night sky

growing dim, the Mayflies abuzz. This is May, and we’re at the lake. The flies are not flies at all, just Mayflies in some quantity. They won’t bite, they won’t bother, and soon enough they’ll be dead and stuck to spiderwebs under the eaves of our homes and the canopies of our piers. They aren’t anything to fear, no more than we’d fear a Joon bug, or a June bug, or the dreaded Juhn bug.

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GENEVA VERSUS LAKES AND PONDS AND SEAS

AM A PAID SUBSCRIBER to many, many

ideas. For instance, I believe that you never, ever tug on Superman’s cape. This belief isn’t based on the reasons that you think it might be based on. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape not because you don’t want to bother him, but because, in the event that you met Superman you’d want to sit down and talk with him, ask him about flying, lasers, Lois Lane, etc, and you wouldn’t waste your time tugging on his cape. Who would do that? Not me. That’s why I follow that rule. I also believe that lakes are not created equal. If they were, there would be no great lakes, no oceans, no ponds, no roadside ditches that fill with water so those in the South can ski in them. There would only be lakes. We would call Walden a lake and the Indian Sea a lake. And the small pond outside of a condo in Geneva National that I have an inspection at this morning? Also a lake. So lakes—they are not equal, and I believe this. I also believe that Sasquatch, while unlikely, has to be based on something. What are these people seeing? And I don’t mean the people in general, I mean the credible people out there. What did that police chief see on that night, so late that he was a bit tired but not so late that he had trouble

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making out an 8’ tall hairy man leap across the road in just three steps? What are these people seeing? I can’t say they are wrong, but until I see a Sasquatch bounding across my yard, or one killed on the side of the road, I’ll just leave it alone. I also believe that a buyer who might spend $1MM can spend $1.3MM. I believe this in the way that I believe a buyer who can spend $2MM can also spend $2.4MM. I also think a buyer who spends $3.4MM can spend $3.9MM. I believe these things because I know them to be true, and because I know interest rates to be low, and because I know that borrowed money is easy to pay back these days, and cash money is easy to repurpose from a boring account and into an exciting vacation home. And it’s because of these things—the lakes, the money, the tugging on the cape, the Sasquatch—that I’m making a plea to vacation home buyers who are presently in the process of seeking a vacation home on another area lake. These lakes are many: Buelah, Powers, Mary and Elizabeth, Delavan, Como, Lauderdale, and so on and so forth. Some of these names might be spelled wrong. All are capitalized, which is to suggest a proper noun in perhaps the wrong context. Should these lakes be

MICHAEL MOORE PHOTOGRAPHY | www.michaelmoorephotography.com

treated the same as Geneva? No, they shouldn’t be. Nevermind that Geneva is rife with enchanting history, and never mind that it is the epicenter of all things fun and cool, let’s put those attributes aside and judge these lakes purely for what they are. Geneva is large, wonderful, and a vacationing individual can find plenty of things to do at any given time. There is activity, yes, but there are quiet moments of generous peace as well, and for this, Geneva is the reigning king of balance. Other lakes? Not so much. Homes on the other lakes are cheaper, and this is their primary calling card. If you don’t want to spend $1.3MM to buy a basic home on Geneva, you can indeed spend $700k on another lake to buy a similar home. This is important, and this is where these other lakes will be necessary additions to the Wisconsin real estate market. If you must find lakefront of the private variety, and you simply will not spend more than $700k on that lakefront home, then these other lakes will do just fine. They

will provide water to boat on and swim in (ick), and if the discernment of the buyer finds these two qualifiers as the only of importance, then the goal has been met. But what about the buyers that can spend more, and just don’t feel like it. Is $800k on Lake Somewhere as good of an idea as $1.3MM on Geneva? The question mark is rhetorical. If a vacation home buyer wants nothing more than to sit on his dock and watch the smallish water around him, this is fine. But tranquility mixed with more tranquility overtime grows annoying. That’s why every movie that features a man moving to some remote tranquil environment ends up turning into a horror film. All that peace is agitating. If I want to sit in my shaded front lawn at Geneva Lake, or sit on my pier and soak in heavenly sun, then I can do this for as long as I wish. But then, if all that relaxing has me bored, I can jump in my boat and cruise to the Riviera where I can tie up and walk into town for a coffee or an ice cream, or I can walk to the

jean store and buy some jeans with holes in them to replace the jeans with holes in them that I’m wearing. I can do this, and intermix with people and things and then I can return to my pier and my lawn and rest. Similarly, I can leave my restful hammock and sit on my pier to watch a scow regatta, or I can sit and watch fireworks, if the weekend has cause for celebration, or I can jump back on my boat and motor to Pier 290, to Gordy’s, to Chuck’s, to Cafe Calamari, or to the Abbey Springs Yacht Club and I can tie up, sit down and have dinner. While I’m doing that, the other guy in that quiet cottage on that quiet secondary lake is likely at home, bored, thinking about sharpening his ax. This weekend, this glorious, holiday weekend, it’s time to get up to explore the area. Drive to Geneva, drive around it and rent a boat to drive over it and put on your swimsuit and dive into it and live the lake. Then, drive to another lake and do the same thing. When you get bored, come on back to Geneva. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

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FINALLY A CHILDHOOD PROMISE FULFILLED, SORT OF

WANTED TO act like it wasn’t a big deal.

I’d driven boats, after all. Lots of them. Long ones and short ones, ones with small engines and ones with big engines, indeed, ones without engines. I’ve driven nice ones and bad ones, new ones and old ones, fast ones and slow ones. I’d like to think there’s not a style of boat that I haven’t driven, but if I thought that I would be wrong. I haven’t driven a wooden boat, not on purpose and not by myself, not until Monday evening that is. When I turned 30, there was bitterness. In quick succession, I blew my back up on a hard tennis court at the Princeton Club in Milwaukee, and in an unrelated event had my first, and only, colonoscopy. These were not shining moments. When I sat in front of the doctor, both the back one and the other one, he told me that my injuries could be caused by stress. He asked if I had been experiencing a lot of stress. I told both of those doctors that I have been under an undue amount of stress ever since May 13th of that year, because on that date I turned 30 and on that date I was not given the keys to my father’s 1960 Chris Craft Sportsman as I had been promised would happen for such a long, long time. I told the doctors this story, and they agreed that both of these current incidents were likely caused by the lies of my father, which is similar to dreams of my father except nothing like that at all. And so it came and went, my 30th year, and then the years passed, one after another, quickly, and mercilessly. I never did get to drive that boat, not on my 30th birthday

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or any birthday since. By the time my 35th birthday was tolerated/celebrated, the thought of driving that old wooden Chris Craft didn’t even enter my mind. Why should it? I hadn’t been able to drive it for the past five years, so why should this year be any different? It shouldn’t, and so it wasn’t, and the summer passed by with no mention of driving that boat, no thought of driving that boat, no dream of ever driving that boat. My father lives his life in fast forward. All 69 of his years have been rushed. He rushes to have gas-station coffee in the morning, and he rushes home to eat cereal for breakfast, and then he rushes off to somewhere, for something, but for exactly what he isn’t entirely sure. He only knows that he must get there quickly, and so he goes. He lives with a fear of rain, constant and unending rain, which is why anything weather dependent must always be done immediately. Cover that tractor with this tarp! It’s going to rain! Mow that lawn quickly! It’s going to rain! Get down here and cover the boat! It’s going to rain! Sometimes it does rain, but most of the time it doesn’t. It just looks like rain, and so my dad plans on rain. Always rain. This has been the case forever. This is also why he pulls his boats from the water earlier than anyone with a private pier should ever pull their boats from the water. Last week, the Cobalt was pulled. It was 75, or so, and sunny, without a cloud in the sky and barely a breeze rippling the surface of our deep lake, but still, the boat had to be pulled. It would be winter soon, after all. I think winter

arrives once it starts to snow, but my dad feels winter in his bones while still sweating under a summer sun. On Monday, it was the Chris Craft’s time to be pulled. To be driven, for the third or fourth time all year, from the pier and back to the launch. I imagine this boat is tired of doing this. Some bits of it are varnished or chromed or sanded each off season, and then, in very late spring, it is towed from its barn and pushed into the lake, where it runs quickly—but not too quickly—to the shade of a pier canopy. It will hang there, bored out of its mind for a few months, driven only sparingly, before it must reverse course and drive from pier back to launch. Its entire life has been spent within a four mile circle. And this boat knows the lake is seven miles long. As I am the only son with some

flexibility of schedule, I was the one to arrive at my dad’s pier at 5:30 Monday evening. The water was calm, the sky deep blue, the sun fading somewhere over a farmer’s field to the West of Williams Bay. I figured, as with every Chris Craft launching/pulling episode I’ve ever been part of, that I’d take my dad’s truck while he drove the boat, and I’d meet him at the Williams Bay launch. Instead, without warning and without a lesson on operating procedure, my dad told me to meet him at the launch. I was to drive the boat. My son jumped aboard, and after cranking the engine for what only felt like 10 minutes I grabbed the giant throttle and pulled it towards me. The old engine purred and rotated that old prop just enough to drag the boat from its slip. I was free of the pier, free of my

dad’s boating company. Just free. The boat drove like I thought it would. It isn’t agile, it isn’t fast, it isn’t powerful and it isn’t particularly sleek. It isn’t the nicest boat on the lake, nor is it the nicest boat within 300’ of the shore path in either direction. It was covered in dust, draped with so many webs from so many spiders. A towel was strewn across the engine cover, life jackets littered the floor. The boat creaked a bit, and cracked some, the engine dutifully but not enthusiastically did what it was told. I cruised north, past Pier 290, and towards the launch. My hands gripped the old cracked wheel, not tightly but not loosely, either. My son stood next to me, and I couldn’t help but smile. The boat was everything I expected it to be, and easily so much more. The trick now is to make a habit of it. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

