Wandawega Blog Archive

Time Travelers Wanted. THE TOURIST STOP.Weve never felt official.(& still get Imposters syndrome every time we show up in press alongside real hotels)Those that have a concierge & a towering brochure rack in a lobby when you check in.We’ve always wanted one of those shiny official tourist literature racks. For small businesses along along Americas byways (like route 12 where we are) it says :Were worth making a stop for”Makes a place feel more official. So after 97 years, we got one!(found in warehouse on the west coast)These racks acted as the original travel agent- Youd go to the train depot & peruse for your next adventure.Back in the 1940’s the primary mode of public transport was still by bus.The US was beginning to open up to travelers- but a family car and the birth of the modern road trip was still a ways off for most Americans, But for 67 hours a vacationer could watch out their window as the scene changed from Pueblo architecture, to the farmland of the Great Plains.Even to little resort towns in Wisco. (3rd shot: taken at the bus stop at the end of Wandawega drive.) Travel modes have changed, but one thing remains : Sightseers need sights to see. So now that we finally found a 30s bus stop Tourist rack to fill…. Weve started researching attractions that are still around- that the day tripper from Wandawega might have visited in 20s-60s.The challenge – is that most brochures have been modernized with cheesy colors, fonts & clip art.so we found their original brochures on Online the for each slot….supper clubs and fish fries, parks to museums… all the attractions within a couple hours of us.Our fav part of this rack is that it came with its original hand- painted Art Cards ( top row edges and 2nd row center)They are the original bus line ads that lured travelers to u known adventures. Visiting time travelers looking for ideas, start here! at our new WANDAWEGA TOURIST STOP *We just gave it that name so we feel 1% more official FOR FELLOW HISTORY NERDS:>Shot 9: 1943 Esther Bubley spent a month photographing the people traveling cross country >Shot 3&4 Wisco tourism promo in c

April 13, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt

Welcome to the new Camp Directors office!This is where youll find @ahutchgram – (thanks to @bhwoodworks for the elbow grease)If walls (and this desk) could talk! We shared a bit about its backstory in our 4/2 post. This little room with a view is where the schedules are made, programming is designed, camp staff is managed. Its stocked with bullhorns and whistles, scout manuals and clipboards. Its where Abe watches over and the flag still waves. (Every self respecting Scoutmasters den had to display them). This space needed to come equipped with a rack for a directors hat and a place to keep your boots.This is the desk that came with this place – the one that hid the last remaining copy of the 1925business card & bears the address rubber stamp (zoom into shot 5). This was back when phone numbers only had 3 digits. This is the room with the crooked floor with the trapdoor for hiding bourbon.This is the room where plans will be hatched for future cabins (and someday if we are lucky – a real pavilion like most summer camp have… were saving our pennies).This is the room that reminds us that nothing worth having comes easy. Welcome to the new Camp Directors Office. The door’s always open. (Partially due to its broken lock).Lamp, file tray, cabinet and radio from our friends at @deconstructioninc

April 12, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt

We have some news!…The cat may have just been let out of the bag a little.Just did a little interview with the @BostonGlobe about ‘Immunity pods of family and friends starting to venture out on private Vaxicationsexcerpt:Camp Wandawega in Elkhorn, Wisc, has had so many bookings that its building new cabins, – Its also setting aside separate coves, picnic tables, and even beach zones for visiting pods.*This seasons new additions are still going through final inspections this spring with our local permit authorities – but heres a couple hints of whats to come : One of them – (we wont use the word glamping)is our biggest new canvas decked camping addition and fancier than anything weve had before… it sleeps 4 In our woods and feels more like the #WandawegaHillhouse than a 1920s Scout camp. The two smaller ones that well be offering this season are straight out of Moonrise Kingdom tucked into the back acres – cantilevered over a gorgeous kettle that we havent used yet.One things for sure: We are ready for the 2021 season, (all hands on deck with our new hires, opening up over the next couple of weeks). Were already booked for our hot months – but have openings still left. If youre new to our little feed, the way we work here is that we book out our big all-camp events first for events, retreats and charity / cause based groups…and then make the unused inventory available for smaller self-guided groups that can be booked by anybody.Weve just opened up our remaining spots on the calendar for the 2021 season, and look forward to welcoming you if youre looking to get off the grid this summer. See: Airbnb.com/p/wandawegaWith a couple shots by @anda_marie

