Luxury Holiday Homes Lake District
WHEN TEREASA SURRATT became engaged to fellow advertising executive David Hernandez five years ago, she didn't pore over china and silver patterns or ask friends to shower her with the usual delicate lingerie. "I registered for a chain saw," Surratt says, "because that's what we wanted and needed the most."
Hernandez had just convinced his future wife that they should buy an old lakefront resort in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, 90 miles from their Chicago home, to use for the wedding ceremony and, later, as a weekend getaway. Developed in the mid-1920s, the 25-acre spread has served as home to, by turns, a speakeasy, brothel, modest vacation destination, and Catholic priest — run retreat for the Latvian community. But to Hernandez, a half-Latvian, half-Mexican city kid raised in Chicago, this rustic camp was hallowed ground. His extended family had vacationed at Wandawega Lake Resort every summer since he was born, and each hilltop and nook of the property held memories — of catching frogs with his cousins, watching his uncles play volleyball, singing folk songs around the bonfire, or sneaking sips of the Communion wine stored on a bookshelf. "Coming here felt like a fantasy," he recalls. "It was a different world."
Years of deferred maintenance had left the buildings in a fragile state — with leaky, sagging roofs; raccoon squatters; and mildewed drapes. But from the time Surratt and Hernandez closed on the place in February 2004 until their wedding six months later, scores of friends pitched in during regular weekend talkas, the Latvian term for work parties. The marriage celebration also revealed to the couple the potential of their new home: With 25 bedrooms divided among the main lodge, another three-story structure, and three small cabins, Wandawega made one helluva place to entertain. "It's like summer camp for adults," says Surratt. And so two months after the wedding, the newlyweds turned their attention to planning an October celebration they deemed Wandaween, which is now an annual bash.
THE PARTY THEME riffs on the remote setting, which Surratt says feels a little creepy at night, "like Camp Crystal Lake in Friday the 13th." She and Hernandez invite anywhere from 20 to 60 laid-back friends ("the kind of people who don't mind waking up to find a chipmunk in their bed," Surratt says) up on a Friday night for a weekend filled with pumpkin-carving, apple-picking, and hayrides — not to mention the usual camp fare of archery, canoeing, and fishing.
At twilight, Hernandez hooks up a vintage projector to screen scary movies like The Blair Witch Project. Among the treats on offer: caramel apples, locally made cider, and hot chocolate spiked with cinnamon schnapps and served in Surratt's collection of antique mugs from Boy Scout camps across the country. In the morning, the hosts wake early to cook bacon in the lodge kitchen. Hernandez brews coffee while Surratt unfurls cheerful yellow tablecloths over picnic tables and arranges an edible still life of fruit and baked goods in baskets, old tins, and milk-glass compotes. She has a gift for creating dreamy tablescapes and interiors that feel plucked from the pages of an Anthropologie catalog — and it's all done on the cheap.
In the main lodge, Surratt upholstered chairs with wool blankets and whipped up window treatments using sheets from Kmart. Her aesthetic is informed by a loose sense of midcentury historical accuracy — i.e., no silicone spatulas here — coupled with a decorating strategy she calls "found, flea, or free." Otherwise, she just has fun with the camping theme. Coleman lanterns? Check. Picnic hampers and fishing rods? You betcha. Baskets of spare Fair Isle sweaters from thrift stores give the main lodge an inviting coziness, while games like checkers and a Ouija board keep guests parked next to the fire.
But not everything turns out as Surratt plans. "Tereasa had this fantasy about making our own maple syrup," Hernandez recalls. She bought all the antique sap buckets and taps she could find on eBay. Then they called an arborist. "Twenty-five acres and not a single maple," Hernandez says with a grin.
A LIFELONG COLLECTOR, Surratt put herself through college by working as a bartender and, on weekends, would take a catnap after her shifts in order to hit the yard sales bright and early. Armed with tips from her job, she paid for some of the couple's best furniture with quarters. To this day, she's fascinated by anything old — ledgers, matchbooks, hotel registers. They both are. And they're committed to the constant upkeep that their weekend idyll requires.
Over the past four years, Surratt has not only mastered her chain saw, she's learned to install drywall, reglaze windows, and drive a forklift. (In 2006, she also bought a cabin that used to sit next to her grandmother's Illinois house and had it moved to the resort.) Along the way, Surratt and Hernandez have been buoyed by restoration surprises: Underneath the vinyl siding of one building lay original cedar shingles. The couple discovered a restaurant's worth of '50s Fiestaware on pantry shelves that had been boarded over. And while raking, Surratt unearthed a shuffleboard court — another reminder of the camp's history.
"In the attic, we found photographs from the '30s of people at the lodge, drinking beer and sitting in Adirondack chairs — the same things we do now," says Surratt. "I love to think that when you're put in an environment without TVs or iPods, you end up doing the exact same things your grandparents did for fun."
Former CL executive editor Katy McColl lives in Montana. She's also the author of Should I Do What I Love? (or do what I do, so I can do what I love on the side) (Sasquatch Books).
Take a tour of the lake resort property.
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Source: https://www.countryliving.com/home-design/house-tours/a2985/wisconsin-lake-home-1009/