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FATALISM 101 APPARENTLY, SOME PEOPLE PLAN TO LIVE FOREVER

OWN A SOMEWHAT unnerving take on

life. I’m young enough to feel that life is long and varied, and that somehow, if I practice enough I’ll find some greener pasture later in life, some prize of contentment. But I am old enough to no longer feel immortal, to no longer see life as a vast expanse of endless time as those who are much younger than I see that which lies before them. I see deadlines and expiration dates, and I see the goal of contented old age as a myth, or perhaps a rare truth, but maybe not for me. Anyone who doesn’t view things that way hasn’t been paying attention, as the tragedy of impaired health and untimely death is all around us, rendering the concept of living happily ever after, fading out with silver hair and deeply wrinkled skin and a soft smile a very far fetched idea. And that isn’t because of a path of fast, hard living that I’ve taken. Indeed, just the opposite has been my course—cautious and concerned, with all things except the BMI. Perhaps this fatalistic view is bad, and wrong, and perhaps it shouldn’t consume me like it is capable of doing. I see those around me, busily buzzing from one task to the next, from one object to another, constantly in motion and constantly sacrificing in order to some day obtain the right to graze in that greenest pasture. We miss kids’ games, we miss first steps, we miss sitting on the end of a pier with a fishing pole in hand, wondering what might bite while having no real concern whether something does or doesn’t. We miss things because we subscribe to the faulty premise that our lives will allow time for such

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pleasures—just on some day other than today. This isn’t to say that I brood in a house with shades drawn, sitting in the dark wondering what insidious disease will capture my attention and then my life (because I only do that sometimes). But it is to say that being aware of death is the main reason to live. To find value in life, in every day tasks, and to realize that there is no culminating prize in life that comes at some ripe old age. The other evening, I undertook the mundane task of bringing a pillow from one client’s home to another. It’s a long story, as far as why that pillow needed special transport, but it did and I was the courier. And so I left my house at around 7 in the evening and my daughter, aged seven, was happy to tag along. And so we drove. We talked about school, which had just started the day before, and we talked about homework and guitar lessons, and we listened to music and she held my hand. We picked up the pillow at one house, drove it to another, and settled in for the somewhat considerable drive home. The sun had just set, leaving behind remnants of light that warmed the corn and soybean fields, illuminating the nearing harvest. My daughter sat in the front seat, which I’m not sure if she’s allowed to do, but she did, her legs folded under her, rambling on some more as I drove towards where the sun had just set. Earlier that day, one deal had been resuscitated only through advanced paramedic techniques, a mess of blood and nearly shattered dreams scattered across my desk; another deal had nearly come together before both sides retreated, and sellers

of various makes and models wondered aloud, in mostly angry tones, why their homes haven’t sold (clearing throat, mumbles “price”). With those concerns, each one slowly faded with every detailed mention from that seven year old of her classroom, and of her teacher, and of the way she told one boy at recess that he shouldn’t take so many risks on the playground. After a day of mundane stresses, that drive was enough. And so it goes today, another day of work for all of us, another day of thinking that some day we’ll get to where we wish we had always been. We’ll work all day today, and then some of tomorrow, too. We’ll think about things we really want to do, like purchase that lake house that we’ve been hemming and hawing over for years and years, and when we’ll decide that we’re getting closer to realizing that dream but that we

simply are not there yet. We’ll dream those dreams, and then table them for another day, another season, another year, thinking that someday we’ll be ready but knowing that day isn’t today. But what if it is? What if there is no tomorrow? Or what if there’s a tomorrow but there’s no version of the tomorrow five years from now? What if we’re waiting so long that we have waited right through life? I suppose we shouldn’t wish for tomorrow and maybe, instead, just responsibly live for today. A fun aspect of my business is that I get to see both the financial and emotional gyrations of my clients. I get to see the goal presented, then the goal deferred, then the goal captured. I get to see those who put off their vacation home purchase for years, and then I get to see them pounce on something when the timing is perceived to be right. I get to see the happy endings

of a dream realized. I get to hear the common refrain of these buyers telling me that they should have done this sooner, that their Saturdays before these Saturdays were, in hindsight, of the most boring variety imaginable. I get to see their children grow up swimming and fishing and splashing through summer. I get to see all of these wonderful things. But the other side of this is I get to see those who painfully cannot get out of their own way. I get to see those who wish for a vacation home, those who are capable of a vacation home, but those who think that the timing remains uncertain and not quite right. I see those buyers, doused in indecision, assured that the vacation home itself is right for them but the timing is wrong, and I feel sorry for them. Putting off for tomorrow that which can be done today is fine, but it assumes that there’s always another tomorrow.

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A WINDY SUNDAY SOMETIMES, ALL IS ONLY ALMOST LOST

LACK VERY little in this life. I have things and I have family, and I have a roof over my head and some hardwood under my feet. I don’t need very much, even if, at all times, I struggle with wanting more than I know I need. And this is why I watch survival story television shows, or movies, and I think that I need to be tested. I am soft. Soft in form and soft in purpose, and I know this. Worse is the person who is soft but unaware. I am soft, aware, and at times I feel the need to buck that warm, velvety cloak. I want to be tested. When adventure types on television purposefully strand themselves on some island, I don’t think this is a big deal. When they make fire, it seems somewhat easy. Two dry sticks, some rubbing, and voilà: fire. I could eat things that I forage and kill, I’m sure of it. Only I’d also take some salt water and leave it to dry inside a large banana leaf, so that by dinner time I’d have some salt to sprinkle on my recently killed dinner. I’m amazed that they never do this. They take the time to boil leaves and then drink the water as if it is some fine tea, some treat. But they never take the time to passively make salt. I would, I know it. Last week, I found myself wandering up a small, cold stream in some location not horribly far from here. I was “geared up”, as my son calls it, with waders and boots and

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gear packs, my fly rod in hand. I worked this small stream that I had never fished before as it twisted through fields of goldenrod and dark forests of overhanging, juvenile willow trees that reached across the stream to mingle with each other, and to tease my fly line into their grip. I fished up this stream, past these things, for three hours. I caught one brown trout. It was colorful, strong, and posed long enough for me to snap one picture and release it back to the undercut bank where it spent the high part of the day. I scrambled over rocks, and up steep banks, and when I came to a beaver dam that had stretched across the 15’ width of this stream and turned the upstream water into a swampy pond, I knew it was time to turn back. I had adventured enough. But I hadn’t been tested, even if hiking back through chin high goldenrod is something that sounds romantic but is, in practice, difficult work. Bear Grylls would have purposefully

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fallen a few times and faked near death in that field, but not me. I just soldiered on, back to the road and then back to the car. I was still soft, but the afternoon sun and the high weeds had hardened me—if only some. Yesterday, the wind blew. It blew in the morning and it blew in the afternoon and though I didn’t see it in person, I assume it blew in the evening, too. I woke in the morning, and took the dog for a trip to the hardware store. I didn’t necessarily need anything, but I wanted something, and so I went. This, as I mentioned earlier, is one of my problems. I bought some weed killer, and stopped for gas before returning home. I tilled some of my lawn, because my wife wants a flower garden that is approximately the size of the entirety of Holland, and then

by noon I was ready to find the lake. It was still blowing, hard. It is no secret that I am unwaveringly proud of my son and his sailing abilities. We sailed last week from Conference Point to Black Point and back, and he beat me without breaking a sweat. He is capable and even though a Laser is a bit large for him, he can sail it with surprising proficiency. So we did what anyone would do on a billowing Sunday, and we rigged up the dueling Lasers and set out into the great wind. My son in his blue Laser, my daughter and me in the yellow Laser. Boaters boated, sailors sailed, and a sunny Sunday was unavoidable and ideal. For a while. When we headed out, towards the Black Point, the wind, for some while, was shielded ever so slightly by the lee

