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Colors Get ready, the colors are coming .......................................9 Vernacular Respect the rules ..................................................................... 10 Peace It’s not so hard to find.............................................................15 Let’s Play Ball Ready or not, it’s time............................................................ 16 Bored It’s better here ............................................................................21 Summer’s End It’s not over, but it is............................................................... 22 The Why It’s not always sunny...............................................................27 Patterns The out of towners ................................................................. 28 Home It means something ............................................................... 32 The Fall Of It All Sometimes dark fall is better ............................................ 35 The Tinker Winter will allow It .................................................................. 38 Just A Dusting A white spring ........................................................................... 41
Cover art an original work by Neal Aspinall. Magazine title, Summer Homes For City People was borrowed from a 1898 real estate brochure called “The Story of Geneva Lake,” written by F.R. Chandler, under the auspices of the Lake Geneva Village Association. 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 directly to dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com. Reproducing any of this content without owner consent is prohibited.
brian mangual
This magazine is published for information and entertainment purposes only. Geneva Lakefront Realty LLC is not responsible for any claims, representations, or errors made by the publisher, author, or advertisers. For specific details, please consult your attorney, accountant, or licensed Realtor. Geneva Lakefront Realty LLC is a fair housing broker and limited liability company in the state of Wisconsin. Listings are subject to prior sale or price change.
M I C H A E L
A B R A H A M
A R C H I T E C T U R E W W W . M I C H A E L - A B R A H A M . C O M
Hi There’s something about a summer at Lake Geneva that’s just plain better than a summer spent anywhere else. That’s a simple truth that most would heartily endorse. But what’s less understood is that this isn’t just a place for summer. It isn’t just a place for sunshine and piers and cloudless skies. This is a place for winter, for fall, and yes, even for spring. That’s why this 9th issue of Summer Homes For City People hands out some much deserved appreciation to the other seasons. It’s a new year and another summer, but I’d be remiss not to acknowledge what a terrific year 2017 was. The lakefront market on Geneva continued its remarkable run, and I was humbled to once again finish the year as the number one individual agent in Walworth County (over $46,000,000 in closed sales). That brings my tally since 2010 to a market leading $247,000,000. I continue to be grateful to those clients and customers who trust me to guide them through their Lake Geneva real estate pursuits. The market today is active, and inventory remains painfully low. This is a wonderful scenario for sellers, but buyers haven’t found this new market to be quite so enjoyable. A hot real estate market leads to many mistakes, as buyers flock to our shores and hurriedly search out property without first understanding the nuances of our varied market. That’s why I’m here, to help guide and steady those who wish to buy or sell their unique version of Lake Geneva. Should you find yourself near our shores this season and in need of insight and market guidance, please do consider me at your service. For now, I hope you enjoy the 2018 issue of Summer Homes For City People. I’m a marginally passable writer and a staunch defender of all things Lake Geneva, but more than anything, I’d just like to be your Realtor. David C. Curry
Geneva Lakefront Realty, LLC 57 West Geneva Street, Williams Bay, WI 53191 262.245.9000 | dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
7
Casey Shearson
Colors
Get ready, the colors are coming
W
e know that things haven’t been going our way. We started out with that snowy winter, so intent on enjoying it and skiing it and sledding it, scraping and shoveling it, too. But what happened wasn’t anything like that. We skied, a bit. Shoveled, a bit. Scraped, some. But the winter had come and the winter has left and nothing really happened. It was a winter without. We knew what would come next, and we waited and we waited and in February it came. Bright spring. Sunny spring. Warm and pastel, spring. We had a few days worth, maybe four, and it was February and no one thought it was really spring. Winter returned, but it was easy winter, annoying winter, just enough winter to ward off spring. That winter relapse was quickly forgotten and there have been days of spring, days of warm, soft sun, and days of wicked wind, biting cold. Then the rains came—so many rains with so much water, sheets and sheets and buckets and buckets. No one thought it could last, but it did, and it washed our streets and soaked our lawns and filled our lakes. The season now isn’t so much spring, it’s just a rainy winter. There are barns between my house and this desk. Many barns. Most are clad in metal, some form of sheet paneling either vertical or horizontal, typically in fleshy tones of white, gray, or brown. In the winter landscape, these barns blend in, offering no excitement, no allure, just utilitarian usefulness. But one barn is painted the brightest of reds, and in the winter it is a beacon on my drive, a visual
reminder that color exists even in the dullest of dark winters. In the spring, too, when the ground is gray and what isn’t gray is brown, and the tans of the cut corn stalks and the dull worn olive of the roadside grass means everything is quiet and stark, that barn shines bright and vivid, a reminder of color in an otherwise colorless world. But these rains and this sky and this gray and this brown—it’s not all bad. My eyes can rest under this sky. There’s no strain here, no squint to see beyond the glow, because there is no glow. It’s just March in Wisconsin and things are easy on the eyes. The north side of Geneva Street is greening this morning. The grass is greening and the bulbs are shooting and the crocus is blooming. The drab wrens of winter are being crowded out by the orange breasted Robins of spring, and soon, the elusive Orioles will coast in on a southerly breeze in search of our fresh cut oranges and our purple grape jelly. The piers are falling into place, now dulled and chipped by the winter but soon scraped and painted white and bright again. The water is warming, slowly, but it’s warming and it’s still blue. Even in the face of so much gray and overwhelming brown it is still blue. But the grass is greening and the flowers are awakening and the sky is brightening and soon it’ll be the spring we’ve seen in our minds all winter. Prepare your eyes, the color is coming. Written 3/31/17 I really don’t mind the soft dull of an early spring. It’s soothing to my eyes.
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
9
Vernacular Respect the rules
I
f we were in the deep south, it would be understood that there would be certain words we’d use at certain times. We’d drop the G on many words, like he’d be “fixin’ to catch a “beatin’.” This is hard for us yankees to understand, but this is the way it is. Why then, should it be any different for us? Why shouldn’t we have our own set of words, meant to describe our own set of things? We aren’t in the Northeast where things are strange and “er” is pronounced “uh,” but we are unique. At Lake Geneva it’s less about the pronunciation and more about the chosen word. With summer nearly upon us, it’s a good time to take a refresher course in our preferred words. Perhaps you’re new to the lake scene altogether, which means you haven’t yet had a chance to learn these linguistic lessons the hard way—through the embarrassment of the utterance. Or maybe you’ve been here so long you’ve decided that it doesn’t really matter anymore. What matters, you say, is world peace and kindness. You’re being silly, because the words matter far more. Without further ado, the list: There is a company here called Pier Docktors. This is a company that constructs, installs, and removes piers. The name is a pun, a play on the words, which is the only reason we’ll give them a pass for using the root word “dock.” The white thing that juts out from shore in front of your house is called a pier. It’s not called a dock. There is no acceptable substitution for this. A pier is a pier and a dock is a dock, and what we have here are piers. Don’t call them docks. It’s insulting to
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SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
the pier and embarrassing to you. There are a couple of piers on the lake that aren’t white. Those piers are not the piers you should emulate if you own your own. Piers are to be white, end of story. Docks can be brown, but we don’t even have docks here, remember? If you’ve worked hard and sacrificed and you’ve made your way to the lakefront, your front lawn is the lakeside lawn. When your friends are coming over to hang out, you tell them you’ll be in the front yard, or front lawn. This is the lake lawn, not the street side lawn. I’m amazed at how many people—seemingly intelligent, good natured, people—get this wrong. Your backyard is the street yard. Your front yard is the lakeside yard. Please don’t confuse the two. Did you catch a bass off your pier? Really? Was it a largemouth or a smallmouth? If you say, neither, then you didn’t catch a bass. There are only two types of acceptable bass in Geneva Lake. The largemouth and the smallmouth. If you caught a rock bass, then you caught a rock bass. Don’t call it a bass. It’s only a bass of sorts, in the way that a Redfish is really just a freshwater drum which is really just a carp. Don’t church up a rock bass by calling it a bass. It’s a rock bass, nothing more, nothing less. It’s still important and you should still handle it with extreme care, but respect the species. The little white plastic or wood or foam thing that floats out in front of your house beyond your pier isn’t called a can. It isn’t called a mooring ball. It isn’t called anything except what it is: A buoy. I’ve
Melges Performance Sailboats / Hannah Lee Noll
heard all sorts of other abuses, but this white bobber that you tether a boat to is called a buoy. It’s a buoy now and it’s a buoy later. It’ll always be a buoy. Please don’t call it by any other name, and if you have one, don’t you dare tie a pontoon boat to it. The shore path has received much attention this spring. The shore path, as it is, is a lake path, but it should never be called that. Your great Aunt’s name is Edna, but you don’t call her Edna, you call
her Auntie Edna. Show a little respect and call the lake path what it is: The Shore Path. If you invite me over to your house this summer and you send me a text like this, “David, stop over. I’ll be in the backyard on the lake path trimming some weeds that have grown too close to the dock,” just know that I won’t be coming over. Written 5/22/17 These abuses of the English language are easy to avoid.
