Summer Homes For City People Summer 2024 Issue

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.

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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.

STEPH MUSUR DESIGNS

I’ve been rather spoiled lately, as you probably already know. It turns out if you work tirelessly for 28 straight years focusing on just one specific market segment you’ll have some success. I never dreamed I’d be repeatedly chosen to represent the finest estates on this lake, but today that’s exactly what has happened and for that I couldn’t be more grateful. Over the past year, four marquee lakefront properties with asking prices in excess of $10,000,000 sold, and I was pleased to represent all four of those fine properties and their discerning owners. Gracious design, luxurious finishes, ample square footage and impressive landscapes abound at the top of our market, but the truth is I can’t escape my affinity for old cottages with their squeaky floors and dimly lit screened porches. On the cover this summer you’ll find the clubhouse at the Congress Club, and with each lavish estate I’m fortunate to sell I still find myself captivated by the place where I started: an old house a few doors north of the Congress Club, where my dad would wake me up early on summer mornings to remind me that there were lawns to mow and that it was sure to rain by afternoon.

The world of real estate is undergoing a meaningful adjustment. Commissions are under fire, representation is being questioned, and the New Jersey and New York based corporate brokers are trying to figure out how to adjust to the changes. Agents are jumping between markets, selling on lakes, oceans, mountains and prairies. It all might make me long for the simplicity of the old days where I’d sit in my office and hope that phone might ring, but these changes certainly don't concern me. The business practices are changing and I’m here to change with them. No matter what commission model wins, no matter how much opportunity I’m missing out on by not chasing my buyers to other luxury markets, I’m just going to stay in Lake Geneva focusing on doing what I do best: deftly connecting the buyers and sellers who wish to navigate the Lake Geneva market with a skilled and experienced guide.

The market this summer looks a lot like the market did last summer. By now we’ve learned that a lack of inventory overrides all other market influences, and Geneva continues to operate with plenty of buyers and constricted inventory. Elevated equity markets and an upcoming Fed pivot have provided buyers with the confidence they need to fuel their lake house dreams, even as ownership remains firmly entrenched. The market here is heavily nuanced which lends its pricing to appear rather dislocated to those buyers and sellers who aren’t working with an agent who has visibility to both on and off market opportunities. If you find yourself at the lake this summer and in need of some real estate assistance, I’m here to help. For now, I do hope you enjoy another magical summer at the lake and my 17th issue of Summer Homes For City People

David C. Curry

David C. Curry

#1 AgentSTATE OF WISCONSIN 2016, 2021, 2022

$815+ Million TOTAL SALES VOLUME 2010-2024

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#1 Agent WALWORTH COUNTY 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

$4+ Million AVERAGE SALES PRICE 2020-2024

$146+ Million

2023

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Lakeside Charm

Flagstone

In the town where I’m from there are all varieties of stone, but only one variety that matters. You call it Flagstone and I call it Lannon Stone and in that, we’re both right. An old man on the corner of where I once lived called it Dolomite, and while he was correct, he wasn’t actually right. Of this particular stone there are two kinds. One is the newer stone with sharp edges and rough surfaces. The thin stones are split along horizontal fault lines, creating a modestly uniform product that works well for all sorts of construction. But in Lake Geneva, we use the stones for paths, and if it’s a path, then it would have to be the shore path because here no other paths matter. There’s no rule that says your shore path has to be stone, and no further rule that says it must be Lannon Stone, but maybe there should be. The newer type of Lannon Stone is still old, of course, but the crags and edges and splits are rough and sharp and new. I prefer the older stone that had been once positioned carefully and remained in place for generations. These stones are smoothed and pocked from the wet feet of the lake-swimmers and from the rubber soles of the shore path walkers. From the paws of the leashed dogs and the little feet of the lakefront squirrels. We might have more than one type of stone, but when you’re barefoot after a swim and you walk from your pier to your lawn, wouldn’t you rather walk over the old stone, stained from the mulberries and smoothed from the rain? I would.

Originally written August 30th, 2023. I’ve walked more flagstone than most, and I much prefer the smooth variety.

Julie Koch

Time Zones

I’m in Spain right now, sitting in a home teetering perilously on the side of a very old cliff, perhaps 500 feet or more above the Mediterranean Sea below. It’s quite a scene, and an even better view, I must admit. There have been some realizations this trip, the sort that I would have rather not realized. This is the danger of living out some of your dreams: usually dreams are the most spectacular and rewarding when they’re only dreamt. For instance, I’ve now eaten paella at five different restaurants both in Barcelona and in the myriad seaside villages of Costa Brava. The verdict? I’m better at paella than the Spanish. This was, at first, just a loose theory I had. Then, one by one the restaurants fell and in the end, I declared myself the victor. I take no pride in this victory.

I’m still in the lounge chair, still perched on the edge of this cliff, still wondering how this villa was permitted to be occupied without any reasonable effort made to protect its inhabitants from falling to their deaths. It’s a good thing I don’t drink, as any level of inebriation would render this villa absolutely fatal. I’m wondering how there are so many mosquitos up here, on the side of this cliff, where the only standing water is that deep blue sea. How could mosquitos exist in this desert climate? And why are they so incredibly militant? They’re faster than our mosquitos, louder than our mosquitos, and they’re much more ankle-happy than our mosquitos. I find our mosquitos almost pleasant in comparison.