side of Conference Point. We sailed along, zigging and zagging, which may not be the technical terms for what we were doing, but it was, in fact, what was happening. The wind was stiff, but manageable. Then—without warning—it was not. A mighty gust pushed against our twin white sails, I was watching my son’s boat give way to the wind and his boat flipped just a moment before mine did. I was propelled into the water—my daughter, too. This wasn’t the biggest problem. As I was in the process of tipping and pulling the tiller against the momentum, the old wooden tiller snapped in two. I was perhaps 200 feet away from my son and his freshly turtled boat. Things rush through one’s mind at a moment like this. There is immediate SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

procedure to be followed. First, I gathered my daughter, who was upset but not yet frantic. I could hear my son yelling for me, and I could see that his centerboard was not sticking skyward from his hull. Waves pounded us, slamming against our upset hull. My primary concern now was that either my son or my daughter would lose their grip on the boats, so I yelled at them to hold on tightly. I was as Bear Grylls now, except that my danger was real and his is always fabricated. Luckily, my boat, though crippled with a broken tiller, had not fully turtled and I was able to right it without much difficulty. I threw my daughter into the tiny boat, the sail flapping wildly in the wind, the rigging lines a mess of twist and violence. The line had managed to get wrapped under the rudder, so I clung tightly to the back of the boat, balancing as best I could so as to avoid another upsetting flip, and I freed the line. I pulled in the sail, shoved the broken bit of the tiller into the rudder, and limped in that high wind over to my son, where his tears were noticeable to me even from a distance, and even with the water splashing all about and over him. I released the sail when I was close, grabbed the small length of braided line that dangles from the bow cleat, and I jumped in. I yelled to my daughter to stay low in the cockpit, to avoid the swinging boom, and handed the rope that was my daughter’s only connection to either of us to my son, and instructed him to hang on tightly. My daughter was crying now too, huddled against the cockpit bottom. A few boats came by to help, but as is my way, I waved them all off. I could handle this, I assured them and tried to convince myself. I was being tested, and I needed badly to pass. My son’s centerboard had drifted a short ways away from the boat, but not so far as that I couldn’t quickly swim it down and bring it back. The boats were drifting quickly, but in my

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old, fat softness I am still more than proficient in the water. I crawled onto the upside down hull, riding it as a wrangler would a wild bull, except that they get to hold onto some rope and I had none. I plunged the centerboard into the hull and leaned my significant weight towards one side, pushing on one lip of the hull with my toes and pulling the opposite side with my hands. In time, the boat righted itself, and I pulled the centerboard out on its way upright and threw it into the cockpit. I yelled at my son to get aboard, and in a flash he was back in control of his boat. The centerboard was rammed into place, the line hiked in, life, perhaps, once again intact. My daughter was a wreck now. She had every right to be. And when the boom swung around in the heavy wind and hit her in the head, she was even more entitled to those tears. She was telling me that this wasn’t fun anymore. That, “we are never going to make it back.” This was resignation, and this was usually the moment in the movie where the father, exhausted from the fight to save his children, sinks below the surface never to return. But I am not that father, so I rigged the boat back up, fighting the waves and the wind, and pushed the broken bit of the tiller back in place and aimed to sail towards shore, or home, whichever came first. That was the plan, until a minute later Thomas’s boat was once again upside down. This was so far from good. The work that came next was like the work that came first. Pulling the boat back, hanging to the other boat and to my daughter, pushing my son aboard his boat, and instructing him with no light words to sail home, slowly, steadily, without tipping. DO NOT TIP OVER AGAIN! I yelled as he sailed back to the West, back to the pier, back to safety. Once he was again sailing, I surveyed my situation. I had a broken tiller, a sobbing 7 year old, and a main sail line that had completely worked out of all the various pulleys

and loops that it should have been run through. In such a high wind it would be nearly impossible to re-rig the boat, so I grabbed hold of one line, without the use of any weight-easing pulleys, and aimed towards Cedar Point. I assured concerned passersby that I had this under control, despite mounting visual evidence to the contrary. I was mostly concerned about Thomas at this point. If he were to have turtled his boat again, with my boat now incapacitated and incapable of catching up to him to render aid, I’m not sure what would have happened. I had drifted to a pier in Cedar Point, and to all of those who think that Black Point, or the Narrows are the roughest points of the lake, I assure you that the very southern tip of Cedar Point is worse than both combined. I tied up to a pier and walked on wobbly legs to ask for a cell phone so that I might call my dad. I had re-rigged the sail, but had grown faint at the prospect of trying to sail against these waves and that wind with a broken scrap of a tiller. Help came via boat and my dad, and with a new tiller I sailed home, solo. My daughter will likely never sail again. My son will likely become some thrill seeking daredevil, who will quietly cite this experience as the reason for some post-college cross-Atlantic solo journey aboard an undersized boat. I have bruises this morning, and the yellow Laser is missing a bow cleat after it was ripped directly from the bow deck as a result of the forceful waves that pushed it from the pier that I had tied it to. I suppose I had passed the test, but I am left today with two thoughts. First, I could survive in the wild just fine, so long as I had the ability to borrow someone’s cell phone to call my dad once things really hit the fan. Also, that Pi guy had a rough gig on that boat in that ocean. But he was with a tiger, and I was with a shrieking 7 year old, so he had an easier cross to bear.

Photography by Interior Changes

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A SMALL CABIN WHO NEEDS MORE?

CABIN WASN’T large. It wasn’t medium sized. It wasn’t even all that small. It was, to be accurate, miniature. The things inside of this cabin were normal sized; the couch was able to be sat upon without difficulty. The dishes in the small cupboards were adult sized, even if it took two servings of coffee from the dainty cups to equal one serving of coffee from the indulgent cups I drink from at home. The beds were small, full, but that wasn’t such a big deal. Even my two children were able to share that small bed without too much trouble, at least the trouble was little after the initial trouble that caused one to sleep on the floor for some time. It turns out that sharing a full bed with a crazylegged sister is actually preferable to sleeping atop a pine pillow. Outside the back door was a small landing. Some might call it a deck but to do so would be to bestow a sense of deck-like functionality to it. This deck had no more space than would accommodate a few pairs of kicked off shoes, and the railing was barely wide enough to hold slung over clothes that had been set to dry, or waders that had been peeled off on the landing and slung over the rail for lack of a better place to put them. Aside the deck there was a grill. It was not a Fire Magic, or a Viking. There was no sear function and no rotisserie and no thermometer. There was on and off and the quarter turn of the knob varied the flame from hardly there to fullon incineration setting. It worked fine, and the two spare tanks of propane in a small wooden cabinet that someone had built for exactly that HE

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purpose gave some confidence that grilling was a good idea. One step inside the back door and you’ve found yourself one full step into the kitchen. A few cabinets, a small stove. A sink, not seeming to have been manufactured by Rohl and void of any sign of a blue Shaw diamond, held just a few soiled dishes. The coffee maker was not from Technivorm, and it wasn’t even one of the five coffee brewers that qualified for testing from those bow-tied-squares in Vermont. It brewed a small pot of coffee, small enough to fit into the small coffee cups, which fit perfectly on top of the railing on the back deck, assuming the coffee lasted long enough to require setting down for a moment or two. The bathroom was off the kitchen, as in, the space from toilet to kitchen sink was perhaps four feet, including the thin wooden wall that formed the visual barrier. The shower in that bathroom was small, but large enough to scrub up without knocking the soap off of the built-in fiberglassed ledge. The refrigerator was small, apartment sized, and the microwave was set on top of it as a sort of white radioactive crown. We didn’t pop any popcorn in that microwave, opting instead for the old fashioned popcorn that comes inside a pre-made tin pan, the sort that you shake over a flame while the aluminum foil cover puffs and fills with steam. I did this over a campfire, the fire that burned inside a small ring of stones about 40’ across the lawn from the cabin. The wood we burned was not particularly seasoned, and it came from no great deciduous heritage, but after considerable smoke there was flame,

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and once there was flame there was some shaking of the tin popcorn pan; and at the end of the shaking at least some of the popcorn emerged from the foiled pouch un-scorched. It didn’t matter all that much anyway, as the remaining popcorn was spilled in the small kitchen a few minutes after it was removed from the flame, the burnt bits of corn finding their way into the cracks in the pine floor, filling the cabin with the aroma of burnt corn. If the kitchen was approximately 5 x 9, that would put the living room which also housed the dining room somewhere around 14 x 14, not accounting for the staircase that bent up from one wall before turning and delivering the climber to the small loft where the two full beds were pushed squarely against the opposing sloped walls. The entirety of the space inside this cabin could not have measured more than 700 square feet. The small furnace was in the crawl space, which was accessed through a pine panel that was cut into the floor in the kitchen. I didn’t go down there, though some of our burnt popcorn made that trip. Two days in this cabin and no more.