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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B U I L D I N G M E M O R I E S YO U C A N C O M E H O M E TO
Mallory griffith
Peace
It’s not so hard to find
I
n the stillness of an anywhere field, there’s a stream that babbles and weaves and spills. Up out of the limestone and through that draw, down into the valley where the cows graze. The stream is loud. There are birds both quiet and noisy, some fiddling about to themselves and others calling in friends, mates, or warning others to steer well clear. A deer in the distance makes no sound, slowly chewing the most tender blades of fresh spring grass, aware of it all. Two rabbits hop as rabbits do, barely crunching the dried winter leaves they bound over. There’s a soft quiet hum to this distant field, a peaceful way in which every noisemaker plays their part in this unintentional orchestra. The sounds of this field on this day are the sounds that anyone can hear in the background of whatever their noisy present might be. The lake on some July Sunday is so very blue. The waves are pushed by so much wind, starting in the southwest and blowing to the northeast, breaking all the way. These winds are steady, nine or ten knots, the sailors would guess. The steady crash of the waves against the shore provide the unexpected percussion. The trees sway, maples and oaks and walnuts rocking back and forth. The white noise of the day, some others would say. Something you can hear but still easily ignore. There’s a quiet bass of a distant Streblow, or is it a Shepherd? Children splash at the pier three doors down, the soft squeals of city children as they find confidence in jumping off the outer horse post. Fishermen ply the waters, flipping their silly jigs towards the piers and under the buoy tied boats. Those boats click and clack when their buoy chain bumps the clasp of their bow. A couple walks the shore path, no words are spoken. The day wears on, the boats change, the shore path leads the way, and the wind slowly falls as the sun dips low.
Is one of these two scenes more peaceful than the other? Is the sound of a stream in a wildflower field any more serene than a steady parade of waves steadily marching from one end of this big lake to the other? Does a breeze-blown tree in a lakefront lawn make for a different background from a breezeblown tree in the middle of the darkest, loneliest woods? Is a stream-side lunch with boots dug into the sandy bank any different from a lakeside lunch, eaten over a white wicker table in the cool porch shade? Is there any difference in quality between peaceful solitude and peaceful company? Is the sound of a distant car making its way down a gravel road somehow preferable to the sound of a Cobalt slowly heading West towards the setting sun? I love Lake Geneva, but good luck finding any peace and quiet. I love Lake Geneva, but there’s no solitude. I love Lake Geneva, but there’s no place to rest. These are the comments of some who have visited our lake but have not yet found the time to understand our lake. The magic of this place is not in its tourist-centric downtown, nor in the way boats can clog the outer ring of the lake on any given weekend. No, the magic of this place is in its ability to make a lakeside porch, pier, or patio, complete with the background noise of lapping waves, rumbling boats, and children splashing in the shallows—one of the most peaceful places to read a book. To nap. To eat a summer lunch. To be still. There’s no trick to making a place void of people peaceful. Even Michigan can do that. The real trick is making a place so full of company still a place where solitude is simple to find. Where rest comes easily. Where peace comes not with complete silence, but with the lovely and unmistakable hum of our summer soundtrack. Written 3/22/17 I spent some time that week in a field with a fly rod in my hand and the early spring sun on my back. I thought it peaceful, but no more peaceful than a Lake Geneva summer. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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Let’s Play Ball Ready or not, it’s time
T
o be the Dodgers’ lead-off hitter is to be the invisible man. That first at-bat is a thankless at bat, no matter the outcome. The vendors are still loading their trays with refreshments, the fans still waiting in the longest of jams at the last highway exit. The television broadcast knows you’re batting, but they don’t care. They pan the crowd to show the empty seats, to show the mountains in the horizon and the brilliant color the smog turns that early evening air. If you crack a thrilling solo home-run to lead off the game, but no one is there to see it, does it still count as a run? Likewise, when the team of large men in the NBA finals races off to a large first quarter lead but later melts under the pressure of a steady barrage of 30 foot foists, does that dazzling start mean anything at all? To the fans who saw it, I suppose the answer has to be yes. What a move!– the dad will say to his son. WOW! Some old lady will say to someone next to her. That lady has been to every NBA final since 1919, the announcer with the purple-pinstriped suit will say during half time. But your team raced out to that lead and you were in line waiting on the nachos, and you only returned to your seat in time to see the other team drop so many threes from such great distances. Today at the lake, it’s only the first inning. It’s actually still the top of the first, but there are no runners on and two outs. The pitcher has been flawless, effortless, really. His slider is sliding and his heater is burning. The third base coach looked towards the dugout and said he doesn’t think he’s ever seen better stuff. And he’s seen a lot of stuff. The NBA game has started, and your team is up big on the visitors. They’re throwing lobs and dropping
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SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
threes and the coach crouched down in the huddle and told the players that he’s never seen them play better. And he’s been the coach for along time. It’s early here, yes, but it’s phenomenal. Summer has started, whether you were ready for it to start or not. Last weekend, a client of mine decided to stay in the city. There were errands to run, things to do, a birthday party that begged attendance. The Lake Geneva forecast called for rain, and so the decision was made. The family would spend the weekend at home, in the city. Except then on Saturday the weather wasn’t foul at all, it was hot and sunny and bright. It was summer. Weekend plans to sit idle were thrown aside and the family woke up Sunday morning not in their Monday house, but in their Sunday house. Who could push back summery things when summer is already here? This is like saying you’re skier and you’ve made a plan to ski during the third week of January. When it snows two feet in two days in December, shouldn’t you still go skiing? Today it’s summer. Yesterday it was summer. Tomorrow? Summer. Summer does many things to a soul; things delightful and refreshing. But summer deferred can also torment the unprepared. Summer isn’t going to wait for you to be ready, because if you’re not ready by now there’s a good chance you never will be. Don’t get caught in traffic when the first pitch has already been thrown. The grass is green and the sky is bright and the home team is belting homers left and right. Written 6/7/17 Everyone seems in a hurry to be ready for Memorial Day Weekend. Then life intervenes and summer is put on hold. Stop doing that.
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BORED
It’s better here
T
he West is burning. It’s been burning for quite some time. From Los Angeles to British Columbia, it’s all ablaze. Sometimes their smoke bothers our Wisconsin skies, casting a silver shade over our otherwise perfect sun. The forests are burning and the grasslands, too. Animals are hiding in swimming pools and rivers and ponds. The smoke chokes. The residents lie fitfully in their smoky beds, gasping through the thick air. They’ve spent their lives telling us that mountain air is crisp and delightful, clean and pure. They’ve been lying. The South is flooding. Palm trees swaying, ripped from their shallow, sandy home. Street signs twist in the wind. Garbage from one house blows to another, from one county to the next, up the coast and around and around. The storm was coming for a while, so slow it seemed as though it might never arrive. But it did, and the storm surged and the houses flooded and the people blamed the government. Do something, they said. Weathermen braced against the wind in mocked displays of strength and hubris. In the Southwest, the stench of drying flood waters fills the air. It’s hot. And wet. Too hot and too wet, and the air is still and it smells and there’s no where to go. Wait, they must. The waters have receded, or they are receded, how could I know for sure? The flood waters are terrible and the wildfires are burning and the smoke follows its stream to the other parts of this country and the next. An earthquake shook Mexico, shook it something
terrible. I thought it was the end of the world, someone said. But the news has no time for the earthquake and the fires and the other hurricane. There is a storm in the Southeast and it’s blowing and it’s flooding and some have said it looks like the worst thing they’ve ever seen. And here I am. I’m looking out my window like I do every morning. The sky is blue. Powder blue to be precise. Easy blue. The trees are fading but they’re still very green. The grasses in my office garden look beautiful, even the coneflowers with their dark, dried seeds and leaves look delightful. It’s crisp this morning, like it has been for the past dozen or more. There’s no reason to think today will be unlike those other days, with mostly sun and some thin, wispy clouds. Are those clouds or just the remnants of the western fire? No one knows. We don’t really care. It’s just another Monday and the temperature is perfect and the grass is growing and later the lake will fill with some early fall revelers. Not too much, just enough. That’s the thing about the Midwest. The coasts call it boring. The mountains call it flat. It’s too dry, or too cold, or too humid. But on this morning, with so much to worry about in the world and so much remembering to be done, there’s a place where life happily marches along. It’s called the Midwest. Written 9/11/17 For too long our children have bought into geographic lies. It’s better there, they’ve been told. Run to the mountains and the beaches. But the truth is, it’s better here.