The flies are worse yet. They’re quick. They’re small. They’re irritating. I twirl up my cloth napkin and violently swat at them on the patio of breakfast cafes while my wife tells me I’m being annoying. What’s annoying are these bugs. I told her if some older Spanish gentleman with swarthy skin, an old dog and an older cane, was swatting at flies she would find his actions endearing. Yet when I swat at the flies I’m just being annoying. I’m acting American, she says, which is good that she noticed

because I am thoroughly and insanely so.

How can I rest on the side of this cliff? The Aiguablava beach is probably full of cigarettesmoking topless women right now. But that’s not on my mind. I’m thinking about Lake Geneva and how it’s almost 8 am at home. I’d be at my desk on a typical Monday, sorting through this and thinking about that. I’d be present, that’s for sure. But when I’m here how can I be present? It’s only 8 am and so I must think about the 8 am things. Tonight, over dinner of fried squid or grilled langoustines (clumsily called lobsters here, even though they also call real lobsters lobsters), I’ll be thinking about how it’s only noon at home. How can I live at 7 pm here when I know it’s only noon at home? Awkwardly, that’s how.

Later still, it’ll be dark and this big villa will be quiet, except for the odd bumps and whistles that come from the other rooms. Our seaside bedroom door doesn’t lock but I have a small statue of a woman’s head that I put in front of the door so that if someone were to break into this place (or just use the key they probably have) they’d have to at least knock over the marble head before using it to bludgeon me and my wife. I’ll be in that bed, wrestling with sleep on top of the hardest mattress that humanity has ever known, and I’ll be wondering how I can sleep when it’s barely 3 pm in Lake Geneva. The sun is still shining, for crying out loud, and yet here I am, tucked into this stone bed on the side of this cliff? Never mind, I suppose. In the morning I’ll wake up in the middle of the Lake Geneva night, and that 787 will bring me home. Then I’ll go to sleep in my comfortable bed in my house that makes only familiar sounds and I’ll wake up wondering how I could be just now waking up when it’s already the middle of the afternoon in the house on the side of the hill.

Originally written October 9th, 2023. The worst part of my vacations is that I have to bring myself along.

Testimonials

"David is an expert at making connections — buyers with the oftentimes scarce property that is exactly what they hoped to find; and sellers with the exact people who truly value their particular home. He’s also, by the way, professional, reliable, incredibly knowledgeable about the Lake Geneva market, and (last but not least!) enjoyable to chat with. I'm glad to have worked with David, and will certainly work with him again."

– DK, Chicago

"I’ve worked with David Curry as both a buyer and a seller, and without question nobody knows the nuances of the Lake Geneva market better, nobody has a deeper network of real buyers and willing sellers, and nobody knows how to navigate the complexities of large transactions like he does. If you’re making a move in Lake Geneva real estate, he’s the one you want on your side. Period."

– Dan, Winnetka

Ryan Lovell

Oddities

ALake Geneva summer begins in earnest on Memorial Day Weekend, or so the cultural norm would have you believe. When that calendar turns to the end of May and the Holiday Weekend begins, it’s time for summer at the lake. Fire up your grills and don your trunks, everyone. But we know this isn’t exactly true, because Memorial Day Weekend is usually only a dress rehearsal for summer, though the weather will dictate if it’s a rehearsal or the real thing. If it’s hot and sunny, it’s summer, if it’s cold and dreary, it’s a rehearsal. We are nothing if not flexible in our leisure.

But then summer really begins in the middle of June, when the kids are out of school and the weather forms a more predictable summery pattern. If you don’t believe that summer might start in June, then it surely begins just before Independence Day Weekend. “Happy Fourth,” the people say, which is as sacrilegious as saying “Happy First” on New Year’s Day. No one would say that, of course, but we give a pass to the Happy Fourth People, for whatever our reason. Still, summer begins that weekend and no one could suggest that if it hadn’t already started on the Friday before Memorial Day, and it hadn’t already started in the middle of June when the kids begin their break, then certainly everyone agrees that by that Friday before Independence Day it is pure, undeniable, perfect, summer.

This is where my problem lies. July is a great month, no one could disagree. And August is, too, (August has a struggle on its hands, though there

is a chance that it might only be a struggle on my hands.) I don’t feel like summer is truly summer until the cicadas are singing in the trees, which doesn’t start until very late July or very early August, depending on the mood of the insects which varies from year to year. How can it be summer if the trees aren’t alive with the steady or pulsing whirl of these insects? We know that summer isn’t like winter, because winter is cold and quiet and summer is warm and loud. Who could suggest that summer is still? Poets might pretend it is, and Facebook posts from the otherwise uninformed would have you believe that there is stillness in summer, but I refuse this notion. Summer is a background noise of afternoon wind in the grasses and waves against the shore and boats in the distance and cicadas in the trees. And even though I feel like summer has been marvelous and impressive and present since the end of May, I must balance this with the fact that my summer just began a little over one week ago, when the bugs and the wind and the waves told me it had finally arrived.