Grilling for meals and sipping small coffee on a small landing. Two rocking chairs facing the pastoral view. No trampoline. No pier. No swimming pool. Not even a lake, instead only a meandering trout stream filled with small trout that vexed me. There were several 20 minute drives to town, where few shops offered fewer things that I wanted to buy. There was no luxury to be found. There was no space either. If I had wanted to escape to a book or to a magazine or to the bright screen of an iPad, I had no option under roof. The kitchen couldn’t handle much cooking, though the $99 grill performed well enough to cook some organic beef into burgers and to char the outsides of some organic hot dogs. The dining room table wasn’t large enough to fit four comfortably, so we ate outside on a wooden picnic table with no table cloth and no cushions. The smoke from the fire burned our eyes, but it kept the mosquitoes away. I spent two nights in a cabin that is smaller in its entirety than my single living room, and I was utterly content. My children numbering two take up as much space as four of the same sized

children might, and they were content as well. My wife demands mostly high end everything, and yet, there was no complaining. And that’s why, the next time you look at a vacation home in Lake Geneva and think, Hmm, this place is just too small for me. Hmmm... I have three kids and there are only three bedrooms, I can’t imagine such a horrible inconvenience. Hmmm... This kitchen is nice, but it won’t fit my table that seats 14... Hmm... This deck is nice, but how on God’s green earth could I ever have my entire family on this deck at once when we someday plan to take that family photo, with all of the men in khaki and blue and the women in white? Hmm... This house is perfect, but how can I somehow live in something so below my primary home standard, where I have a rec room and a family room and a den and that side room that houses my computer? Next time you think these things, just slap yourself for me. A vacation home needn’t mirror your primary home, it simply needs to feel like you’re on vacation from the moment you step foot on the deck that is really just a landing. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

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MY YARD A MUDDY SPAN OF BOREDOM

Y YARD, in a round about way, is very nice. It’s large and unkempt. Rocks litter the dirt patches that surround the home, and weeds fill in where the rocks aren’t. There are other strips and patches too—those where the utility companies sliced wide scars into the property, those where the old barn and small house once stood, and those where trucks got stuck in the spring mud. Even with these the property still looks nice enough. There are trees that line the borders where my acres stop, and there is a hay crop across the front that I may or may not someday harvest, depending on my personal hay consumption needs which are currently unmonitored. Out back, the blue patio is new and it’s nice. I should put some shrubs or plants around it to soften its stony edges, but I haven’t yet. Beyond the patio there is more of my most prolific crop—mud—and then some grass. The grass isn’t grass like you’d expect it to be. Rather, it’s grass in the way that the grass in Florida is grass. It crunches under foot and makes barefoot walking a generally uncomfortable undertaking. This grass, as I call it, is really just hay that I coerced into a low pattern, my argument against the farming community being that hay is really just super tall grass, right? Am I right? The grass weaves in and around the garden, where some plants grow and others feign growth

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and instead slowly die in their place. There are grape plants, because I like jam, and there are apple trees, because I like to feed the deer the bark from those trees. There are some herbs and some vegetables, and at least one row has been planted with plants that my wife thinks are cantaloupes. They are growing like crazy, these cantaloupe, and she thinks they are cantaloupes because these vibrant, quick growing plants grew right out of the area that she slung the seeds of a mature cantaloupe whose flesh was devoured by my children a few weeks ago. I have another theory as to this cantaloupe, and it starts and ends with these cantaloupe plants— the ones that we transplanted from the margins to a starring role in the garden—are really just weeds. In fact, I’m nearly positive that these are weeds, because nothing else in the garden looks particularly alive or well, excepting these cantaloupes/weeds. Time will tell. Past the hay lawn and the weed garden is a very large tree. It’s shaped like a Menorah. It’s tall. It has many branches that spread out from the main trunk, and it’s perfect for little children to climb on and, at least once, to fall from. We don’t know what this tree is, though we have theories. I think it might be a Boxelder. My mom said it might be a Sycamore, but my mother knows trees as well as my wife knows cantaloupe seedlings. My dad looked at it but didn’t wager a guess as to what it is. My

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brothers have seen the tree and don’t care. I think someday I’ll look it up on the Google to see what it is, but that day is not today. Beyond the Menorah tree is a field, a great, big, wide and deep field. There are things growing in it, all in rows, but those things aren’t tall enough so that I can see what they are from my distance. The crop choices around here are pretty much relegated to corn or soybeans, so I’ll guess that the crop is either corn or it might be soybeans. Either way, it’s fine by me. The field is pretty, and when it changes color in late August and into the fall, the golden hues of drying corn and/or soybeans will make for a most pleasing backdrop. Then the Menorah tree will be happy, because it will stand out against that golden background, and kids will climb on it while adults speculate what it might be, and everyone will agree that it is a nice tree. And a nice field. And a generally nice yard. But my yard is something else too. It’s all of the things above, plus a bunch of Mulberry trees. But one extra thing that it is isn’t so praiseworthy. My yard, for all of its farmy pastoralness,

is also supremely boring. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, and I feel blessed to live where I live, but grass and trees don’t change much. Sure, they change with the seasons, but everything does that. Green grass will turn to brown grass, but I can’t really celebrate the transition. On a macro level, these seasonal changes will be nice. But on a micro level, if we sit on my patio for an hour or four, we won’t get to see anything different during hour four that we saw on minute one. Grass is nice, Menorah trees are too. Small apple trees are cute and rogue cantaloupe seedlings are inspiring, but they are also all very, painfully, boring. I had company for Father’s Day. My family came over, and we sat in the sun on the new, naked patio. I cooked pizzas in my new pizza oven, and things were generally pleasant. Then, after some eating and some sitting, the collective mood amongst the revelers was that we shouldn’t still be here, on this patio or at this house. We should be at the lake, in the porch or on the pier, we should be there because we can be, and because we can be we shouldn’t be here. Not any longer than we have to be. Having

seen the hay and the trees, and having consumed my pizzas, it was time to leave. No one said it until I said it this morning—we all left because we were bored. There’s only so much that one can do while staring at a field. You can contemplate life. You can consider a career change. You can think about anything. But what you cannot be is entertained. Having left the farm and found the lake, we all went down for a swim. Kids splashed in the shallows while my brother and I argued how many feet it was from our parents’ pier to a pier that was far down the shore. He said a quarter mile, I said 1300 feet. We sat on chairs and watched the boats pass. We watched sailboats change directions, the captain and his guests ducking their heads under the swinging boom. We watched some boats cruise slowly while others screamed by, desperate to squeeze out the last drop of that beautiful Sunday afternoon. I supposed, as I sat there, that a nice second choice to this scenery is the quiet of a farmer’s field. But nothing, absolutely, entirely and thoroughly nothing, can beat the view from a lakefront chair. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

A LEGACY LET’S BUY FOR KEEPS

OUR LEGACY. MY LEGACY. These legacies are pretty important, and once thoughts turn to our own mortality, our legacies start to matter more and more. One way to ensure a lasting legacy is by being a good human being, a loving parent and a faithful spouse capable and willing to help others, and I suppose that’s really as nice of a legacy as anyone could expect. But legacies are furthered through real estate, which is why certain lake homes of all makes and models endure under certain ownership for many generations. If great grandpa Miller bought a lake house in 1907 and that lake house is still in the family today, what a wonderful thing that is. Great Grandpa Miller gets to have his picture up in the house, likely a regal one where he is dressed in fine clothes, possibly sitting on a horse. Money in the bank isn’t a legacy. It’s nice and all, but it isn’t a legacy. Working every day and into the night is a legacy, but not the sort of lasting one you want. That’s more like the “My dad worked a lot so I don’t remember him all that much, and now I think I hate him,” sort of legacy, which is less a blessing and more an

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irreparable posthumous curse. Legacy concerns can drive us to real estate, and I’ve personally seen it happen many times in my 18 years behind this helm. Buyers buy for the immediacy of the vacation high, yes, but behind a temporary twinkle in their eye they many times will admit to seeing the property used by grandchildren that haven’t yet been conceived. It’s this desire to create something permanent that pulls many to a vacation home on these clean shores, and that desire is among the most noble motivations someone could aspire to. Unfortunately, this desire is usually cut short by impatience, by movement in passions and changes in purpose. A vacation home bought one year intending to become a generational retreat is sold the next year to make way for a new investment in something or another, and what was originally intended to be a lifelong journey is thwarted by another more immediate desire, or need. Vacation homes, bought out of the most pure of intentions, are becoming more and more a simple toy that can be used and loved one year and then forgotten about and discarded the next. The vacation home that we bought for the next

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three generations to use is lucky to last a decade, let alone a generation. And this is what I see happening on the lake today. I see many, many buyers, and they’re buying all sorts of different lake homes. Many will own these homes for the remainder of their long lives and pass these assets to their children in their estates, but many more will own these new toys for some time and then move on to lesser, transient things. Playing hopscotch on the lakefront is a popular pastime of vacation home owners here. It’s a great thing for the market, for the Realtors, and for the economy. Seeking to upgrade or downsize is a natural movement within a defined market, and that’s to be expected and celebrated, but it’s the other movement that I question—the movement that finds a motivated buyer one year turning the following year into a motivated seller. Buyers can be dogs chasing cars, with the sport being the chase itself and no real plan as to what to do with that shiny

bumper once it’s captured. There have been a lot of lakefront sales over the past 12 months. I see new families and individuals using these lake homes and loving their purchases and this makes me supremely happy. But I see more using these homes sparingly, using them out of some duty and less out of pure desire, and I feel sad for these new owners. The chase of a lakefront home purchase is fun, but the real rewards come only later, at some Fourth of July party on that lakefront yard long after the original owner is dead and gone. When generations of family gather on that lawn on that day just as they have for decades before, that’s when the reward is realized. If we can make vacation homes less of a temporary asset and more an enduring fixture within a family, that’s when a vacation home becomes a legacy. If you’re lucky, you buy the home and they’ll put your serious looking picture over the fireplace. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