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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Summer’s End It’s not over, but it is
T
he streets are quiet now. The excited conversations of summer are now just a whisper, fading like the green in all of these leaves. There was life back then, so much of it that it needed to be discussed. The green of the trees was vivid, full, deep and overwhelming. It’s still very much green, but it’s duller than it was. Our conversations are quieter, the trees are less bold, the waves are softer. The streets are quiet. This thing is nearly over. We’re trying to act like that isn’t true. The gas station is full of boats this morning, their empty tanks being filled again. There’s still time, the boaters say. This day will be the best day. There won’t be many more like it, but this day. This will be the best. The beer will be cold and the fish might bite. When the fish ignore then we’ll boat and we’ll toast our skin and we’ll snack and we’ll drink. Today will be the best day of the summer. These are the lies of late August. We know they’re lies, but we tell them anyway. We have no choice. We know, deep down inside our summer selves, that the only way to enjoy summer is to engage in it without a clock. The only time that summer is truly bliss is during early summer. The sort of summer that has so much left in the tank that we wouldn’t even think of anything else. An 80 degree in late June will always thoroughly beat an 80 degree day in late August. That’s because in June there are more coming, so many more that who could count? There isn’t anything ahead but more summer, better summer, tons and tons of summer. 22
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
It’s not like that now. There is football on my television, no matter if I click past the programming quickly or not, it’s still there. I looked at the stack of wood on my porch and decided that the stack should be taller. The wood is dry now, lighter than it was. It’ll be easier to stack higher and deeper, and I should start doing this soon. It won’t be long before I burn that maple. I cut and split the limbs in late winter, which is to say it was early spring, which feels now like it was forever ago, but not really. It was just a few months ago, before the spring really took hold, before the heat of June and the deluge of July and the niceness of August. It’ll be that way again soon. I should start chopping wood. Yes, there are a few weeks of this thing left, but are there? If you’re lying in bed dying of something, is it great to be thinking that there might be a couple of weeks left? Is that life? Is that really, truly living? Or can you only really live when you aren’t thinking of dying? I always tell my parents that life doesn’t change when you’re on your deathbed. Life changes when you’re sitting in the doctor’s office swinging your feet back and forth off the end of that elevated bed when the doctor knocks at the door and enters the room. Life changes when the doctor tells you you’re sick. It doesn’t change when you feel sick, when you grow weak, when you’re nearly done. It changes right then, when she tells you what you have and why that’s bad. In the same way, is summer over when it’s October and the Sunday temperature barely touches 60 and we feel a sudden and overwhelming urge to wear our boots and visit the orchard?
Ben Hanson, CreationPhotos
I say no, that’s not at all when summer is over. Summer’s over when we start to think about fall, and I’m starting to think about it already. I don’t want to, I really don’t. I wish I didn’t have to rush through this season to discover the next. I already know what fall is like. But that’s exactly what I have to do, because I have no choice. I’m from Wisconsin, proudly, and we can’t linger in any season for too long. I know there are boat rides still to come, swimming and
superjetting and sweetcorn. But there’s also wood to chop and jeans to patch and cider donuts that must be eaten. I don’t want to do those things on purpose, it’s just that I can’t help it. The streets are too quiet for me to pretend any longer. Written 8/23/17 Summer really isn’t over when the temperatures drop and the leaves fall. It’s over when we start counting the days left. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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NO WORDS NEEDED
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Melges Performance Sailboats / Hannah Lee Noll
The Why
It’s not always sunny
I
t was windy. It hadn’t rained yet, but the clouds had overtaken the moon and everyone knew the rain was near. It wasn’t warm anymore, not warm like the day and not warm like the summer. It was cool. Cool like fall, cool like late-fall. The day had given us a taste of summer, whether or not this was the last taste no one could be sure. We ate greedily anyway. But the wind blew the trees and a few leaves fell and the rain was coming and the moon had gone dark. It wasn’t late. Barely a month ago it would have been light, or at least glowing, the last bits of the day still visible. But the porch lamps are on and the screens are still free from their winter canvas. A distant whiff of woodsmoke in the air, blown here by that wind that stripped a few leaves with it. The night was damp even before the rain came. Damp like a mountain night, cold like one, too. Cars clogged the driveways. The paved and cobbled drives that lead to the lakefront homes were littered with cars, just as the gravel drives with grass creeping in from the margins that lead to the small wooden cottages were filled as well. A porch table with the mostly eaten dessert still left out, a crisp probably. Peach I’d bet, because the apples are not yet in season even if the cold wind proves their time is very, very near. A flashlight in the yard. Kids running and playing and hiding behind the trees. The wind masks their steps even as the fallen leaves of late summer give them away. The adults lounge on that summer porch, with their bare feet tucked under blankets.
The old wool ones look so nice in that porch stack, but they’re scratchy and uncomfortable and everyone knows it. Laughter leaks from one porch to another. A cruise boat pushes through the darkness, the boaters’ laughter making it to shore as nothing more than a happy murmur. Me? I wasn’t on a porch. I was just driving a truck back to my parents’ house. Down the roads I know so well, around this corner and turning at that one. The streets full of those weekend cars. The porches’ lit. The kids playing. The stories being told. The weather, that damp cold night, it wasn’t great. It wasn’t even okay. It was pretty terrible, really. But the weekend went on, and the people gathered at those houses because it was time. The porches are all different, some large and fanciful, others small and bare. But the night was all the same, each house happy to be in use. Each group happy to have gathered here, at this lake, during this time. Even on the darkest, dampest of summer nights that feel more October than not, this scene is the same. We come here because we love the lake and the sunshine and the way it makes for a summertime afternoon. We stay here because at night on a cold porch with damp cushions and scratchy wool blankets nothing could feel more like home. Written 9/6/17 We love good weather, but the bad weather doesn’t make this place any less important.
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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Patterns The out of towners
T
here’s a pattern to these roads. Not the roads down here, but the roads over there. The roads that lead to the places where people need to be. The road from this town to that town. The road itself, the two track, lines optional. There is no shoulder here, and what was left has been washed out routinely over the past months. The farmers rake and sweep to make the shoulder whole again, but it’s of no use. The shoulder is gone. They only do the work because farmers follow forecasts and habits, little else. But the road wanders and it weaves and soon enough it delivers its cargo from the first town to the second town. There are houses here, the houses in-between. Belonging to neither town, to no particular group. The in-towners have their football team with the shiny helmets and their washed cars. The out of towners, if there could be such a group, drive dusty-road trucks that are only washed on a clear sky Sunday. There has always been a jealous pitch in this relationship between these two. The in-towners with their delivered water and their tidy sewer, with their beach passes and their curbs. Their gutters. Sidewalks, aplenty. There are bike lanes and parks and places to walk. The out-of-towners deride the in-towners for their easy way of living, for the convenience of it all, calling them soft or pampered, or worse. The children walk to school in sandals. Others ride bikes, weaving across the lanes of slow city traffic, without care or obstacle. Weaving like that in the country would get you
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killed. The out-towners drive to town to pick up their milk and their eggs, their bread. Oh the irony of those who produce the goods driving into town to pay the city tax when they buy back the items that were born from their countryside. But the in-towners, intent on raising their own chickens and owning their own bees, they’re equally envious. Hicks, they’d call the others, hayseeds, sure. They are. But they can have a chicken or twenty and as many hives as they wish without first checking to see if the local ordinance will allow it. The building inspector would tell you that there are too many illegal hives in town, while his inbox overflows with anonymous emails containing links to research papers that prove the honey bees are nearly extinct. That freedom is enticing, but not so enticing that the in-towners would give up their short walk to the corner store and those red beach tags, sewn onto the suits of the bike-riding, shiny helmet wearing town children. The uneasy tension between the two groups is easy enough to feel but easier to ignore. The bigger issue now is that the bees from the town hives have made their way to the flowers on the outskirts of town, which has led to claims by the out-of-towners that the in-towner’s honey, as the eggs and wheat, cannot be really and truly their own. Written 7/19/17 I’m not entirely sure why I wrote this. Probably because my wife keeps bees and chickens so I think a lot about bees and chickens.