The difficulty here is that I also know that August marks the end of summer, because the kids return to school and football returns to my television and the weakest of trees start to shed their leaves. This is one of the great paradoxes of my existence, how summer can both begin and end within the period of two weeks, but such is the oddity of summer at the lake.

Originally written August 7th, 2023. I might have to take all of this back if the summer 2024 cicada swarm is as overwhelming as predicted.

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Michael Schwartz

Work From Wherever

If no one had to work in a physical office with co-workers and a communal granola dispenser, then it made good sense that people might move to Whitefish, Montana. You get to keep your well paid software job in San Francisco but commune with nature. Your housing dollar was stronger, your suntan deeper, your hours on the slopes: More. Work From Home was a boon for Whitefish and for Boise and for other unserious little towns in parts of Montana and Idaho and Colorado alike. Those markets rejoiced in the new normal and software bros all around celebrated their unexpected, crunchy, flat brimming freedom.

But Work From Home was also a benefit to Lake Geneva, as we all know by now. If you could now spend summer at the lake and maybe head into work one or two days here and there to make sure the scant few people in the office knew that you were still employed by them, or employing them, then what a great place to spend those sunny days. If you took a Tuesday morning boat ride around the lake in the summer of 2021, you would have found many wealth managers and hedge fund directors and private equity partners busy on their computers while sitting in their lakeside screenedin porches. Work From Home was truly a blessing to all vacation home markets, both near and far.

Data this week from Kastle Systems on the office occupancy trends in 10 major cities shows that among those 10 large metro areas, Chicago leads the group for the Highest Occupied Days of the Week. The return to office rates vary, with Chicago’s highest day of the week showing a 68.7% occupancy rate, and the lowest occupied day of the week posting an anemic 30.1% occupancy rate. Most metro areas are showing a slow increase in office occupancy rates, although San Francisco, Philadelphia, and San Jose are all lagging the broader group. To be fair, if I had to work in any of those cities I probably wouldn’t want to go to work, either. But alas, the trend shows one thing rather clearly, and that is a return to the office. If

this is the trend for the month of June, we can only surmise that the October occupancy rates will be dramatically higher still. Whitefish and the rest of the hard to access mountain towns, please put your head between your knees and brace for impact.

If Work From Wherever were a major catalyst for the dramatic escalation in vacation home prices, then it must be true that Work-From-The-OfficeLike-We-Always-Used-To must be a negative for those same markets. If you were able to spend all year dallying about on your computer from a hempbased coffee shop in Telluride, then that vacation home you bought there and leveraged with 3% debt made some good sense. But if your office is now in Manhattan or Chicago or sweat-soakedMiami, then just how often are you going to get to that Telluride condo for which you paid 30% over the ask and 70% over what the seller had paid 18 months prior?

In this return to normalcy, there is a very obvious truth. Vacation home markets in geographic advantageous locations will continue to shine, as those folks who might have to work three or four or five (gasp!) days per week in their urban offices can still enjoy their vacation homes with ease. If you have to work Monday-Wednesday, you can drive to Lake Geneva on Wednesday evening and enjoy a very long, very pleasant lake-side weekend. But if you have to commit to the same schedule, will you really jump on a plane to Kalispell Wednesday night? I contend you will not. And even if you said you might, you really won’t. Stop lying to me, or at least to yourself. Because your kids are still in summer baseball, and football practice starts in early August and who the hell thought we’d just meander about from our mountain-side, fractionalownership forever without some sort of reset? Not me, and probably not you. That’s why Lake Geneva wins yet again. Work From Home? We win. Work From Work? We still win.

Originally written June 24, 2023. I’d short the Mountain West real estate market if I could.

Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.

– Brooks Atkinson

Ugly Houses

My cousin recently had a baby. I saw this baby at a different cousin’s wedding over the weekend and my suspicions were confirmed. It’s a reasonably cute baby. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was the ugliest baby anyone had ever seen? Would anything have been different? Would anyone have cringed at the first glimpse? Or worse, gasped in horror when the baby was revealed? Would anyone have opted out of the obligatory first hold? If the baby had been hideous, would the parent have even brought the baby to the wedding in the first place? Would the birth announcement cards have been sent sans baby photo, instead choosing a picture of tiny baby feet? After all, baby feet are undeniably cute, unlike, say, the baby itself. No matter the make or model of baby, if we wish to fit well into civilized society, we all must agree: that’s a cute baby.

But babies are not houses, and houses are not babies. This is the sort of news that only I can deliver. Babies are living, breathing, humans and we must respect their individual appearance, no matter how ugly. But houses? We dance around the topic as it relates to houses—but houses—whether we admit it or not, can be ugly. Hideously ugly. Stomach turningly ugly. Disgusting, really. They can be so off-putting that one could wonder how someone could, indeed, sleep through the night in such a God-forsaken structure. I cannot pretend any longer: Lots of houses are ugly.

If this weren’t true why did the yellow sign in the median of the interstate scream, “I BUY UGLY HOUSES?” This was thoughtfully engineered to appeal to those owners who own the ugly houses. And by admitting, at least internally, that you were the owner of one such ugly house, you would also, internally, recognize that your home is not as valuable as a pretty home. This is what the signmaker wanted, and you played right into his ink-

stained hands. Perhaps you should sell. After all, it is an immeasurable burden to be the owner of such a home, at such a time as this. Life is short and ugly houses make their inhabitants wish it were even shorter.