April 11, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt

SUPPORT OTHER PEOPLES DREAMS….heres a great little spot we stayed at this week right here in Wisco (NOT a sponsored post. Just a spread the love post) If Ron Swanson, Nate Berkus & Wes Anderson took a vacation together, theyd like to stay here.Its 3 hours from Chicago, tucked into 3 acres of the Kettle Moraine State Forest,And is the literal log cabin of all of our dreeeeams.um.do you also ever stay in somebody elses house & fantasize about what it would be like to live there?We do.We love seeing other folks living their dreams of finding their perfect vacation spot.Then buying it. decorating it with all of the things they love.Then opening its doors to complete strangers like us.A FEW BACKSTORIES FROM THE OWNER THAT WE LOVED:The mysterious longhorn velvet wedding mirror – it was exchanged between meatpacking families (shot 7)The mid-century stereo cabinet is something we picked up in a rather terrifying Silence of the Lambs situation”We fell in love with the reclaimed planks and stairs, the deep fireplaces, and the quirky little corners and up/downstair splitsA local painter did the European lime/plaster paint and white-washed the ceilings and brick workFavorite pieces: The leather club chairs, the Black Forest / boar bristle chandelier, my great-grandfathers homemade hutchThe 4th bedroom in the upstairs loft are a pair of little beds tucked in under the eaves- we call it the Harry Potter room.THE 8 THINGS YOU HAVE TO DO:DISCOVER local historic little shops still in business (last shots) Our favorite is a sewing machine & vacuum cleaner repair shop that is a museum where everything is for sale we picked up a time capsule 1950 vacuum we found an old road house inn thats a bar & a barbershop that is literally stuck in time. All within 20 min of our cabin.+ KAYAK the lake & hike the trails thats 5 min away.+ EAT at Kohlers restaurants closeby.+ VISIT Lake Mich beach & dunes just up the road.+ COOK up a feast in the stocked kitchen, hilltop brick patio w/BBQ & smoker.+ CURL UP with a book and a cocktail at one of the huge beautiful fireplaces.+ PLAY the game roomCheck out @maaike_interiors

April 9, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt

Advice from the camp woodshed. (and Henry Ford, a priest and a refugee)”Chop your own wood once and it will warm you twice”.When we bought camp, we found axes everywhere.The Sports shed.The crawl space under the bunkhouse.We found a two-man-saw under the lakeview cabin.and a hatchet with half a handle in the towel closet of the priests bathroom.Finding all these broken bits around camp made me wonder why they bothered to save this junk.- but then we where given the stern reminder from Rita (the 90 year old Latvian refugee who had been coming here for 40 years)The people who came here had lived through WWII. We arent wasteful like people now – we dont throw things away.She also explained her habit wed noticed of reusing coffee grounds to run through the maker a second time. As a teen in the refugee camps of Germany she gathered grounds from American soldiers trash, and as orange rinds to make tea – she said it was a luxury and the soldiers where nice to her…seeing photos of her as a teen we can see why. (She ended up marrying one of them).So we could understand that they wouldnt throw a way a perfectly good axe just because it had a snapped handle.It was the Save everything generation, and now we cant look at a broken axe in the same way again. They needed a home, so we gave this sketch (shot 10) to an Amish family to build us this woodshed to give them one. Rita didnt get to see our woodshed built- (she probably would have scolded us that it was too fancy for the purpose of covering kindling & broken axes)- but we suspect shed still appreciate that we are respecting the old….and shed probably still be making her own campfires like she did up until she was in her late 80s.Weve heard that Reagan and Ali kept chopping their own wood into their 70s, too – something to be said for that.Cut your own firewood.Make your own campfires.Dont be wasteful.(PS: the new @BestMadeCo. axes arent ours, but we suspect that theyll be around a hundred years from now)