brian mangual
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Home
It means something
M
y wife has adopted a particular driving habit. No, not the way her car crowds mine in the garage. They just want to be together, she says. And not the way her foot lacks the ability to slowly and responsibly adjust the pressure to the gas pedal. It’s a road trip habit, but it’s also whenever we’re driving, anywhere, and involved a license plate from her home province. She spots them from miles away. Then she accelerates (see earlier note) to catch a glimpse of the truck, or car. Does she know the driver? She must, or so she thinks. She’ll wait outside restaurants for the plate owners to finish their meals so she can find out if, by some chance, she knows them. This truck had a Manitoba license plate. It was southbound, as most plates from Manitoba tend to be, on that wide interstate. Traffic was hustling, but alternating between the hustle and a crawl with a complete stop thrown in now and then for good measure. The plate was affixed to a truck, a big truck, but not a semi. It was a dually, not unlike the truck my friend Eric’s dad drove in the early 1990s, but this one was newer, bigger, with dirt dried onto the paint around the wheels, up the tailgate, on the hood. The driver was going somewhere in a hurry. I sped up to see if I recognized the driver. I didn’t. A horse trailer had 11 stickers of horses on the back of it. Five on one door and six on the other. The sticker horses were bucking, jumping, kicking. Eleven. I figured there must have been 11 horses in the horse trailer. Who would put 11 stickers on if there were only two horses in the trailer? The number seemed arbitrary, which means it must have been specific. The trailer was from Oklahoma, presumably as was the truck towing it. I couldn’t catch a glimpse. Just as I intended to accelerate, the traffic slowed to a crawl. All four lanes in either direction, crawling on a road meant for supreme and uninterrupted speed. Feet on the dash. This isn’t something I’ve ever
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SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
done. I’m too tall, I think. I did sit in the passenger seat once with my feet out the window, but that was when driving to a new fishing spot from an old fishing spot. My waders leaked something awful. My socks were tucked into the outside of the backseat windows, flapping in the wind to dry. Having my feet outside the front window felt rare, like some sort of treat, born of necessity but also pleasant and curious. After the interstate drive, I felt less special, less unique. Everyone drives with their feet on the dash, even if the truly brave go fully out the window. The plates were mostly from Illinois. Trucks, cars, SUVs, campers, even. Lots of trucks towing things. Bikes, both the motorized and regular kind. Fishing boats, some small, mostly smaller. But also four wheelers, loaded with mud, empty gas cans strapped to the front of the trailer. These various automobiles whipped past me, as I screeched along in the left lane, my rear calipers recently having decided that they had enough of the squeezing and releasing. But where were all these people going? I knew where I was going, but that was the only puzzle I could solve. Some answers were easy to guess. Arlington Lexus, the license plate holder said. Perhaps that driver with his wife blabbing in the front seat and his children glued to their individual screens in the back; perhaps he was headed to Arlington Heights. White Oak and Vail, maybe, somewhere near where my grandma lived for all of her best years. Other plates weren’t so easy to guess. Ah, but there’s a Cayenne with The Exchange written on it. North shore, for sure. Traffic stopped again. Why would it stop now? Out of nowhere, with no construction tonight, as the flashing signs clearly stated Monday-Friday Road Work. It wasn’t one of those days, so why now? I thought of my brakes and imagined smoke pouring from the metal on metal grind. It was a truck, Illinois plates, pulled over on the shoulder, which
Ben Hanson, CreationPhotos
wasn’t very wide, to re-position two kayaks on his roof. Probably a weekend trip to the Wisconsin river, I guessed. Maybe the Kickapoo, but the Kickapoo is still high and dirty from the last storm. My exit. A couple of roundabouts and I found my way back onto a two lane county road, the sort that leads from the wide road and to my narrow gravel driveway. Turn right at the gas station, left twice and one more right. Corn fields and soybean fields as far as the eye can see, or at least until the next tree line of Mulberry and Boxelder. The last turn onto my slow driveway, chickens on the lawn, eating whatever it is the chickens eat. I was home. But where were the other drivers headed? Where were those Illinois plates going? John Kass wrote that most are leaving, unable to accept a tax increase that
puts them in an elevated tax bracket still far below mine in Wisconsin. If this mass exodus required the last carload to turn the lights out, where were these Illinois plates traveling in those southbound lanes so late into the fading Sunday sky? They were going to the same place I was. Home to the place where the roads are familiar. Home where the sporting team wears our favorite logo. Home, just past the school where their son bench-sits with the football team and their daughter starts volleyball soon. On a road filled with hurried travelers, only a few were weary. Most were just on their way home. Written 7/31/17 It dawned on me on that hot night in the middle of summer that home isn’t always where we wish we lived. It’s where we already live. SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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Ben Hanson, CreationPhotos
The Fall Of It All Sometimes dark fall is better
I
already know the sort of fall you like. I know the sort of fall everyone likes. It’s the fall we had last weekend. A sunny 70 degrees, bright leaves and a deep blue lake. A cloudless sky, excepting a few puffers pushed from the South and out to the East by a weekend wind. Boots and leaves, orchards and pumpkins. Walks along the shore path with dogs. Happy dogs. Happy people. Happy skies and happy days. It’s nice that you’re so positive all the time, so nice that fall can behave like this, much to the delight of the fall enthusiast. Fall generously gives the easy going people the fall they so badly desire. But fall isn’t only like this. Fall gives to people like me, too. It’s not that I don’t love the soft fall, I do. When I spent a few hours boating last Saturday with clients and friends, I wasn’t mad about this. The kids flopped around on the tube as we whipped from shore to shore, basking in the waning warm rays of 2017. I enjoyed it as much as anyone, but not more than anyone. I just enjoyed it, enough. But the time for that has past. The time for the soft fall is nearly over. The opportunities for the casual fall enthusiast to stroll over bright, crisped leaves have just about expired. It’s still fall, mind you, still delicious, wonderful fall, but it’s about to be fall for the serious. Fall for the brooding. Fall for the hardened. This sort of fall comes with little warning. Fall might blow bright on a Saturday and dull on a Sunday. When the crisp leaves no longer crunch and instead cling, gummed to the bottom of a nearly soaked boot, this is the fall that the masses dislike. It’s so wet, they’ll say. It’s so dark, my wife will say. It’s so muddy, someone else says. It’s raw. The temperature might not break 50. If it does, it’ll
settle at 51. The wind will blow. The leaves will strip. The gutters will clog. When we drive by the pumpkin patch, we won’t hear laughter. No children searching for the perfect, orange gourd. We’ll just drive past without slowing and see the withering, muddied field, wondering why the farmer planted 10,000 pumpkins when he knew he’d only sell 600. Real fall is full of second guessing. This is the fall I love. The fall that’s dark. The fall that’s cold. The fall that might be wet and windy on Tuesday and dry and cloudy on a Wednesday. I don’t need the sun like you do. I need the comfort of a low sky. I crave the familiar of a late afternoon that already feels like evening, when the only lights visible are the window lamps, warming a room and reaffirming the distinct difference between inside and outside. In summer and in soft fall, the distinction is blurred. Windows are opened, doors left cracked, wedged there by a fall boot that has no summer use. In the fall, the boundaries are once again established. Inside it’s warm and it’s soft and it’s comforting, the fire slowly consuming. Outside, the woodsmoke hangs just under that low sky and the deer walk quietly through the tall faded grass. This is the fall I love. It might still be bright, some days. Peak leaves will peak before they’re forced to the ground by the wind and the rain. It’s going to be cold this weekend. It’s cold now. Some will flee for the warmth of southern Florida. Others will wish they could escape the drear. The happy fall lovers will find this unsettling, while I’ll try to hide my enthusiasm. Because fall isn’t just for you. It’s for me, too. Written 10/25/17 I like the sort of fall that no one else seems to like.