If you’re feeling picked on today, I assure you that your house is likely not as ugly as you think, but it might be. A dated house in need of renovation is not, by rule, an ugly house. In fact, your older, dated house is likely beautiful, because older houses tended to have a more meaningful pedigree than the homes that followed. I drive around this market and I see the ugly homes. The boring homes. The homes that lack symmetry and lack everything else, too. The homes where someone couldn’t decide on any one architectural style so they chose all of them at once. The danger in a summer-time market is that these homes come for sale, and these homes might be priced a bit cheaper than the similarly sized pretty home. The bait is placed, the trap is set, the ugly house awaits your weekend tendencies.

It’s cheaper, you say. I can fix this, you think. Ah, but you think you can fix them, even though you can’t. The asymmetrical turrets cannot be fixed. The wall of windows, each one from a different sale at a different Home Depot cannot be replaced. The seven level interior (step down into the pantry!) complete with two story spiral staircase, cannot be repaired. And even if it could, at what cost? Do you buy the Ugly because it’s cheap, and then, while desperately trying to eliminate the ugly, do you spend more than you could have spent to revitalize a pretty house? Yes. That’s why you shouldn’t buy it. Let someone else buy it. Let them work to not only update, but to pursue a fix that will prove eternally elusive. That’s because an ugly house is an ugly house, today, tomorrow, and always.

Originally written June 17th, 2019. Some houses are ugly. You shouldn’t buy those houses.

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Pool Time

I’m sitting at a pool now trying to find the motivation to become a pool person. I can imagine being such a person. Me, sitting by this pool, reading a book. A book! My wife is reading a book right now, and she looks like she’s enjoying herself. The pool in the beyond, the shade dappling our lounge chairs. Teak, the chairs say, all of the way from Virginia. But we’re closer to Virginia now and I still can’t imagine reading a book by a pool. How I long for the ability to read a book by the pool. But here I am, a book next to me, a pool at the edge of this stony patio, and yet, I sit and I write. Of course, I was sitting and eating, which is another one of my favorite things to do, but this time the lobster roll felt like the lobster maybe wanted to be cooked for a bit longer. Rare lobster—must I? I must and I did but the pool is right there and I’m sitting right here and I can’t help but wonder—what’s so hard about reading a book for a few hours before dinner?

But as I type, I’ve realized—Pools are boring. The only thing on the other side of this pool is a person reading a book. There’s a couple eating lobster rolls and I feel like they’re trying to signal to each other, or maybe to me, that the lobster is too rare, but I can’t be sure. I slam my hand obnoxiously on the side table to draw their attention, but everyone except my wife, with her disapproving glance, ignores me. The pool is fine, but there’s nothing around it or beyond it except this patio and this white barn and the sea, somewhere behind so many trees. I sit and I think and I wonder, and I try so hard to be present, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Pools are boring. There’s nothing to see and nothing to do. How many times can I float around this pool while the other pool people watch me and wonder just where I learned that incredible form? I should not have been showing off as much as I did, but I had to do something. Lord knows, I can’t just sit and read a book.

Originally written July 11th, 2023. Kennebunkport and the white barn near the pool bored me.

Carrie Koster

Changes

“The way things are now is not the way things used to be.” That’s what I told him when he asked. I leaned in and explained. “Golden Hour was once our favorite time of day, I said.” It was hard to explain, but I told him of those hues and the sunlight and the softness of the fading day that would cast a glow over my lawn. I told him of the moon, how it was once white and how we could see the craters in its surface. The Man In The Moon. I told him about the song and about the face and admitted that I had never really seen it like some people had. But now it wasn’t something you could see, anyway. It wasn’t there, because the sky wasn’t the same. It had been like this for years, and I could barely remember what it used to look like even though I had seen it so often for all those years.

And the lake? The lake used to look blue. The waves used to build and they’d crash and the only white you’d see was when the cap broke. “White Caps,” we called them. Now the waves are all ashy white, dull, the same. He struggled to understand. The waves were blue? I nodded. If the sky was blue then the reflection made the water blue, too. And if the sky was clouded then the water was the color of those clouds. And the sun would set quietly and the water was blue except where the waves broke over themselves and painted the edges white. This is the way it was for so long. I showed him some photos on my phone and he was at once excited and disappointed. "It used to be better,” he said. I nodded.

What happened? The White Skies happened. At first it was just once in a while. A few days here and

a day there. Then, it was more. A week now, and a week then. Then, more still. A whole month. Then a few days of blue, then another month of white. It was a steady decline, and I was thankful for that, because it let my eyes adjust to the absence of color. How can the greenest lawn look as green as it could if the sky were chalky white and the sun muted? Everything was dull and getting duller. I tried to do something about it, I insisted. I told him I contacted a lawyer and asked if we could sue the people who did this to the sky. If I can spill a cup of hot coffee on my lap and sue for that self-inflicted triviality, couldn’t we sue the people who stole our sky? He said we couldn’t. A country cannot be sued, he told me, citing an example that I cannot remember.