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THE SMELL OF OUR SUCCESS IF YOU CAN SMELL YOUR LAKE, YOU BETTER FIND ANOTHER ONE

REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I smelled

an ocean. It was the Atlantic, off of Daytona Beach, and my family had just driven from Disney World in a rented, white Lincoln Towncar. My brother’s fingers had not yet been smashed between the window and the door frame, as my family struggled with the dangerous convenience of power windows. The sea was rough, filled with kelp, mostly gross. I went swimming, but I didn’t like the beach, I didn’t like the water—not the way it tasted nor the way it looked nor the way it smelled— and I certainly didn’t leave the beach that day thinking that the Atlantic ocean was something I should get to know. The year was 1985. It wasn’t until 1997 that I went back, this time not to the Atlantic side but to the Gulf, and I found the tamer water much more interesting. Kelp didn’t wrap around my legs when I swam, and I didn’t get the sense of danger that I was overwhelmed by 12 years prior. I liked the Gulf side, and so I went back, again and again, from that day until this day. One year, I was greeted by a noxious onslaught of Red Tide. Most other years it was just the sweet smell of the salty backwaters that met me, that somewhat stinky, somewhat spoiled smell that emits from exposed

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muddy bottomed flats, a smell made by dead organisms of all sorts slowly decaying back into the salty, silty bottom. While some find that smell off-putting, to me that smell is a welcome sign that I have left behind, if momentarily, a cold climate and traded for a warmer one. Lots of lakes smell. They do. Don’t get all bent out of shape about it, Other Lakes, the truth of this matter is—you smell. It isn’t the sweet smell of the rotting backwaters of western Florida, it’s just the smell of dead fish intermixed with slippery seaweed, an empty bag of Funyons and some crayfish claws. I used to live near enough to one of these other lakes. When I lived there, at times I’d go for a walk. Some of those walks led me just down a nice road and around some fields and woods, and back again. Other walks, I’d venture down a nearby road and walk along the corner of this lake for a spell. This was a horrible thing for me to do, because that lake, at least in that corner, smelled like all this dead and evil. It smelled like nothing should ever smell, even if I would tolerate the smell every now and again and throw a five weight line to some eager panfish. I fish plenty of rivers. Most of these rivers are more like streams, and these small streams do

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not smell like much. Even if they did, it’s impossible to smell what the water smells like when surrounded by a field where cows graze, on account of the cow pies that they leave to bake in the sun. Other rivers I fish, those of the Root, the Pike, and the Milwaukee; those rivers smell, all right. They don’t smell sweet like the gulf waters, nor do they smell like dead things of all varieties like the water in that corner of that old lake, nor do they smell of manure like the streams. They smell like a toxic mix of sewer run off, garbage, and sadness. These are rivers that have been forced to flow through urban areas, though these rivers so badly wish they could flow

somewhere else. They flow, from West to East, and as they flow through cities they pick up all the things that are bad and then deliver it downstream into Lake Michigan. I’d give quite a bit of money to have a chance to know what Steelhead fishing on the Root River was like back in 1850. I’d need to bring with some penicillin, a rifle, and my cell phone, but I’d still like to go. What exactly is water supposed to smell like? Every lake, every river, and every ocean answers that question differently. Ask that question to Geneva and Geneva will answer as though on Jeopardy, with another question: Who says a lake is supposed to smell like anything? And that, Alex,

is the right answer. There are moments when areas of Geneva will smell as any other lake. There are. Certain corners that give way to oncoming winds are apt to smell like whatever algae bloom has just occurred, but the general smell around the lake on any given day is exactly nothing. There might be a dead fish here and there, and if you’re downwind of said dead fish then you’re going to smell that fish, but that’s the case anywhere. What we’re after here is the true smell of the lake, of any lake, and my olfactory sense tells me that Geneva smells as pure and clean as anything ever could, which is to say that it smells like nothing. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

1014 SOUTH LAKE SHORE DRIVE, FONTANA 42

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F 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 largescale 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

David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com

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THE 10

COMMANDMENTS SOMEONE HAD TO CARRY THESE DOWN THE MOUNTAIN

HEN YOU BUY A NEW CAR, or a

used car that is new to you, the salesman will usually take at least some time running through the features of the car. You bought that car because you liked the engine and the transmission and the stereo and the MPG, but you really bought the car because it was cool and you liked the color. The salesman knows this, and so he goes about showing you some of the functions of the car. This button does this and that one does that, and if you touch this button while touching the other button there’s a good chance the car will do something like this. You don’t know what he’s telling you, because you just bought a car and your excitement cannot be tempered by the tedious truths about how the car actually works. This is why we leave the dealership and have no idea how to turn the radio on. We figure the car out, but only

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after a period of trial and error. We learn, but slowly. And so it goes with vacation homes as well. We search and we search, and when we find the model we like, we buy. At closing there is some remorse, because any good decision comes with at least some of that, and there is excitement. For all of those who think a vacation home is the purchase of some life changing asset, you would be correct in your thoughts. This is in practice, but in reality a vacation home, even a lakefront one on Geneva, is simply the acquisition of yet another toy. This is a toy with all sorts of buttons and knobs and levers, and after the closing table is cleared there is generally no one left to tell you, the purchaser, what comes next. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why there is a list that I can share with you. The list comprises the 10 Commandments Of Lake Geneva Vacation Home Ownership, but it might as well be considered an operator’s manual. Follow these

commandments and you’ll experience vacation home bliss. Ignore these, and you’ll be lost in a sea of confusion, and you’re likely to make bad decisions as a result. Without further ado, The Commandments: 1. Thou Shall Commit To A Minimum Of 30 Weekends Annually This should be easy, though I realize sometimes it is not. If you purchased the home with the intention of using it 6 weekends a year, that’s fine, I’ll gladly sell you a home that you may or may not use. However, this isn’t about making ownership a passable experience; this is about making the vacation home a living and breathing part of your life. If this is to be the case, as with any relationship, there must be commitment. Keep in mind, 30 weekends is the absolute minimum, with a preferable tally registering around 40 weekends a year spent at

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the lake. This will be heavily weighted towards summer and fall, though to miss winter and indeed spring at the lake, this would be a cardinal sin. 2. Thou Shall Drive Thy Boat To The Middle Of The Lake And Sit There For At Least One Hour Again, another task that is super easy, but the intended result is profound. Vacation homes can be hectic creatures, which we run to on Fridays and from on Sundays, and in the process we can totally miss the point—to relax here. Sitting on your boat in the middle of the lake is a form of forced relaxation, but it is necessary. To complete this commandment efficiently and properly, the day should be an ideal one. Perfect temperatures, moderate breeze, bright sun. You should sit in the boat, with or without your family, though I admittedly find the without a more leisurely event.

You must sit, idle, with possibly a magazine or a book, and you can play the radio if you wish, but not loudly. You may lean against the seat or lie across the bow cushions, but you must be passive. This is not to be an hour spent cleaning and arranging the boat. The result of this passive boat time is that you’ll experience the lake in a different way, and you’ll get to know it just a bit better. 3. Thou Shall Cook Dinner Sourced From Entirely Local Ingredients. This does not mean to cook dinner from locally sourced ingredients that came to you by way of Whole Foods. This is to travel on a weekend, or a weekday, to the butcher, to the farmer’s market, to the cheese shop, and to arrange those ingredients into a complete dish. This dish is best served lakeside, on a patio or a deck or in a porch, but it can also be served inside,

if the weather dictates. The purpose of this is to open your eyes to the bounty that exists here, at the lake. You can source these items from Sentry, but for this special meal you should visit the niche shops. Lake Geneva Country Meats, Pinn Oak Farm, Hometown Sausage Kitchen, and others will provide you the meat you need. Brick Street Market will provide the Wisconsin cheese, which is so much better than California cheese it isn’t even funny. One of our many small farm stands will fill in the fiber. This should be done, and it should be done within the first four months of vacation home ownership. 4. Thou Shall Learn To Sail Or at least sail aboard someone’s sailboat. Sailing is different from regular boating, and until you experience a full sail, with the moments of tension and the moments of boredom, you can only speculate as to the truth of SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

that statement. There are boats all around, and after spending a few minutes mingling at the Lake Geneva Yacht Club, you’ll likely have found a boat to crew aboard. You needn’t crew during a race, but if you can, this is an especially exciting time. Just do what I do—ask to sit where you don’t need to do anything. That’s the best. Otherwise, buy a small Laser or a Hobie or a scow, and teach yourself to sail it. It isn’t hard, and it’s worth it.

home experience, wondering if you’ve made a big mistake, just let that feeling pass. Unless economic deficiencies dictate a premature sale, hang on to the lake house for at least 24 months. This is very important. A home cannot become part of an established, comfortable routine until at least that amount of time has passed.