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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The Tinker Winter will allow it
W
inter is good for a lot of things. Without winter, that red headed kid who snowboards would only be known as the red headed kid who skateboards. Without winter, flora and fauna would just grow and grow and grow, all year long. That’s why they have twenty foot long pythons in south Florida. Without winter, no one would ever leave the north, which would be unfair to the south, which would pose a geographic inequality that people would decry along with income inequality and the more important but less known and never protested intelligence inequality that tends to lead to the former. Civil War would be inevitable. But perhaps more importantly than those things is this thing: without winter, there would be no time to tinker with boats. If you’re going to tell me that summer is time for boat tinkering, you would expose your naïveté. When boats need repair or replacing or refurbishing in summer, it is less a tinker and more a frantic race against time. This summer, if you must be proven wrong, please sit at a boat launch. No need to sit there all day, just a few minutes, perhaps 15, those minutes will do. Within that time you’ll discover that there is nothing tinkerish about a boat that will not start in July. On a sunny Saturday, with the sun lifting higher and the launch line drifting longer, there is no such thing as tinkering with a boat that will not start. There is aggressive cursing and profuse sweating and silent drives home while your kids weep themselves to sleep in the backseat, but there is not tinkering. In the winter, there is no rush. There is no line, no warm sun, no kids on the pier, no wife throwing a steely glare. In the absence of these things, there is room for tinkering. Why do you suppose the Chicago boat show is held in the dead of winter instead of a different warmer weekend in July? Because July is a month for action, when no one 38
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
has time to tinker or dream or to delay. In January, we have time. On the mantel in my family room, there are two pieces of teak. This wood might not be teak, but it looks like teak, which is to say it looks like wood. And since I put teak oil all over it, if it was not teak before, it is certainly teak now. That piece of teaked wood is the platform part of my swim platform from my boat. It was in sad shape when I bought the boat and over the summer I neglected it as much as did the previous owner. In December, I committed to do something about that situation, and I removed roughly three thousand screws and bolts from my swim platform. The platform was then in pieces, several of them. I took the wood pieces home. I poured the screws and bolts into a large bag, and left the metal braces and rail at my office. Then I washed the dirty swim platform in TSP, dried it for days, then sanded it for many more. Soon after, I went to WestMarine and purchased some teak oil, and then I doused that platform in that oil. I did it again and again, and then I sanded it some more and ladled oil over it again. When I was doing this, I was careful to leave the varnish rags no where near my home. Remember the big house in Geneva National that burned several years ago? Varnish rags. I will not go down the same way. The teak platform has been transformed from a dull gray to a smooth shiny brown and now it glows from the top of that mantel. I might have been yelled at for sanding it down on the island in my kitchen, but this is the way tinkering is. It can inconvenience others, it can steal previously vacant spaces from garages and stain granite counters, but this isn’t really about others. It’s about a boat. When you go to WestMarine, or Overton’s, or Gage Marine it’s best to look like you know why you’re there and what you’re after. I do not look like this. I look confused, like I was left behind during a third
Ben Hanson, CreationPhotos
grade field trip next door, and I wandered in looking for an adult who might call my mom. I walk the aisles anyway, intent on finding something that my boat needs. I usually don’t know what it is it needs. You don’t go to West Marine with a list of things you need. You go to West Marine and let West Marine tell you what you need. I also regularly fail to bring in the faulty or ugly part that I’m looking to replace, instead resorting to a long winded explanation as to what the part looks like and what I think it is that it does, and then I hold my hands out to show the size of the part like I’m describing the catch that got away. I’m usually wrong. Do you have any idea how much a handful of shiny boat screws cost? Neither did I, but it was more than we both thought.
At my office now there is a desk covered in bits and pieces from my boat. I am a masterful remover of parts. I can unscrew just about anything. I am no good at screwing those parts back on. What am I, an engineer? But that’s a project for February, not for January, so I won’t jump ahead unnecessarily. I’ll tinker this month. I’ll drive to the boat supply store to see what they have on sale, and then I’ll drive home with that circular part and try my hardest to force it into its new square home. I can do all of this because it is winter. And in winter, I can tinker and no one can tell me I can’t. Written 1/16/12 I enjoy messing about with boats in the winter. Because messing about with boats in summer is just work.
Melges Performance Sailboats / Hannah Lee Noll
Just A Dusting A white spring
I
t’s snowing again. My coffee tasted the same. The man at the corner with the portable Stop sign waved, but he didn’t want to. The FREE AIR at the gas station was still free, the hose coiled on the ground, dirty and wet. Just a dusting. The man on the television said it would be just a dusting, maybe an inch, two tops, but probably just a dusting. That’s what he said last week, Saturday. The wind blew and blew and the snow came in bands, alternating the sky between bright blue and dark with snow. Just a dusting he promised, but it was more than a dusting, it was an inch. My car has a low tire. It’s had the low tire for a month, maybe longer. The tire is new, which leads me to believe that there’s a nail somewhere in the tread, maybe a screw. Whatever it is, it’s sharp and it’s stuck in that tire and that’s why I leave the car in my garage most of the time. I washed the car a month ago, under an intense spring sun, so bright and so big that the water dried on the car too fast and now I have hard water streaks and spots. The snow today will help with that, but the snow might be hard, too, even though there’s barely a dusting in the forecast. There’s more than that on the hood of the car already. The fire is on again. I say it’s on, rather than it’s burning, because it’s a fire for lazy cheats. There’s a gas line under all that soot, and so when I make the fire it’s really just about turning a valve and then sparking a lighter. I bought the lighter at the gas station two days ago, about one month after the last lighter, the winter lighter, gave out. When I bought the lighter I felt nervous, like a kid buying
a lighter because I was going to go have a smoke with the cigarettes I found on the side of the road when I was walking home from school. It was spring then, too. So I told the gas station clerk that the lighter was for my fireplace, because I didn’t want her to wonder. The fire burns but it only burns because of the lit gas. I don’t have kindling here. There’s paper, some of the local one with my name in it because I’m a rebel who doesn’t like mass development. But I don’t burn that paper because I throw it out. I mean, I recycle it. Yes, I recycle it, that’s what I meant to say. The fire burns wood that came from Black Point, from the back yard of a client’s house where he cuts down small, dead trees and stacks the cylinder-like logs. I load those into my fishing truck that’s really a silver Lexus and I drive those to my office. My son loads the wood into my open storage containers and when he’s done I give him $2. It’ll snow for a while still, I think. The man on the TV said it was only going to snow for a little longer, but no one believes him anymore. It might snow all day, it might not. It might be like last Sunday when the temperature rose 40 degrees during the day and then started the next morning where it had started the prior one. What sort of warm front only lasts a few hours? I asked the weatherman through his Twitter account but the question stumped him, so he didn’t answer. It’s spring now and it’ll only be a dusting. Written 4/8/16 It just kept snowing. In April, that’s not ideal.