Who did this? Well, Canada did it. But isn’t grandma Canadian? Yes, she is, but she left that place for this place long before they did this to our skies. Don’t blame her, I told him. And, just as we were about to walk inside for dinner—a glimpse of blue to our south. Blue! I pointed. “Blue?” He asked. Yes, blue, dammit. Look! And just as soon as he saw it, a new pulse of smoke covered it up. “Did you see it?” I asked? He said he thought he did. Maybe he did. But he wasn’t sure. I said we’d try again tomorrow, and maybe there will be a chance. There’s always a chance. I shook my fist at the smoky skies and cursed the Canadian fires that had burned for a decade or more. The sun would set soon, ablaze in red and orange as it forced its way through those ruined skies.

Originally written June 6th, 2023. This is satire, but I hate the smokey white skies and last summer it was all Canada’s fault.

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Global Real Estate

Atrip is when you go to the grocery store to buy milk on a Wednesday. A trip is to Cancun because you won the sales award for the third quarter of last year and your company knows there’s nothing more rewarding than four days and three nights in a beachfront tower a short sweaty shuttle ride from the airport. But a journey? That is something different. And that’s what I’ve been on. A journey. A long and painful journey filled with bumps and twists and u-turns on roundabouts that I navigate more slowly than I should—that’s the sort, and that’s what I’ve been on. This journey has brought me here.

It all started when I wanted to buy a house in Saint Tropez. More accurately, in the hills surrounding that famous seaside city. I was interested in real estate in that place, so naturally I flew to Zurich to find a real estate agency that could help me. I asked Karl, the real estate agent who was sitting at the desk nearest the front door, for some details on the market in Saint Tropez. He told me that he was the seventh top producing agent on the largest team in greater Europe, and that he sells real estate from Saint Moritz to Saint Sebastian, and all points in between. I had no idea where Saint Sebastian was, but it sounded like a nice place. I asked him about a house I had seen online, a pretty hillside house near the town but up hill a ways, in a private enclave ironically known as Saint Anglais, even though I read that the locals call it something worse. Karl then told me about the wide reach of his website, a truly global site indeed that could be accessed not only from Saint Moritz, but from Saint Sebastian and, if the connection were right, from Lake Geneva. The Wisconsin one. I was still curious about the house on the hill when he told me more about his connections with the banking elite in Dubai, many of whom frequent Chamonix, where Karl’s team was just about to open an office. He showed me the pictures of his office on a large screen that filled nearly a full wall in his private conference room. As I looked over the floor plan of his not-yet-built-office in a town in France to which I’ve never been, I asked if the hilltop house in Saint

Anglais had internet service, or if I had to wait for Starlink. He offered me an espresso with chocolate, each square adorned with the interwoven initials of the woman who founded his team. I unwrapped a chocolate as Karl told me about this founder and her achievements, each one more impressive than the next. An office in Beverly Hills would be opening after Chamonix, Karl boasted. The chocolates tasted waxy to me.

I washed down the chocolate with the espresso, pronounced eXpresso here, and asked again if he thought the seller of this hillside home might be willing to strike a deal. After all, the house had been on the market for nine weeks. Just nine weeks?! Karl’s voice dripped thick with mockery. Why that’s hardly any time at all! But the market has already ruled on the price, I said. The pricing is wrong, I suggested. Had it not been wrong, the house would have sold quickly to the buyers who were interested in living on the hill, I insisted. I asked if he knew the owners and why they were selling. Did someone die? Karl walked his empty cup to the small espresso machine, pulled a single shot, turned to me, raised his shoulders and sighed. Had I heard about the new software that his team founder just licensed? It would allow me to search for any parameter I wished. How fabulous would that be, he prodded, seemingly unaware that Zillow and dozens of other sites already do just that. He said if I were to set up a profile today (it was free, after all) he’d be able to send me new listings in Saint Tropez and Saint Sebastian, and again he referenced without detail, “and all of the towns in between.” That hillside house would be in this list, he promised.

But I was curious about the neighbors, and so I asked if they generally lived there full time or only in the season. And what of that season—is it June through August as I had read once or is April as divine as the end of October? And if people in the 1960s visited only in the winter months, why is it now only a summer destination? What changed along the way? Karl quietly rubbed the small handle on his small espresso cup between his index finger

and thumb and looked to the wall behind where I was sitting, pensively formed a few words in his mind that made their way to his face, and asked me if I’d ever been to Lipensteinch, which he assured me was a town that was under the radar, both that of the Luftwaffe and of the modern buyers. He expected me to acknowledge his clever phrasing, but I decided against it. I just shook my head and said I hadn’t heard of it. He said that would be a place I might like to visit because they have hills as high as mountains and the sea runs clear and cold, so clear and so cold that the locals live, on average, to be nearly 91 years old. We don’t have an office there, Karl said, but one of his team members has a summer home there and if I’d like to tour some listings I could plan to see those with her sometime after the third Saturday of this coming July. She’s licensed there, and here, and most of the points in between. But not Saint Tropez, he said, because his founder personally works that market and if I had any interest in setting up some showings her assistant Candy would be able to meet me sometime for drinks. Rosé, all day, he said. But I don’t drink and Karl said that might be a problem.

