Lake Geneva Celebrates a Double-Barreled Year

LAKE GENEVA, Wis. — Andy Gump is obviously delighted about it.

This is both the centennial and sesquicentennial year of the famed comic strip character’s international resort community, within easy reach of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. The timing couldn’t be better.

Andy, created by Sidney Smith, who spent his happiest and most productive years at Lake Geneva, beams as he looks from his memorial pedestal at the sailboats, sightseeing cruisers, swimmers, sunbathers and water skiers on and around the sun-sparkled waters of the lake.

He’ll look just as happy when they’re replaced next winter at this all-year resort by cross-country and downhill snow skiers.

The simultaneous 100th and 150th anniversaries are being commemorated during a summer when reduced travel abroad means booming business at domestic resorts.

Model A Rally

More than half a million visitors are expected this year, with vacationers from many states and nations supplementing the usual base of tourism from Chicago and the Midwest. The Model A car rally this month will by itself draw 6,000 cars and 15,000 fans from around the world.

“In many ways,” says George F. Hennerly, executive vice president of the Geneva Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, “this destination is like our favorite Monterey/Carmel area of California--charming and elegant, very successful and loved by everyone who comes here.”

Having both a 100th and 150th anniversary at the same time is a blessing bestowed by history.

After the Indian land settlement was negotiated at the Great Council of 1833 in Chicago, government surveyors went to work. Settlers moved into the rich farm lands around Lake Geneva in 1836, just 150 years ago.

Stagecoach Line

With the help of a stagecoach line, the village grew to a population of more than 1,000, with two hotels. The wealthy of Chicago built mansions as second homes. In 1886 the resort village of Lake Geneva was incorporated.

Next year Lake Geneva can celebrate Andy Gump’s 70th birthday. He was introduced in the Chicago Tribune’s first daily comic strip in 1917. Cartoonist Sidney Smith lived in Lake Geneva until 1935, by which time Andy had already brightened the daily lives of millions throughout the world.

Certificates have been presented to families who have lived in Lake Geneva for more than 100 years, and there is a Southern California tie with one of the most famous families.

Chicago chewing gum king William Wrigley bought Catalina Island in 1919. His son built Avalon’s famed Casino in 1929. The family set up 86% of the island as a nature conservancy in 1974 and moved even their Arabian horses to the Wrigley estate on Lake Geneva, which had four mansions along a quarter-mile of waterfront.

This summer you can cruise by these and many other lakefront mansions in a Lake Geneva sightseeing boat. The mail boat offers a 2 1/2-hour cruise, with stops along the way to deliver mail. One of the Wrigley mansions was recently sold for more than $1 million.

19th-Century Styles

Heritage tours are being offered this summer to view homes that reflect architectural styles of the 19th Century, from the English, German and French country-style homes to Mediterranean and pre-Civil War Southern mansions.

The calendar of events reflects the diversity of Lake Geneva’s cultural roots: corn and bratwurst roasts Aug. 2 and Aug. 9-10, Venetian Festival Aug. 13-17, Jazz Festival Sept. 7.

Local arts and traditions are on stage at the 30th Annual Antique Show and Sale Aug. 10-11, the Lake Geneva Women’s Club Ice Cream Social Aug. 9, the Tour du Lac Bike Rally Sept. 13 and Oktoberfest in neighboring Delavan the first weekend in October.

The downtown lakefront has been restored in time for this year’s celebrations. Landscaped walkways follow the shoreline.

Echoes of Elizabeth

The old and the new blend gracefully in the two dominant trends among places to stay. One is epitomized by the bed-and-breakfast Elizabethan Inn that we have adopted as our vacation home. The inn is appropriately named, both for its decor and furnishings and for Elizabeth Farrell, the gracious lady who restored and manages it.

Her 10-year-old granddaughter, Kim, welcomed us at the front door. She was accompanied by Ginger, a tiny dog whose protective barking was offset by its wagging tail. They were quickly joined by the lady of the manor, who gave us a tour of rooms with high poster canopied beds, handmade quilts, antique furniture and lake-view windows.