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SOLD LAKEFRONT LISTINGS With a robust market comes a heavy tide of new agents and new brokers, all vying for your attention. Everyone is an expert, everyone a top agent. There are pie charts and graphs, dizzying displays of prowess and expertise. But the thing is, there’s just one Lake Geneva agent focus so steadfastly on the Lake Geneva lakefront market. The properties below represent the lakefronts sold by David Curry since the start of 2010. The total is humbling, and it’s one that we’re proud to share with you. There are plenty of other brokers who would love to represent you as you buy and sell Geneva Lake, and in that, we have company. But after you review the results below, you’ll see that we have very little competition. W4116 Lakeview Rd. Linn $925,000
N2280 Folly Ln. Linn $1,650,000
1100E S. Lakeshore Dr. Fontana $2,475,000
N1619 E. Lakeside Ln. Linn $4,175,000
W3298 Park Dr. Linn $1,200,000
1599 E. Lakeside Ln. Linn $1,725,000
N2201 Bonnie Brae Ln. Linn $2,650,000
W3818 Lackey Ln. Linn $4,275,000
66 Oak Birch Williams Bay $1,225,000
1588 N. Lakeside Ln. Linn $1,800,000
N1592 Lakeside Ln. Linn $2,750,000
N1622 E. Lakeside Ln. Linn $4,600,000
7 Dartmouth Rd. Williams Bay $1,225,000
60 Oak Birch Williams Bay $1,810,000
W4107 Jerseyhurst Ln. Linn $2,795,000
N1921 Loramoor Dr. Linn $4,950,000
W4160 Lakeview Rd. Linn $1,260,000
W3846 Lackey Ln. Linn $1,910,000
507 N. Lakeshore Dr. Fontana $2,850,000
W3821 Creek Ln. Linn $5,195,000
556 Sauk Trl. Fontana $1,313,000
W3852 Lackey Ln. Linn $1,925,000
976 S. Lakeshore Dr. Fontana $2,950,000
1014 S. Lakeshore Dr. Fontana $5,885,000
1540 Lakeshore Dr. Lake Geneva $1,335,000
W4190 Southland Rd. Linn $1,925,000
2224 N. Bonnie Brae Ln. Linn $3,005,000
700 S. Lakeshore Dr. Lake Geneva $5,900,000
N1611 Shadow Ln. Linn $1,400,000
N2319 Geneva Oaks Trl. Linn $1,925,000
1554 N. Oak Shores Linn $3,100,000
880 S. Lakeshore Dr. 1RL Lake Geneva $5,995,000
190 Circle Pkwy. Williams Bay $1,440,000
W2904 Hollybush Dr. Linn $2,000,000
N1878 Black Point Dr. Linn $3,250,000
1014 S. Lakeshore Dr. Fontana $7,350,000 (2016)
N1546 Forest Hills Ct. Linn $1,450,000
Lot 7 Loramoor Linn $2,000,000
976 S Lakefront Dr. Fontana $3,300,000 (2016)
N2270 Folly Ln. Linn $7,400,000
274 Sylvan Ln. Fontana $1,495,000
Lot 7 Loramoor Linn $2,075,000 (2016)
N1621 E. Lakeside Ln. Linn $3,575,000
W4449 N. Lake Shore Dr. Linn $9,950,000
1530 N. Lakeshore Dr. Lake Geneva $1,530,000
N1595 E. Lakeside Ln. Linn $2,150,000
1100C S. Lakeshore Dr. Fontana $3,700,000
6 Upper Loch Vista Williams Bay $1,610,000
412 Harvard Ave. Fontana $2,269,000
W4437 N. Lakeshore Dr. Linn $3,930,000
SOLD SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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262-275-1070
4396 BASSWOOD DRIVE, LINN
PIER 562
Large homes tend to have similar problems. When designing a custom home, there is one usual and obvious limitation. Budget. But this is when you’re designing a normal house, something you’re trying to make fit into a particular lot and a particular segment of a particular market. What if we throw out the limitation of market segment concern? What if there is no budget? Still, a singular problem exists. The design. If the wife sews and the husband smokes cigars, then a large house design would dictate that a sewing room and a cigar room be incorporated. Let’s put those at opposite ends of the house, the architect says. And let’s not forget about the children and their children. Those loved ones need space, too. And little Karen just loves to make bead necklaces, the kind that tourists buy when on FunJet vacations. Karen, your bead room is down this hallway, across from the twelve bedroom suites, opposite the cigar room and above the sewing room. This is the large house problem, and it’s an epidemic.
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SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
The home at 4396 Basswood Drive is large. Some 15,000 square feet above grade, large. That’s a big house. To enter it is to know it’s big. The gate is big. The guest house is big. The lawn is big. The circle driveway is big. The fountain? Big. The grand foyer is as grand as any foyer has ever been, outside of a building designed for members of parliament. While we cannot ever mistake this house for being small, what’s important here is how logical the big is. The layout of this house is symmetrical. Nearly perfectly so. There’s a lakeside kitchen that spans the width of the lakeside pool. There’s a breakfast room, a formal dining room. The sunroom on the east end of the house takes in private views of lush perennial gardens. The great room is vaulted, soaring really, as high as it should be and not a penny higher. The fireplace in the lakeside great room is one of five that you’ll find here. I always say if you think one fireplace is good then you’ve obviously never had five. We have 3.28 acres, which isn’t any particular feat on this lake. The level nature of the entire property from entry to water is what’s rare, as most 3.28 acre parcels on Geneva will suffer from some variety of cliff or ravine or other slope. There is none of that difficulty at Royal Oaks, which is what this estate has been called since it was first constructed in the early 1990s. Royal Oaks. That has a nice sound to it, but it would be overwrought if we didn’t have a lot graced by so many large oaks. The frontage is as the rest of the estate parcel- beautifully level. The pier is large, two slips worth, centered so properly on that wide frontage. The lakeside patio holds an in-ground pool, just like you know it should. Any proper estate should have a guest house, and as we know, these are not all created equal. The guest house is large, with three bedrooms and more garage spaces. You’ll find seven total garage stalls on this property, so please do bring your summer car and leave a winter one any stall you please. Unlike homes built in the 1980s and before, homes built in the 1990s generally follow a nice pattern of scale. At least this home does. The layout is, as I said earlier, symmetrical and well thought out. There is nothing wasted here. No rooms for superfluous specific uses. There is just a large house that has been well taken care of, ready now for you to use immediately and enjoy, or ready for a tidy winter surface update. The choice is yours. Spare yourself the uncertain prospects of building a new estate. Spare yourself the years of construction. Spare yourself the unknown cost overruns. Buy this home. Enjoy your weekends here, in immense style, on Lake Geneva’s luxury lane. Basswood. $8.995M.
David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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1810/1820 VALLEY PARK RD, LINN
PIER 630
Follow South Lakeshore Drive far enough from town and after some time you’ll be in the general vicinity of Black Point. But weave farther and deeper off of the known and you might be lucky enough to find Valley Park. Tucked away on the East side of Black Point, Valley Park likely isn’t a location on the lake that you know very well. That’s because it’s exclusive and slow to offer inventory, and that’s just one of the reasons Pier 630 is a property with very few equals on Geneva Lake.
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SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
This Valley Park estate represents a most unique opportunity on Geneva’s southern shore. With 211’ of frontage and two parcels combining for nearly 7 acres, this truly is a rare property. The lakefront home boasts magnificent lake views and includes six bedrooms along with five bathrooms. A highly sought after boathouse near the water’s edge and a four car detached garage provide plenty of toy storage. The three bedroom guest house was built in the 1990s by Jawort Lowell to exacting standards with a wood burning fieldstone fireplace, maple hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings and a delightful screened porch. Often times, brokers and sellers will market properties as estates, even when we all know they are not. One hundred foot lots are nice, and one acre or two in depth is lovely, but does that constitute an estate? In a city setting, of course, but not at Lake Geneva. Moreover, a property with 150’ might be considered an estate, but what flexibility does the parcel actually offer? There is little that can be done with such a parcel except to build one new, likely beautiful, home. It’s not the screened porches or the pier that make these 211’ of South Shore frontage unique. It’s the possibility of a family compound. The possibility of future divisibility. Offered today with both tax keys and that glorious frontage and rare 6.9 acres in depth, this property will provide a buyer with the ultra elusive combination of wide frontage with significant acreage. New to market just in time for summer 2018. $5.195MM
David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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1939 BLUFF LANE, LINN
PIER 655
Buyers have a unique tendency to focus on one or two aspects of a purchase, and in doing so, convince themselves to proceed with the transaction. This is true of jeans. If you love the fit but hate the color, you might buy them anyway. If you hate the fit but love the price, you might buy them anyway. This is why we have closets with jeans that we don’t wear. Sometimes it’s because we started working out and have, as a curious result, gained weight. But usually it’s because whatever jean we bought wasn’t quite right, but we bought it anyway. Houses are like this, too.