5. Thou Shall Walk The Shore Path At Least Six Miles In Either Direction From Thy Home

This is not to be confused with commandment #2. That’s entirely different. This commandment is exactly as it sounds. Drive the boat to the middle of the lake, kill the engine, and swim. If you are over the age of 15 and you must swim with a life vest on, please do not do this. However, if you are a proficient swimmer, or at least an adept floater, you must do this. Pick a calm day so the boat doesn’t blow away from you, which is how people die in Lake Michigan, forever chasing a boat that never is caught. You may enter the water slowly, but a dive off the bow is preferred. You’ll marvel at the quality of the water, you’ll drip dry in the sun, and you’ll wonder why you don’t do it more often.

To go further is better, but six miles is a minimum. You can think you know the lake, that you know the shore, that you know the homes. Keep thinking that. Or, you can actually know these things and this knowledge is best accumulated by a shore path walk. You can see things that you cannot see from the lake, and you can get some moderate exercise in the process. The shore path is a treasure and if you haven’t explored it then you are missing out. This walk is pleasurable during all seasons, but it might be the most fantastic in the fall. 6. Thou Shall Not Judge Thy Vacation Home Until At Least 24 Months Past The Closing Date This isn’t as obvious as you’d think. I see it all the time. People buy homes, hurray! And then people fail to use them or they fail to consider a list like this and actually try to enjoy their experience. They let the lake house become all work, all bills, and no pleasure. This is common, and it happens because of a failure to commit to the scene. If you find yourself, three months into a Lake Geneva vacation

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7. Thou Shall Swim From Thy Boat

8. Thou Shall Make Fire and Keep It Burning All Day This is a winter commandment, obviously. A wood burning fireplace is the pure form of this exercise. Gas is okay, though the romance of the idea is lost on you. To be done correctly, you must start this fire on a snowy winter day upon waking. You must then keep this fire crackling all day, through breakfast and lunch, past your afternoon nap, and beyond dinner time. If you haven’t done this before, then you’re using your fireplace wrong. It wants to be burned, to consume deciduous bits. Use it.

9. Thou Shall Buy And Read At Least One Lake Geneva Coffee Table Book Note the “And Read” part. To be connected to our surroundings, understanding history is important. Lake Geneva is rife with such history, and what better way to spend a few moments than catching up on that history. A side benefit of this commandment is that you’ll be more proficient when giving lake tours to your friends. You won’t tell people that the Schwinns owned such and such a house when it was actually the Wrigleys. You also won’t mistake Judge Sears for the Sears and Roebuck Sears, either. The lake has amazing stories to tell, but it can’t talk, so you must read. 10. Thou Shall Fish From Thy Pier One Morning At 5 AM My entire childhood, and presumably all of the days since, a gentleman has fished from the Loch Vista pier at 5 am from early spring until early summer. This man knows the lake better than we do, because he has done this. I have done it, too, and fishing with the hopes of catching something as the sun pushes over the eastern horizon is quite enjoyable. You needn’t have a private pier to do this, as an association pier will serve this purpose just fine. The goal of this, and of all of these exercises is to get to know the lake better. If you catch a beautiful fish, this is a lucky benefit of this fishing, though as with all fishing it isn’t really the catching that matters. Remember to practice catch and release, and don’t root around in that fish’s throat as if that hook is made of gold. If the hook has been swallowed just cut the line close, release the fish, and start over.

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NIGHT SOUNDS THE SWEETEST NOISE IS THAT OF A SUMMER NIGHT

F I HAD REALLY THOUGHT the noise

through, I would have known that these were just harmless raccoons. During my childhood, and even adolescent years, I had a bedroom that faced West, away from the lake and towards the roof of the garage and the driveway. The garage was a disaster then, and is only marginally better now, which meant that many times the household garbage would make it to the garbage cans but the cans wouldn’t make it inside the garage. In summer, there was plenty of garbage generated by this family, and especially in summer it was the sort of garbage that makes raccoons rather excited—steak bones, half eaten hamburgers with their buns marinated in old ketchup, and corn husks that still offered plenty of corn to be eaten. These raccoons would fight over this food. But it was not as benign as that written word sounds. The fight was vicious, as if to the death, and it featured hissing and growling and purely evil, guttural snarls of envy and hatred. This was a real fight, and the cans would be knocked over and roll once or twice, while the varmints would scratch and tug and bite, all the while making this most unholy, terrifying sound. As a child, I would lie awake, my bedroom window open out of necessity as I desperately tried to force the cooler night air into my stifling room. The window being open did little to invite the night air in, but the night sounds flooded my room, and found my ears no matter how tightly I pressed my pillow. There was one night when I heard footsteps

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on the stairs. They weren’t steps taken gently and carefully in the night in the way that a normal person would descend or ascend a flight of narrow, dark stairs. They were rushed steps of a person running, a person in a hurry, a person in a serious, frantic frame of mind. Sometime in the still of the night, after the raccoons had finished fighting and eating and making such a famous fuss of the whole thing, I heard these steps. I woke to hear them, to hear the nervous rush of noise that came from the stairway and into my room. I put on my glasses so that I could hear more clearly. I heard those panicked steps continue, towards what I figured to be the back room of the house. It was just a room off of the dining room that was mostly a closet but had, at this point in my childhood, become an office after the introduction of one very expensive, mostly useless, Mac computer. That computer, as I understood it then, cost approximately more than an adults annual salary. That computer, as I figured, was also the aim of whomever it was that made these sudden footsteps. I heard what I thought was a yell that came out as more of a loud grunt, followed by silence. Then followed by more footsteps. There was a struggle. Likely over the computer. But had my dad won, assuming he, too, heard the sounds and responded as a man would? Had he successfully fought off the intruder? I lay in my hot bed, a mess of sweat and terror, wondering how it had all played out. I don’t remember falling asleep that night, but I must have. I would have left my glasses on to heighten my

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sense of awareness even as I slept a tortured, shallow sleep. That following morning, when light mercifully came to my back window and pushed away the horrors of the night, I walked with my dad to the Keg Room. I can remember this because I don’t think I made that walk with him, down the shore path, past Gage Marine and over the soggy frontage more than that one time in all of my life. I remember walking awkwardly, afraid to mention what I had heard the night before. So I paused, trying to fight the mention of it, but I gave in. I told him that someone had been in the house last night, that the computer had most likely been stolen, and that while I don’t know exactly what happened, something did. It felt good to confess what I had heard. As it turned out, there was no intruder. There was only, instead, my father running down the dark stairs to the first floor bathroom. There was no struggle, no yelling. Just my father racing to the bathroom so that he could throw up. Perhaps the corn was bad, or the steak a day or four past its optimal consumption date, my mom unable to cook it back to safety. Either way, our computer was safe, and my father did not have a fight in the hallway to protect his family and that large, off-

white computer with the small screen. I remember, on those hot nights, sweating it out in my bedroom with the window open in vain, the sounds of the night. Those sounds scared me then, and the only thing that would offer me hope was the happy sounds of a tour boat pushing through the darkness, the patrons laughing and eating and dancing as it went. I remember the sounds of the bands that played, and for a moment those sounds were enough to get me over the horrible sounds of the nasty raccoon wars that played out night after night. I was nothing but a child in a room with a singular window who was very, very afraid of the dark. And so it was, a night a few nights ago, having long since conquered my fear of the night and of the dark, that I found myself on my front porch doing nothing at all. The summer night is filled with revelers and with those seeking to suck every last drop of fun out of the most fun time of year, but beyond that a summer night is filled with natural sound. It can, in fact, be nearly deafening. I stood on my porch, surrounded by the hay field that is my lawn, hemmed in by the trees that form the border of my property, unable to see a single light belonging to any home or structure in

any direction. I didn’t speak, I didn’t move, I just listened. The symphony is quite remarkable, with each insect or amphibian group playing its part. The melody rarely wavering, the chorus never repeating, instead just a steady tune, unable to be hummed or sung, but pleasing any way. I walked that night, down the gravel driveway, so far as I made it near to the road where nary a car or a pedestrian passed. I looked back to the house, a dim glow throwing from each window of that long white house, the steep ridge line pushing up against the night sky that suddenly looked bright and alive with stars and the glow of a distant city that was really no more than a small town. The night noise continued, the crickets and the hoppers holding the main line, while frogs chimed in with slower bass, not necessarily rhythmically but certainly not in any contrasting way that would cause the tune to be anything but perfect. Bats fluttered overhead, greedily gobbling up mosquitoes, likely cursing the cooler weather that has made those gnatty biters fewer. The air was still, with no wind felt or heard. I walked back towards the house, slowly, content in the peaceful sounds of a raccoon-less summer night. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