“Karl,” I said with my voice firming, “I need some actual answers here. I want the details on this house, the one on the hillside, the one you said your global team could help with. I’ve been in here for thirty minutes now and it seems to me that you don’t actually know this market, not one bit.” Karl

leaned forward in his chair and reached with his left hand towards the middle drawer in his desk where he fidgeted about before finally returning his hand to the desk where he satisfactorily set a shiny brochure. The brochure was beautiful, admittedly, with the initials of the team leader in the upper corner and a photo of the woman herself in the bottom right. Her hair was blowing in a summer breeze, her face bright with sunshine and a smile that begged you to trust her. Is this the brochure for the house on the hill? I wondered, so I asked. Karl settled further back into his chair and asked me to take a look. “Specifically to page 8,” he said. I thumbed through the thick glossy pages before landing on page 8. I glanced to the page and back to Karl, his eyes excited and his face smug. “A Kick Off Party To Your Summer In Saint Tropez," the page read. “Rosé and Red Carpets,” the subtitle promised. I closed the brochure and reminded Karl that I don’t drink and that I was really only there to ask if he knew what the taxes on the hillside house might be once the sale closes somewhere less than the asking price. He asked if I could use another espresso, because he was getting one and he’d gladly pull an extra shot for me.

Originally written March 26th, 2023. This is satire. The business of real estate has changed. While the new model suggests agents should try to be all things to all people, I’m just here in Lake Geneva trying to help you buy and sell in Lake Geneva…

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Photo by S Photography

Photo by Stoffer Photography Interior Design by Amy Storm & Co.

Make Every Space Sacred

B o r n o u t o f t h e l e g a c y o f a f o u r t h g e n e r a t i o n

c a r p e n t e r t u r n e d v i s i o n a r y d e s i g n e r , S t u d i o S a i n t

M a r i e n o t o n l y s e e k s t o b u i l d h o m e s b u t t o c r e a t e

t r a n s f o r m a t i v e e x p e r i e n c e s .

W e b e l i e v e t h a t q u a l i t y h i n g e s o n r e s p o n s i b i l i t y A s a

d e s i g n b u i l d f i r m , S t u d i o S a i n t M a r i e i s d e d i c a t e d t o

u n p a r a l l e l e d a c c o u n t a b i l i t y

T h a t i s w h y w e o f f e r o u r c l i e n t s k i t c h e n - c e n t r i c r e n o v a t i o n s

Y o u r p r o j e c t b e g i n s w i t h a v i s i o n c a s t b y o u r o w n

d e s i g n t e a m , i m p l e m e n t e d b y o u r b u i l d t e a m , a n d

c r o w n e d w i t h t h e i n s t a l l o f h a n d b u i l t c a b i n e t s p r o u d l y c r a f t e d b y o u r i n - h o u s e w o r k s h o p

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Tussle

There was a battle yesterday. While you were busy driving to work or to school or to coffee or to the seamstress to have your fall pants hemmed, the battle raged. It was fought above and around and next to you, but you paid more attention to your job or that latte or those brown pants that have always been an inch too long. It was violent at times, and bloody, too. I’d say the trees swayed, but swaying is what trees do in the summer and it’s generally pleasant for the trees. They like to sway. But they didn’t sway yesterday, they tussled. They shook. They were bent and some broke, the pressure from the changing sky was just too much for the dried, sun-bleached limbs of summer. Casualties mounted and you just drove around like none of it mattered. Rain came and rain went and the sun was out and then it wasn’t. The winds whipped and the clouds fell lower and lower. More rain. Late in the evening my air conditioner turned off and my house was still. There was no noise until my blind and deaf dog peed on the floor of my bedroom at 4 am.

Today it’s clear who won. Fall won. September won. My desire to watch football and wear pants again won. That’s not to say that it won’t be summer later today and again tomorrow and that doesn’t mean we won’t be sweating on a Sunday afternoon six weeks from now while the sun beats and the skies shine. But it does mean that the change is here. It happened yesterday, when summer thought about fall. And you were too busy with those obnoxiously long brown pants to even notice.

Originally written September 7th, 2023. Fall starts as soon as we realize it’s not really summer any longer.

David Nennich

Tired

David Curry, Geneva Lakefront Realty

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Favorites

Along time ago I decided my favorite bird was a particular variety of duck—the specific variety of which doesn’t matter to the story, which is good, because I don't know the name of this bird, anyway. The duck is medium sized, with a black body and white tufts of feathers that poke out from the top of its head like a rebellious mohawk. Making it even more impressive is the bright orange ring that surrounds the white mohawk, making for a uniquely handsome, or at least memorable, bird. Each spring I would look forward to the return of my favorite bird, and each spring I’d be just as enamored with it as I was the prior year. This spring, right on schedule, I saw a small handful of my birds splashing in the shallows around the eastern tip of Rainbow Point. They were diving and chasing minnows in the gin clear spring water. But soon after, I saw more of these ducks swimming in a dirty, shallow canal that leads from a farmer's field onto one of our other lesser lakes, and not a day later I saw this bird eating what looked like dirt on the side of a road; it's beak messy and its white tuft stained by the roadside feast. I decided that I couldn’t have a favorite bird with such low standards, so I’m on the lookout for a more discerning bird.