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SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
On the lakefront, it’s often less about what a house has than what it doesn’t. It has a fantastic stove. Yes! Shiny! But it has one bedroom. It has a big level lawn, sweet! But the foundation is an assortment of neatly, dry-stacked bricks placed at random intervals. Every house has good, and every house has bad. There is no perfect house. Not here, at least. Every property has something wrong with it. Buyers like to focus on garages. Lake houses and garages have a curious relationship. On one hand, a lake house doesn’t need a garage. Not at all. On the other hand, at a certain price point, the lake house demands a garage. It needs one. What’s that price point? That’s for you to decide, but I think it’s somewhere just north of $2MM. If I’m a $1.6MM lakefront house buyer, I should understand that a garage is an extravagance that my budget might not afford. If I’m a $3MM lake house buyer, I likely find a garage to be a requirement of the purchase. This is the way the market tends to behave. That brings us to N1939 Bluff Lane. Follow the road through the little stone entry, and you’ll end up on the dead end of Bluff Lane. A few lakefront houses, not much more. It’s quiet, down here on Bluff. If you think the name is cute but not meaningful, you’d be wrong. Bluff Lane is indeed a high lane, with elevated frontage. That frontage creates steps, yes. But that elevation creates a most unique perch through which to absorb the lake. It’s a tree house setting, which is unique on this lake but highly interesting. The house has five bedrooms, four baths. A two car detached garage is a newer addition to the property, along with a full lower level that opens to the lakeside for water toy storage. There’s off-street parking, a small lakeside yard, and 76 feet of private frontage. The house was renovated and added onto in 2009, leaving this once basic property with a fresh look and a beautiful new master suite. There are three fireplaces. At the lakefront, there’s a massive pier, complete with oversized canopied boatslip and a large swim deck. It’s Linn Township, so the taxes are modest. This home is in terrific condition, ready for immediate enjoyment. $2.165MM
David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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W2998 S. LAKESHORE DR, LINN
One of the terrific things about private frontage is that every variety of private frontage is generally good. Now, there are good spots and bad spots, but even the bad spots on Geneva are better than the good spots everywhere else, so that’s nuanced. The other thing about private frontage is that it’s varied. Some lots are wide, others narrow, some deep others shallow. There is no pattern to the frontage until we confine certain types of properties into segments. If we’re talking entry level lakefront homes, we’re talking about smaller lots (60’ or less) and we’re talking about neighbors. Lots of neighbors. Now consider this fun listing on South Lakeshore Drive. It’s a five bedroom modern house that’s rather nicely updated with new bathrooms and a very flexible layout. It has a slip on a pier that is shared by only seven total owners, and this house functions as the lakefront house in the association. But that’s not what’s especially rare here. Consider the proximity to the neighbors, and the quality of the neighbors. To the East, Casa Del Sueno, to the West, a fabulous newer build on a massive lakefront lot. This is a setting that is, quite literally, unavailable to any other entry level home anywhere on this lake. It’s special. If you like privacy and you like the woods, and you like that privacy and those woods to be on the lake, then this property is for you. $1.095MM
PIER 777 David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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PHOTO COURTESTY OF MORGANTE-WILSON ARCHITECTS
LAKE GENEVA WINDOW & DOOR
LAKE GENEVA WINDOW & DOOR
262-245-6023
202 N. ELKHORN RD. WILLIAMS BAY, WI
LAKEGENEVAWINDOWANDDOOR.COM
9 S. WALWORTH, UNIT 101 There’s a thing about lakefront condominiums. The typical way to remodel these condos is, well, typical. Some new countertops. Paint. A backsplash of something from Home Depot. And this way of doing things is just fine. When people visit to see the newly remodeled condo they’ll tell you it looks nice. Good job, they’ll say. But they won’t really mean it. They’ll wonder why you put new counters on old cabinets and painted the old doors. They’re still hollow, after all. White paint doesn’t change that. But they’ll tell you it’s nice and they’ll leave wondering if the lie was convincing. At my lakefront listing in Bay Colony, there’s nothing to look at that isn’t new. There’s nothing that was missed by the luxury builder Lowell Management. What started out as an intended surface renovation ended up including new everything. Everything? Everything. And instead of the typical wares you’re used to seeing in this segment, the owner decided to do the unit right. The floors are rift oak. The counters are quartz. The bathrooms are marble. There are custom built ins galore. There’s a new laundry room. There’s style here that is not just rare on this lake- before now it didn’t even exist. Two bedrooms and two baths with a slip. Immediate outdoor access from both the parking side and the lakefront, making for no annoying hallway conversations. Is this unit simple? Yes. It’s simple. But in the simplicity is the value. If you’ve been in the market for a turn key lakefront residence but have been let down by your condominium options, come visit me at Bay Colony unit 101. It’s stunning, and that’s not the slightest exaggeration. $899k
PIER 286
David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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DSMITH
1100E S. LAKESHORE DR, FONTANA
PIER 517B
You don’t really want to be me. Some of my friends think they’d like to be me. To work a bit and make money a bit and drive a nice car a bit. To have nice things and to sell this place. It’s luxurious, they think. It’s fun, they imagine. But they’re wrong. Everyone is wrong. What I really do is take nice people out in my car and show them this lake. I show them this lane and that drive. I take them here and down there. I show them what it is we do here, how much better it is. The scene is easy to love. The water, same. The boats and the woods and the sails, it’s all rather intoxicating, and nearly everyone agrees with this. The problem is the real estate. Do you know how deflating it is to show someone homes that cost millions of dollars that are, as a point of fact, awful homes? This is the Lake Geneva problem. This is my problem. This market is expensive, there’s just no getting around it. But it’s expensive for a reason, for many reasons, and it’s worth it. But whether it’s worth it or not, the homes that buyers can buy are often disappointing. They need significant updating. Or a wrecking ball. Or they lack this and that. They always lack. I’d buy this house if only it had (insert anything here, anything
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at all). With this housing deficiency understood, imagine now my delight in bringing you this new listing at 1100E South Lakeshore Drive in Fontana. This house measures more than 5000 square feet. It has a two car garage. Five bedrooms. A large great room with tall ceilings. Four fireplaces. Huge outdoor patio space. 1.78 acres of wooded privacy. Two driveways with ample room to park as many as a dozen vehicles. It has a shared pier with a canopied slip. The current owner keeps his 27’ Cobalt there. I suppose you could put yours there as well. There’s SubZero and Wolf. Stone and granite. Big wooden doors that swing on huge steel hinges. This isn’t so much a mere lake house in Fontana as much as it’s an Adirondack Lodge in Fontana.
But this is the house, the big, beautiful house. That’s not what really sets the property apart. It’s that privacy, that delicious, rare, wooded privacy. It’s the Fontana location with water and sewer and an easy walk to town or the Lake Geneva Yacht Club. It’s these things, but it’s much more. Here we have an in-ground swimming pool, set back in the woods surrounded by lush perennial gardens. There’s a Lord and Burnham Greenhouse, one that causes me to green with jealousy every time I enter. The current owners don’t use it as a greenhouse, they just use it as a pool-toy storage center, but I’d use it as a greenhouse if it were mine. Once you buy this house, I’d like it if you’d use it as a greenhouse again.
It’s not just a big house with all those fireplaces and a pool and a greenhouse and so much wooded privacy on all that land. There’s a tennis court, too. A tennis court with lights and basketball hoops. The current owner holds the Spotted Cow Open here each year. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of it. The sponsorship by Spotted Cow isn’t official yet, but they should appreciate the free advertising. If you’re tired from tennis you can retreat to the pool, and when you tire of the pool you can enter the greenhouse. The tomatoes need picking. $2.995MM
David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
65
WORLD CLASS EQUESTRIAN RETREAT If you’ve never looked for a large swath of available land in Southern Wisconsin, then it would be impossible for you to understand just how rare this offering truly is. West of Walworth a world renowned physician spent decades assembling this sportsman’s paradise. A passion for Peruvian horses and a desire to create a first class equestrian facility fueled this remarkable effort, and today this amazing estate is for sale. While the property must be toured to be fully understood (watch the video on our homepage), you can see from these photographs that this is not your normal Wisconsin equestrian property. This is a retreat for any outdoor enthusiast.