April 7, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt

(dark past)Weve always been from the wrong side of the tracks (In our case, lake chain.)Were sandwiched between lakes that are way fancier than us (Geneva, Delavan, Lauderdale), so the cottages around here were built as affordable summer cabins for the working class. The land was so cheap back in the 20s that you got a free lot to build just by buying a newspaper subscription. Were so excited to launch a new secret squirrel project with our friend @austinsailsbury soon. (And its got us digging into archives to unearth some of what made this place a blue collar getaway and hideout for criminals)These photos are of the OG ads & postcards EXCERPT FROM AMERICAN GETAWAY.100 Years of Saints & Sinners at Camp Wandawega Land Boom (1920 1925) In July of 1925, the Elkhorn Independent made front-page news of the land boom currently taking place: People from outside the state are flocking to Walworth County right now and are buying the choice summer site building lots at prices which would astound older residents … who can remember when every lake in Walworth County was considered free property. Better roads to and through Walworth County made it practical for subdivisions to be built, as well as easier for Model Ts full of out-of-towners to pour in from Chicago during the summer months. Located just four miles north of Elkhorn, with 4,800 building sites, Made for an idyllic locale more than ripe for the picking. In a 1925 newspaper ad, the US Bond & Mortgage Company of Chicago described the area of the new development as beautiful … good, rolling, partly wooded land bordering 4,000 feet on Lake Wandawega. The ad promised the locals that the migratory occupants of these future summer homes would soon become new neighbors who will trade in your stores, bank in your banks, and buy from your farms. parcels located on lands adjacent to the lake originally sold for $240 per acre and were reserved for sale to the respectable. This era of development brought those eager to seize a variety of money-making opportunities with both hands.including one Chicagoan who would buy a 25 acre parcel to build a resort called THE WANDAWEGA HOTEL

April 6, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt

Leave your mark.(Carve your name into our furniture)…this is a peek into cabin No.3, it was built 95 years perched on the edge of the lake.- The next shot is actually the only place where well let you do this. its become a camper tradition- guests whittling their own carpe Diem advice and stories into the bunk beds before they check out.Take a closer look when you visit, we try tuck stories into every corner, surface and drawer- some of them we tell, but most you just have to ask us about (even though they have more layers than well ever know about, we try our best to dig up every objects backstory)Hope that all these names carved in this bed lasts in some way or another. 50 years from now somebody finding the year 2020 carved next to somebodys name might spark a story about what happened to the world that year. This bed has been a good reminder for us at camp to tell our story- And ask others to tell us theirs.

April 5, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt

Winner !! @katepearsall Giveaway!A crate just showed up at the camp gates filled with all of our dreams. Spoiler alert:guests this season are about to get a @bestmadeco upgrade. We cant wait to start outfitting our little camp corners & quarters. A few new tools & gear will find a home alongside the vintage equipment that weve been sourcing for decades (from barn sales to farm auctions, the hunt has become a second job… that we love) Unboxing this morning, I realized that the axe shipping crate might actually be nicer than my first college apartment.Its just too good to throw away- so weve decided to give it away instead. so if anybody wants to give a custom long wooden axe crate a good a home, were gonna fill it with camp swag-y things and ship it to you. (drop a comment below & well pick one tomorrow)*sorry we arent giving away the actual axe itself with the box- (but its legit the nicest gift anybodys ever given us) so to try to ease our guilt, we promise to pack the box with as many little throwback camp souvenirs and gifts as we can fit in there. (Last shot here is the starting point of what it will come with but we are throwing in some surprises, too)my grandpa always said that when somebody gives you something, you need to give something away to another person- Thanks to our friends and Wisconsin neighbors for the chance to share little things that make us happy. #bestmadecoThe best shots here from their last visit with us – the bad ones are my iPhone

March 31, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt

When we first met, David asked me if I wanted to come over to see his beer can collection. We almost didnt have a 2nd date. 22 years later, we still have boxes of cone top cans and pull tabs in the back rafters. That was also about the time we also started collecting church keys.With every candle and can of syrup we ship out of the camp store, we throw in a can piercer (Some know it as a church key,)… one end is a for punching can holes and the other is a bottle cap lifter. Our model is called Royal Roy, and we tie off the end with a leather boot lace & our house souvenir sticker. We have a soft spot for the everyday things folks take for granted – its why we have amassed an embarrassing amount of vintage Pabst can openers, that youll find in every kitchen drawer here. SOME USELESS FACTS THAT WE CANT HELP BUT FIND FASCINATING :+ World’s Largest Collection of Bottle Openers Guinness Book of World Records = 32,411+ The pop-top beer can, 1959, made can piercers a thing of the past. (Except for bottled beer & soda, which still needed an opener)+ One issue with pop-top cans was that the person could choke on the pop tab if it was dropped into the can. (Jeez, can you imagine?) By the 1970s, a stay-tab can was introduced by Coors solving this problem.+ The Handbook of United States Beer Advertising Openers and Corkscrews” Pictures over 2,000 types. Enthusisasts call it the BibleIf you really nerd out on this stuff, rejoice in knowing there are others out there like you. You can join just-for-openers.org and hit up the national convention. We might just need to make a road trip.Shots:Pic 1: our house candle (needs the bottle cap end)Pic 5: our church keys Pic 6: our camp brand syrup (needs the piercing end)Pic 7: how everything comes wrapped

March 30, 2021 • Published by Tereasa Surratt