Ryan Lovell

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Statistic represents the top performing individual agent's Lake Geneva lakefront volume at each brokerage. I don’t buy billboards, I don't use AI to write any of my material, and I’ll never advertise listings that I didn’t personally sell. But if you’re looking for quality representation by the top agent in Wisconsin, I’ll be here to help.

$224,741,590

$82,844,000

$71,256,880

$51,737,500

$51,326,800

$29,652,750

$27,126,888

Calculations per MLS and known sales 1/1/10 through 4/22/24. Lake Geneva lakefront single family, vacant land, South Shore Club sales only. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Minimum $20,000,000 in top agent Lake Geneva Lakefront sales

$689,327,798

David Curry

Salesmanship

Ionce wrote a description about a house that angered the owner of the house, my client. He read my description and told me he was disappointed in me. Mr. Geisel told me in the Fifth Grade that he, too, was disappointed in me, but that disappointment was because of my attitude and this disappointment was because of the words I wrote about a rather horrible little house. I said there wasn’t a nice kitchen and there wasn’t a nice bathroom and if you looked at your shoes when you walked down the stairs you’d bang your head on the beam that separated the first floor from the second. I said that the basement was wet and gross and that it wasn’t as nice as your basement in the suburbs and that the kitchen was small and undersized and if you wanted to cook a chicken in the oven you’d need to either get a bigger oven or buy a much smaller chicken. I wrote that the house wouldn’t impress you and that it was more likely to disgust you. I ended by writing that none of that mattered because at the end of the lawn there was this great big lake, and if you just wanted a dry basement you could have just stayed home. I thought it was a clever way to tell a story, but the owner didn’t agree. Later, they fired me and someone else sold the house, which was promptly torn down. When I walk by the property now I feel vindicated by the absence of that rotten old house, and wonder if the owner finally realized I was right.

Regret

Aman called me last spring about this time. He had spent his childhood at the lake and now that he was growing old he felt an oddly powerful desire to return. He talked about the shore path and the stones and the water and the smallmouth bass his grandpa would catch. He said he had a photo of the biggest smallie I’d ever seen, and he promised to email it to me after our call. He talked about the pretty summertime ladies on those white piers and the fried fish on Fridays. He asked about houses, ideally on the water, and said he’d consider something off water, so long as it was close enough to walk down when the summer sun set so he could watch the boats cruise past the pier. He said where he lives now is nice but there was nothing like those times at the lake. I told him I understood, and that I, too, shared those childhood memories that anchor me to this very same place. He asked that I send him some listings to consider and I said I would and we ended our call. A week later I followed up with him and he said he was tied up but would review and respond later. A month later I checked in again and he said his eldest son was coming for a visit and he would be busy for a while. He asked if I went to Gollwitzer’s for fish fry in the 1980s and I said I had, though my memory was fuzzy and I couldn’t remember if I had liked it or not.

Yesterday he called again. And he asked if there were some homes he could consider. I said there were, and that I’d gladly send them to him. He said he can’t wait to get up here and that this summer once the lanai is fixed on his Naples pool, he’ll be here. He asked about interest rates and about inventory and wondered if the shore path in Williams Bay was still treacherous around Conference Point and I said that, while it was, it was better than it had been in ages. He agreed to call me later last week to set up a time to visit, but he never called. It’s okay, I reasoned. I’ll talk to him again next spring when he’s thinking about the lake again.

Charisse Grannan

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Sales Volume

After a decline in 2022 that was likely caused by limited inventory, our overall lakefront sales volume rebounded in 2023 to nearly match the cycle high set in 2021. Most of this increase in total sales volume can be explained by a steadily increasing rate of upper bracket sales. For the year just ended, the top three sales presented list prices of $17,950,000, $14,000,000, and $10,995,000. While the upper bracket sales are great for our market, the most potent market is now in the $8,000,000 to $10,000,000 range, which largely features properties that were valued closer to $5,000,000 as recently as 2019. Showcasing the amazing strength of our lakefront market, we increased volume in 2023 while maintaining valuations. Most luxury markets across the country experienced a volume decline in 2023 combined with an overall softening of prices, but Lake Geneva outperformed.

Data from MLS and known sales. Data from 1/1/23 to 12/19/23, residential single family sales with private frontage only. South Shore Club and vacant land sales excluded. Information deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.

PRICE PER FRONT FOOT

Price Per Front Foot

Lake Geneva’s favorite metric continues to be one of my least favorite: The Price Per Front Foot. I generally disapprove of the importance that the market places on this defining metric, but I’d never pretend that it doesn’t matter. This revered metric has increased over the past six years from mid $20K to just over $60K for 2022 to a staggering mean of $72K in 2023. I intentionally left vacant land sales out of this detail, though it would be expected that a significant proportion of our single family sales have sold at land value as the market has a voracious appetite for new construction and sees most aged structures as tear down candidates.