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A LONG SUMMER SUMMER’S SHORT, UNTIL IT ISN’T

VERY YEAR it’s the same, this

struggle of winter. Snow flies and ice clings—to the branches, to our streets and to the space where our grass used to grow green. It smothers everything around us, and at times, us. Then spring comes, slowly, teasingly, miserably. It shows itself in March but rarely returns in full force until May, leaving us wondering when it will arrive in earnest and then just how soon it will leave us. That’s the secret of nearly every season—the wait for it to begin is filled with hope and impatience, but once it arrives we are in a similar hurry to rush through it and get to what’s next. This is true of all seasons, but mostly of spring. If you find someone who loves spring in its entirety then you have found someone who forever wishes for things but never wishes to see those things come true. Spring is a promise that only a summer day can fulfill. When spring grows old, with its moderatelysort-of-warmish temperatures, and its soaking rains, no one wishes it to stay. Spring starts sometime in March and kills all of April and generally May, too, and June is intended to be a month of mostly summer even though the calendar proves it to be a month of mostly spring. On a year like this, the wait for spring to end was painfully long. Spring, it could be argued, never left until the calendar turned July. Sure June had some hot days, big deal. A few hot days scattered amongst a steady diet of rainy storms does not make summer any more than a snowflake in November makes for winter. Spring arrived late and stayed for a seasonal eternity.

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But spring did leave, even if slowly and at a very late date, and by the Fourth of July we had been enjoying summer for at least a few days. The delay in summer sparked a frenzied rush to enjoy it. We felt as though we waited for so long that we had already missed much of it. We felt as though time had pushed past us, and our petulant spring had gobbled some, or most, of our summer. So we took to the water and we took to the streets and we protested spring by lighting our grills and encouraging the sun to burn our backs, and we worked very, very hard over the last holiday to make sure we could squeeze at least some summer out of what might be left of it. We returned to work a week ago tired. Burned. And resigned to the fate that while we had at least some summer we certainly wouldn’t have all that much of it. Stupid. Long. Spring. Then came this past week, and with it the just-ended weekend. The sun that had only peeked out of the storm clouds long enough to make us question whether or not we should call the authorities to report a great shining, unfamiliar orb, beat back the clouds, perhaps for good. And then after Sunday the Monday was nice, too. As was Tuesday. And then when I woke on Wednesday and I looked out to see blue skies, the sight was not unexpected. Thursday was like this, too, and when I hit the water Thursday evening with the sun casting a fading silver glow onto the big lake it seemed as though summer was no longer a dream or a fleeting memory, it was right there in front of me and all around me. This weekend it was the same. Morning

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found blue skies and afternoon found ample sun, more than enough to tan those who basked under it and even enough to kiss those who tried their best to avoid it. Saturday was like this and Sunday, too. The desire to drop everything and rush to capture the lake at a moment of blue sky splendor had dissipated. In spring, this is how it had to be, because in this last spring there was so little blue to be found outside of our personal moods. Sunday I worked, and I watched the lake from the shore without much concern. I knew I would be finished with work soon enough and I had faith that the blue skies I saw at 2 pm would still be there at 4 pm once I was ready for them. The charge that summer would pass me by without giving me a chance to enjoy it was summarily dismissed. In a rare twist of justice, though we were in the wrong and brought the frivolous suit in the first place, we are the ones that receive the reward. Today, it is July the 15th and it is sunny and warm. By my math, we have so much summer left that there is far more of it ahead of us than lies behind us. We are in the middle of this summer, and while we feared it may never come it has rarely disappointed. Unless youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re spending summer in the city, in which case disappointment is everywhere. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

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FALL WHY IT MAY BE THE BEST TIME OF YEAR

HE LAKE IN THE SUMMER is what we all know it to be. Blue waves roll on weekends, whipped by wind and watercraft, each wave pushed higher and higher until the lake is a flat mountain of moguls, every wave coming at a different angle, every cruise somewhat, or entirely, bumpy. We know the green shoreline, the deciduous darkness that swaddles the lake and makes even the most obvious homes look, and feel, like private woodsy retreats. We know the sunrises and the sunsets, the pales of the blue morning sky and the warmth of an orange evening horizon. We know the piers, white and sturdy, the way they protrude and the way they dull from use and from age, until the brightest white deck of June becomes the well worn deck of September. We know the clarity of the water on a Tuesday, and wish for it at times on a Saturday. We know the weeds that grow and the fish that bite and the perfect pattern of what we wish were an endless summer. We know these things because we live them, and we capture them, and we hold tight to them for as long as we can. We think we’re on the inside, that we, being long lived patrons of the lake and the scene, are somewhat tuned in to the lake in a way that the day-tripping tour boaters are not. We think we see the lake through a different lens. We think we have an angle, a shortcut, an intense, private knowledge of the lake and the summer spent there. We think we’re somehow special.

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But we aren’t. Summer at Lake Geneva is for everyone. For lakefront scions and for lake access revelers, yes, but also for the family that vacations on its shores for one week, or the family who takes three trips each summer to walk the town and buy ice cream before returning home at dark. They know the lake, too; they can see those waves and walk those piers, and they can imagine what it would be like to live in those homes. Summer is for everyone, and there are no real secrets to a Lake Geneva summer. It’s just summer, on a great lake, with a plot so simple that even a child can easily understand it. A Lake Geneva summer is a beautiful thing, but it’s an obvious thing. And with that, there is this: Summer is for tourists, fall is for locals. For Lake Geneva aficionados who desire to see the lake as this boy does, as a local with a deep and unwavering appreciation for the mystery that is this big lake. In the fall, there is science. The lake turns over, the warm surface water cools and sinks, bringing the large fish that spend their summers deep, under the dark cover of those chilled depths greedily gobbling bait fish, to the shallows. The lake clears, which is to say that the gin clear water of summer somehow becomes more clear, in the way that replacing old glass with new glass takes the transparency to an entirely different level. Seaweed that grew fast and tall under the bright sun of summer falls to the bottom where it will lie dormant

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until the next growing season comes, and with it the waves and the boats and the people. Fall brings this change in the water, to the depths, to the wildlife that inhabit it, but more importantly it brings a quiet to the surface. It brings, along with showy colors and brisk winds, peace. It soothes the summer-worn soul with a refreshing splash of calm, quiet, and solitude. For those seeking a vacation destination where quiet is the rule, they needn’t find another lake,

they simply need to wait for fall. There is time now to explore, to learn, to travel down small side roads that one wouldn’t dare approach on the busiest of summer weekends. While we know fall to be different, to be cooler, to be overlaid with sepia, fall is no less fun than the loudest summer afternoon. This should be obvious, but if you’ll find your way to the lake this weekend and then walk its shore or drive over it, you’ll find that this fact isn’t an obvious to the masses as it is to us.

And so it goes, a summer that I’m letting go of, a fall that I’m ready to embrace. While others are preparing to take their boats out, I’m preparing to use mine with some consistency for the first time this year. Fall isn’t for putting away our lakefront aim, it’s for sharpening that focus. There are depths to explore, shallows to see with unrivaled clarity, a shoreline to wander. These are the times to learn about the lake, to get to know it, to fall in love with it all over again. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

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WOOD PIERS BECAUSE WHO WANTS A METAL PIER?

N A CLOUDLESS day—the summer sort that make even the most ornery people feel like considering a smile—there is little reason to walk onto a pier and romanticize those boards. Piers played a central and starring role in my childhood. The impact of that fondness finds me when I’m sitting on a beach somewhere warm, feeling the sand and for a while enjoying it before wishing I had something sturdy and wooden to stand on, to lie on, to jump from. When sitting on a sandy towel, when spitting sand out of my mouth, when scratching it out of my hair and when picking it from my eyes, I simply long for the cleanness of a wooden white pier. That pier went in the icy cold water late this year, later than we would have preferred it to. It was April, or May, and for some it was June. Installing a pier in June is to take a season that only feels eternal to those without piers and make it even shorter. Proper piers find their water in April, and by the end of May when the first foot traffic arrives, the gleaming white has erased any sins from the prior year. This glistening white won’t last long, as boaters will boat and swimmers will swim, little children will curl their toes around the outside edge of

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that end stringer and they’ll make their first jump. Then they’ll clasp their hands over their heads and bend towards the water in an attempt at their first dive. And your Aunt Edna is going to pull that metal footed chair just a little closer so she can hear your conversation just a little better. The scratch she leaves will linger until the following April, or May. Or June. Friends will visit, and like many boating friends they will pull up to the pier aggressively and with a mighty bow thump, the pier will shake. Crayfish will shoot from their rocky homes inside those wooden cribs, and bass will dart to avoid the danger. The bow will mostly catch the sturdy plastic bumper, but enough boat will catch enough pier to flake off a tightly grained chunk of Douglas Fir. That fir will splash to the water where it will float and bob and push from shore to shore until the sharp lines have worn smooth. Someone will find it the next fall, rubbed smooth and paintless, and they’ll put it on the coffee table in a jar of similar finds next to a stack of books that no one reads. Families will convene, children will splash, boats will come and then boats will go. As sure as the sun rises every morning, the view from that