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Here we have more than 250 acres of contiguous farmland, woodlands, and pasture; with a flowing stream winding through it all. The house is large and upgraded, the grounds immaculate. There’s a pool and tennis court, a guest cabin and more. The horse facilities themselves are among the finest you’ve ever seen, complete with indoor riding area, conditioned stables, office space for facility managers, and a pastures galore. Turtle Creek flows through this property and divides the woodlands from the pasture, creating wildlife habitat that has been undisturbed for decades. Hunters will enjoy the upland fields and heavily wooded hillsides. Trails are cut through much of this property for horse riding or perhaps just UTV riding. If you’ve been looking for the ultimate Wisconsin retreat that can offer you a little of everything, this is it. If you’ve been looking for a first class equestrian property less than 90 minutes from Chicago, well you’ve found that, too. $2.499MM
David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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WHERE SCIENCE & ART MEET IN THE DARK Energy efficient, dark-sky friendly lighting solutions for your home, landscape and shorescape.
262.249.2000 www.twilightsolutions.com LED · ARCHITECTURAL · LANDSCAPE · PIER · HOLIDAY · MAINTENANCE · IRRIGATION
274 SYLVAN LANE, FONTANA
PIER 403
274 Sylvan Avenue is on the North Shore of Fontana Bay, inside of the Buena Vista Association. This location on the lake is desirable, which may be the understatement of the year. But that’s just this location, inside Buena Vista, with access to their magnificent lakefront park and pier system and the only tennis courts on the lake that actually appear to be used with regularity. This location inside Buena Vista is beyond ideal. Sunrise to the left, sunset to the right, Fontana’s Fourth of July fireworks, front and center.
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SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
The cottage style home might look vintage, with that lakeside wall of glassed and screened porch, but inside it’s a modern home with recent and numerous upgrades. The current owner renovated the home top to bottom and built an addition to increase the living space and add a true master suite. The result is lakefront perfection. Two cutgranite fireplaces flank the main level, where hardwood floors run from room to room. The owner is an epicurean, so the kitchen is divine, oversized, and outfitted with large Viking range and Sub-Zero. If you’re wondering, there are four bedrooms plus lower level bunk space, five and a half baths, and over 4228 square feet. Lakeside there are decks and patios with lush perennial gardens carefully highlighted by high quality landscape lighting. Street-side there’s parking for four or more cars, and more of those gardens, kept in place by fieldstone walls and connected to the entrance by another large blue-stone patio. There’s a private pier that currently plays summertime host for the owner’s thirty-one foot boat. The property is a full lot and a half, offering loads of lakeside entertaining space and easy access to the pier and shore path. Want to walk to Gordy’s for a summertime lunch? Good idea—it’s less than five minutes down the shore path. But all of this and we haven’t discussed the porch. In the case of 274 Sylvan, it’s not porch, it’s porches. On the main level, that sunny lakeside porch spans the width of the original home, offering a sunny winter spot with the original windows closed, or a breezy, cool summer spot with the windows open and screens deployed. Upstairs, off of the loft and guest bedroom suite, there’s another porch, identical in size, perfect for leisure, but best utilized as a summer sleeping porch. What could be better that falling asleep to the sound of the waves and the rustle of the trees while the quiet hum of a Lake Geneva summer slowly fades? The answer, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is nothing. $2.995M.
David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
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2525 COUNTRYSIDE DRIVE Here’s a gracious colonial on a beautiful wooded lot in exclusive Geneva West. Enter through the grand covered porch and into the airy two story foyer. Be delighted in the formal living and dining rooms, first floor office, and spacious three car garage. The updated kitchen opens to the family room, with large stone fireplace and vaulted ceilings. Beyond the family room is an oversized deck with pergola, the perfect spot for enjoying the private, wooded back yard. This gracious home is the antidote to boring vinyl clad, corn-field new construction. Low Township taxes, Williams Bay Schools. $499K
708 ADAHI WAY, FONTANA Lake house owners know that the key to a successful weekend at the lake is the ability to entertain groups of family and friends. Thankfully, this Indian Hills home boasts five bedrooms, including a private first floor master suite. Our main level floor plan is wide open, with airy two-story foyer, vaulted living room with fireplace, and large kitchen. The lower level walk out offers a family room and plenty of extra storage. A beautifully landscaped lot with oversized deck offer a wooded respite at the end of a day spent lakeside at the fabulous Indian Hills lakefront park and piers. $640K
LOT 3, LORAMOOR Remarkably rare offering in super exclusive East Loramoor. There are just four properties that belong to this association, each with a fully transferable boat slip on the canopied pier. This lot is large, level, and has views of Geneva Lake. Build your dream home here, just one lot off the water close to both downtown Lake Geneva and the Lake Geneva Yacht Club. $679k
David C. Curry, GRI 262.745.1993 dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com 74
SUMMER HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE genevalakefrontrealty.com
A FEW OF DAVID CURRY’S NOTABLE
RECENT LAKEFRONT SALES Between April 1st of 2016 and April 1st of 2018, ten lakefront sales on Geneva Lake closed for more than $4,600,000. Of those ten, David Curry closed seven of them. If you’re a buyer or seller and you’d like help understanding the heavily nuanced upper bracket market on Geneva Lake, there’s no other agent who can boast that level of segment specific success. If you’re a luxury buyer or seller on Geneva Lake, you need to be working with David.
P I E R 7 74 B
SOLD $4,950,000
PIER 545
SOLD $4,600,000
PIER 131
SOLD $2,795,000
R I V E R VA L L E Y R A N C H family owned since 1976
39900 W. 60th Street | Burlington, WI 53105 “Celebrating Our 41st Year”
Open 7 Days A Week (262) 539-3555 www.rvrvalley.com
“
Dave was wonderful to work with for our Lake Geneva search. The first time we met Dave he spent several hours with us and gave us a full market overview, what types of homes we would find in our range and pros and cons of different parts of the lake. He kept us apprised of every house that came on the market that fit our criteria and kept us laughing throughout our search. We couldn’t be happier with Dave and our new Lake Geneva home!
Joe and Molly, Chicago
“
Real estate pricing can be opaque and seemingly random. David understands the subtle aspects of the Lake Geneva market and can make sense of the price discovery process. He also devised our negotiation strategy which resulted in our side getting the best of the transaction. There’s no better advocate to have on your side if you’re considering a lakefront purchase.”
Dave AND Susan, Chicago, IL
“
Dave was a great partner in finding our lake front Williams Bay home. He asked what our family was looking for in a vacation home and how we would use it. Combining that information with his knowledge of almost every transaction on the lake, we found the perfect house, in the area we wanted, at a closing price lower than what I would have initially offered. Our whole family is deeply grateful for Dave’s help and advice.”
Mike and Jen, Arlington Heights, IL
“
When it was time to sell our family’s lakefront home, I knew that it would take a focused, committed, patient broker to market our large and unusual home in a way that would reflect and preserve its significant value. We had listed it before with a large local realty’s top seller and the listing expired without a showing, so we knew it would take an unusually gifted and committed broker to attract the right buyer. After seeing David’s “Summer Homes for City People” magazine, we felt that David was the right broker to market the unique beauty of our home. David tailored his marketing plan to our property’s needs, generated several key placements in national publications, and networked extensively, all of which was key to finding the right buyer for our home. Our lawyer said that our sale was possibly the most complex real estate transaction he had ever been party to and I believe it. Through the tough negotiations that ensued, the ups and downs with our
buyer and their broker, and a period of turbulence and uncertainty, David was tenacious and got us over the finish line with a full price cash deal. David is “all in” when he’s your broker. He brings unparalleled market credibility to the table and is laser-focused on getting your deal done in a way that meets your highest expectations. I sincerely believe that no other agent could have delivered us the value we knew our home was worth like David. I know this because we burned time with other agents for who were unwilling to invest the time and lacked the creativity and drive that it would take to properly market and sell our home. Our family will always be grateful for David’s help. We’re back in the market for a smaller home on the lake and there’s nobody else that I would work with for this new adventure but David.”
Guita, Chicago
Melges Performance Sailboats / Hannah Lee Noll
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Sun., July 29, 4 p.m.
Sat., August 11, 7:30 p.m.
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