Something that’s not well understood is that the price per foot of frontage decreases as frontage increases. You can think of this as diminishing returns to frontage size, or price compression as you consider the larger properties on the lakefront. The idea is simple: If a high quality lakefront home on 50’ of frontage can now sell for $5M, that doesn’t mean an average home on a 200’ lot is easily justifiable at $20M. Do not make the mistake of assuming the price per front foot holds up as frontage increases.

There is some noise in the data regarding these lakefront sales, and that stems from the persistence of off market transactions and the manner in which lakefront homes tend to transfer. It is common practice for buyer and seller to allocate a mutually agreeable dollar amount of the contract value to personal property. If a home contracts for $5M including some furniture, the pier and the shore stations, it might be agreeable to the parties to specify $300k of that price to the personal property transaction, which results in a $4.7M transfer of the real estate. The issue I take with the accounting of this practice is that it incorrectly reflects the true contract value of the transaction. In the case of Lake Geneva lakefront sales, this personal property allocation is now a market norm, and if we can guess that the allocation typically amounts to 3-8% of the contract value, then the presentation of comparable sales data is incorrect. Consider that as you review these numbers and if you think the prices are elevated, just remember the actual contract values are often higher than what is visible to the market data.

Data from MLS and known sales. Data from 1/1/23 to 12/19/23, residential single family sales with private frontage only. South Shore Club and vacant land sales excluded. Information deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT

Price Per Square Foot

Average and median price per square foot held in the $650-800 range for the four years of 2017 to 2020. In 2021 both the average and median gapped above the psychologically important level of $1,000 per square foot and increased to around $1,250 in 2022. 2023 built on that momentum further, with our median registering $1,437 per square foot. This data is skewed by the properties that sell as clear tear downs, and those properties that are highly polished but light on square footage. The price per square foot measurement is historically unimportant in our market, but it helps to know these metrics as we seek to understand appropriate valuations. Remember, any one of these pieces of data is not individually significant when trying to ascertain the value of any given property. However, when all of these defining characteristics are reviewed together there is a usually a clear consensus of value.

Data from MLS and known sales. Excludes Glanworth Gardens 2022 sale. Data from 1/1/23 to 12/19/23, residential single family sales with private frontage only. South Shore Club and vacant land sales excluded. Information deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.

Sales Price

16,000,000

8,000,000

6,000,000

4,000,000

2,000,000

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Even as the market normalized during 2023, we still managed to keep our average sales price in line with the prior year. One of the many reasons I don’t like trying to explain our market in charts is simply because of our small sample size from year to year. Any particular year can be heavily skewed by the existence, or absence, or outlier sales at the top and bottom end of our market. In spite of this, the data still reveals a nice trend line which shows a steadily increasing average price over the past six years, even though 2023 finished just under the $6.45M average price from 2022. The market has incredible strength at the upper end, a notable shift from just seven years ago when a $10M sale was seen as an outlier. Today, buyers have confidence that there is future liquidity in this range and sales should continue with frequency. The unique strength of the Lake Geneva market’s upper bracket was reinforced during 2023 and YTD 2024 when four properties with asking prices north of $10M sold (I sold all four).

Data from MLS and known sales. Excludes Glanworth Gardens 2022 sale. Data from 1/1/23 to 12/19/23, residential single family sales with private frontage only. South Shore Club and vacant land sales excluded. Information deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.

Wealth with purpose

At the end of the day, it’s not just about wealth. It’s about what your wealth can accomplish—whether it’s buying a lake home, spending more time with your children and grandchildren, or leaving a legacy with philanthropic giving.

Together, we can help prepare your financial life for today, tomorrow and generations to come—so you can stay focused on what matters most, no matter what the markets are doing. That’s our focus as a local team with over 40 multi-generational professionals. Call us today for a second opinion.

Frank Oddo Senior Vice President–Wealth Management frank.oddo@ubs.com

Chris Atsaves, CFP ® Senior Vice President–Wealth Management chris.atsaves@ubs.com

Atsaves/Oddo Financial Group UBS Financial Services Inc. One North Wacker Drive, Suite 3200 Chicago, IL 60606 312-525-4529

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Cover

On a Thursday, it’s cloudy and it’s rainy and the men hurry to work with their shoulders hunched forward and their eyes towards the ground. The rain wets their hair and soaks their jackets and runs down their sleeves and drips on their pants and the men wonder why the forecast was wrong, again. It’s been this way for some time now—the clouds and the rain and the soaked shoulders and the forecast that called for sun when there was none to be found. The women scurry about the market now, the drizzle meeting them in between their stops at the cheese tent and the bread tent and the flower tent. They’re buying the things because they know the season is short. The market will be closed in a month and no one will know where to buy their cheese and their bread and their flowers. The rain is strengthening and the women rush their goods to their SUVs, and no one notices the leaves on the trees that are dying and falling and clogging and clinging. The clouds came and the rain fell and while we were busy looking down, the leaves changed. When the clouds roll through and the rain stops and the sun returns, we’ll look up again and see the deepening colors and fading greens of a young fall, which arrived quietly while we were looking at our shoes and jumping over the puddles.

David Nennich

“At that time the idea became fixed in my mind that I must live near a lake; without water, I thought, nobody could live at all.”

– CARL JUNG