We choose one in what we thought was the elegantly restored carriage house. Our hostess set the record straight.

“It was just a barn,” she said. “A Chicago businessman built it at the end of the last century. We’re not sure why, but it was here before the house.”

Chardonnay and Towels

While we were unpacking, our hostess returned with a bottle of Chardonnay wine and two glasses. Then Kim arrived with an enormous supply of additional towels.

“You might need them,” she said, nodding toward the beach where the inn has its own pier.

Breakfast next morning could easily have qualified as a brunch. The cheese souffle was delicately made, the muffins were hot and the breakfast cake was a work of art.

Elizabeth Farrell was a dietitian for major corporations before she retired and bought this old New England-style home two years ago. She has spared no expense to restore it.

It has nine guest rooms, plus sitting rooms and verandas open to guests. Weekend rates are $75 a night, including the full breakfasts. From Sundays through Thursdays the rate is $55, and there are special for longer stays.

Nationwide Trend

The new Americana Lake Geneva Resort represents the other trend in accommodations around the lake. It’s part of the nationwide Americana groups of hotels, inns and resorts that includes the Canyon Hotel Racquet & Golf Resort in Palm Springs.

The 340 deluxe rooms at the Americana Lake Geneva are surrounded by two 18-hole golf courses that have become a challenge to golfers from coast to coast. One is called the Brute, and no more need be said.

The other is the equally testing Scottish-style Briar Patch, designed by Peter Dye and Jack Nicklaus. The narrow fairways are lined with heather, and there’s always the decision as to whether even to look for a ball that strays from the straight and true. “I lost 15 balls in the heather today,” a golfer told us, “and I found 42.”

Indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a complete health spa, horseback riding, skeet shooting, tennis, bicycling and boating are among the resort’s alternatives to losing and finding golf balls. There are also four restaurants and four cocktail lounges.

The Americana’s summer Fun-for-All packages start at $129 per person for two nights and three days, double occupancy. They include a welcoming tray of Wisconsin cheese and sausages, an hour of horseback riding, a bucket of balls on the golf driving range, unlimited use of the health spa, a free hour on the tennis and racquetball courts and the same for a boat or bicycle. The Americana also has winter ski packages.

Something for Everyone

Lake Geneva is surrounded with a choice in all price ranges of resorts, hotels and inns, including such names as the Hilton Inn. Seven golf courses are open to the public, and there are tennis courts at schools and parks in addition to the resorts, and racquetball courts at the YMCA in this resort community that has a resident population under 6,000.

You’ll have to make as many where-to-dine as where-to-stay decisions. We dined the first evening at the Red Geranium, in the setting of a New England inn and from a menu that included bountiful choices of fresh fish.

Next we will try the St. Moritz, built in 1885 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its Queen Anne architecture. The dining areas are graced with stained-glass windows and the ornately carved mantels of 12 fireplaces. The menus offer Continental and American cuisine.

Lake Geneva Museum tells the history of this Middle America. The Studio presents artistry in stained glass; the Independent Gallery invites you to experience the contemporary spirit of Lake Geneva. The University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory here has the largest refracting telescope in the United States. The Wisconsin Winery is open for year-round sipping of its fruit and berry wines.

Just down the highway the community of Delavan, also celebrating its sesquicentennial, is the heritage center of the circus. In 1847 two brothers, Edmund and Jeremiah Mabie from New York, made Delavan the winter home of their United States Olympic Circus. In 1871 the idea for developing the P. T. Barnum circus began in Delavan. Circuses, a Ferris wheel and many other rides are still part of family fun in the parks around Turtle Lake.

Directly across the road is another first that is close to the heart of this area: Wisconsin School for the Deaf, founded in 1852. A sign at the nearby Willoughby Convalescent Home reminds us that “love is ageless.” It’s only a few miles from there to the national headquarters for the Christian Home of the Handicapped in Lake Geneva.

For information contact the Geneva Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, 201 Wrigley Drive, Lake Geneva, Wis. 53147, phone (414) 248-4416.