JUSTIN GIROUX

lakefront window will frame that pier with the same steady scene. But soon enough that pier will be dismembered, board by board, a routine that the pier man knows well but one that is rarely witnessed in person by those pier owners. First, the boats will leave, then the canopies will be pulled from their frame, wrapped tightly and driven back to be stored in Jimmy’s shop. The canopy frame, some wood and some metal, will be hoisted from the uprights and set on the lawn, followed by the pier planks and the stringers and then the horses. The tremendous structure that hosted so many fun days of summer will now be arranged on a lakeside lawn, still in full view of those front facing windows, but now lacking any appeal, either visual or utilitarian, to rest until April, or May. Or June. These piers separate us here. They make us different. There are piers elsewhere, sure. There are metal piers with old car tires hanging from those thin metal posts, with wooden or metal or plastic walkways as narrow

as a bedroom hall in an old cottage. These piers will be cranked from the water now, or they have been cranked a while ago, likely on a sunny October, or September afternoon, at a time when the homeowner had a friend up to help. These piers will be pulled from their shallow homes, weeds still clinging to their uprights. These piers are nothing like our piers. In fact, these piers shouldn’t be called piers at all. They should be called docks, because in the way that we cannot call ponds lakes, we cannot call docks piers. There are other piers too—big, giant, immovable ones. The sorts that stick out into salty water or inland oceans. These are piers that stand high above the water, so high above that to dive from one into the water may take a moment or two to first gather courage. These are piers that hold big boats, yachts. These are piers with heavy planks, or poured concrete walkways that float on giant rollers to allow for the mood of the tide. These are piers that men cast large fishing

lures from, or these are piers that others dangle cut up fish or squid or shrimp from, hoping something large and toothy will be hungry and near. These are piers that serve purposes, but they are more of a necessary structure to perform heavy duty moorings than they are whimsical structures that allow for our summer splashing. Our piers are nothing like those piers, and this is just one of the many things that makes us different in a way that should be spelled b-e-t-t-e-r. In November, with snow approaching and winter narrowing its focus, as we now look to these once majestic, shining piers and find them in haphazard piles on front lawns. We see these piers now and ignore them. Or, we can choose to remember all the great things that happened on those piers over the past several months. Once we’re done remembering, we can shift to forecasting, and think of how wonderful it’ll feel to put our bare feet on that warm white pier again. Patience, that’s the thing we need now. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

1903 LORAMOOR DRIVE

ANY HOMES ARE UNIQUE. Big deal. This home isn’t just a spectacular home with each room dripping in luxury features, it’s also a shining example of Prairie Style architecture. This prime lakefront boasts custom woodwork with too many built-ins to count, six masonry fireplaces, stained glass transoms, lakeside veranda, and huge windows framing wide water views that extend all the way to downtown Lake Geneva. The kitchen is as gourmet as gourmet ever was, with Aga and Gaggenau ranges, Sub Zero, marble and more. Extensive cherry trim and cabinetry abounds here, with each room having levels of fit and finish that isn’t present in even the most spectacular lakefront homes.

All this on 1.5 acres and 110’ of level south shore frontage. $3.195MM

David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com

SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

N1824 EAST VALLEY VIEW DRIVE, LINN TOWNSHIP

ALLEY VIEW DRIVE isn’t a drive that

someone can happen upon easily. You must drive down South Lakeshore Drive and then head North on Maple Ridge. When you come to the intersection of Black Point Road, you can turn West to head towards that black point, or you can turn East, and head to Valley View. Few people turn East. Once you come to Valley View, you should take the entrance flanked by red brick pillars, and

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proceed slowly down the winding natural drive that leads through the woods towards the lake. When you get close, you’ll see this modern stone manse directly ahead, the lush gardens offering you your first greeting. The home is positioned nicely on a 1.25 acre lot, and boasts 150’ of big, fat, sprawling frontage. The views are to the North, the West and the East, and the views are most important here, as nearly every room puts the lake unavoidably in your gaze. The

David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com

lakeside deck is large, the front lawn level, the steps to the pier not so many that you’ll have to stop and rest half way back up. The property is wonderful, but the true magic of this home is on the inside. A long hallway spans the first and second floors, connecting the extreme edges of what is a very large house. The first floor offers comfortable living spaces—a den with fireplace, a great room with another, a dining room with an angled 60’ skylight running both in front of and behind it.

The hardwood floors are delightful, the built in cabinetry everywhere, the flow perfect. The kitchen has gourmet touches—new granite counters and appliances from Sub Zero and the like. Entertaining? Why, yes, you’ll find that an easy task here. The theme here is unmistakenly casual, with the lake as the focal point of all activities at all times. The design is modern without being cold or even the least bit sharp. The stone that runs through the outside and the inside of this home providing some warmth that might not otherwise accompany a modern structure. It’s a great house, a great lake house, and it’s yours for $3.499MM SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

Brand spanking new three bedroom, three bath Abbey Hill condominium with attached garage. High end finishes abound in this recently built unit, including hardwood floors, granite counters in kitchen and baths and soaring, beamed ceilings. The transitional third bedroom can be used as a private guest room, or open the large swinging doors to create an airy den. Three bedrooms with en suite baths provides plenty of space for the whole family, or throngs of free-loading friends. $299,900

Here’s a perfectly upgraded, wonderfully secluded, turnkey Alpine unit just a short ride to the Abbey Springs clubhouse and lakefront. Offered fully furnished (including golf cart) this updated unit is bright, clean, and ready to use right out of the gate. Huge decks off the open floor plan make entertaining a cinch. Abbey Springs offers unrivaled vacation home amenities, including indoor and outdoor pools, tennis courts, clubhouse, private beach, piers, and restaurants. $265,900

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

A tranquil double lot shaded by mature oaks and trimmed in well cared for gardens, just up the road from the Indian Hills lakefront park and piers. That’s the setting, and the house is a nicely maintained three bedroom ranch with new carpeting, large covered decks, and ample living space. Lake access through Indian Hills with transferable ramp space and lakefront storage locker. Lovingly tended to by the same family since the early 1970s. Enjoy this summer right here, right now. $259,000

A private wooded setting is host to this utterly charming Cotswald cottage designed by Hinsdale’s Tim Thompson. Classic touches include Pecan floors, stone fireplace, carved pine doors, beamed ceilings, and many custom treatments that set this home apart from the rest. Considerable square footage, formal dining and family rooms, and a private stone patio. Enjoy Geneva National’s three swimming pools, four tennis courts, three championship caliber golf courses, and clubhouse. $419,000

You’ve been by the South Shore Club, and you’ve taken it for granted. Admit it, we all have. To do so now would be to make an egregious mistake, as the South Shore Club is an opportunity that has just about passed us by. Just four lots remain in this private club, where country club amenities mesh seamlessly with classic lakefront living. Enjoy private pool, tennis court, clubhouse, piers, lawn and garden maintenance, and a fleet of gassed boats at your disposal. The South Shore Club, beyond anything you’ve imagined Lake Geneva to be. From $395,000

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. $525,000

Vintage cottage in Glenwood Springs, located just four homes from the water. The large, level lot is a real treasure, with plenty of space for playing and entertaining. Slight lakeviews are had from the front porch- a porch that any cottage aficionado will be proud to own. Walk to Glenwood Springs’ 1800 feet of association frontage, where your one time transferable slip awaits. Buoys generally available as well. Your lakeside summer beckons. $489,000

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 2014. $369,000

David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993

dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

N1546 FOREST HILL COURT

1546 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. $2.149MM

David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com

SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

88 N. LAKESHORE DRIVE, LAKE GENEVA

N THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY, we overuse

the word estate. Here and estate and there an estate, everywhere an estate. In our Lake Geneva reality, estates are actually incredibly rare creations. There are many of them on the lake, yes, but rarely do these true estates present themselves to the open market.

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88 North Lakeshore Drive is such a magnificent property that no one in their right mind would ever argue that it is anything but what we know it to be: A True Estate. Five plus acres, 232â&#x20AC;&#x2122; of North Shore lakefront, in-ground swimming pool with cabana, tennis court, guest house, storage barn, and that gated

entranceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that fabulous winding drive that leads to it all. The home is spacious with five bedrooms and six baths, five fireplaces and lake views to the South and the West that challenge any other view for absolute view supremacy. Property is rare, the opportunity distinct. Consider this is your best chance to secure a lasting lakefront legacy. $5.995MM

Craig Curry 262.745.2572 David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com

SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

Luxury suites overlooking stunning Geneva Lake. The perfect location for your wedding, corporate meeting, or event on the water.

Phone: 262.248.2100

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w w w. b e l l a v i s t a s u i t e s . c o m 75 SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE www.genevalakefrontrealty.com

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