Renowned for more than a century as a summer escape hatch for the elite, the Lake Geneva region captivates vacationers with its beauty and intriguing history
By Randy Mink, Senior Editor
Ah, to be rich…rich enough to own a waterfront mansion in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin…to be fortunate enough to view your sprawling summertime estate from the veranda while taking in the crystal-clear waters of Geneva Lake, home to millionaire moguls since the late 1800s.
Even if such real estate is a bit outside your budget range, it’s fun to fantasize about being super-wealthy. Ordinary tourists can do their daydreaming from a tour boat or the 21-mile lakeside walking path that passes right through the front yards of these palatial playgrounds.
This lakefront home, once owned by the president of Morton Salt Company, underwent a major reconstruction in 2008 that closely followed its original plans. The exterior remains largely unchanged.
After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, well-to-do Chicago families traveled by train to the southern Wisconsin town of Lake Geneva. On its shores, they established opulent second homes while the Windy City rebuilt. For its similarities to Newport, Rhode Island’s famed collection of over-the-top summer “cottages,” Lake Geneva earned the nickname “Newport of the West.” It became a Gilded Age retreat for captains of industry such as the Schwinns (of bicycle fame) and Wrigleys, who built a chewing gum empire.
Though some of the original homes have been replaced with new, even grander mansions, more than 100 historic estates remain. Several adjacent lots on the north shore belong to the Wrigley clan. The Schwinn estate was torn down in 1995. Some former single-family estates are now subdivisions containing a handful of expensive homes.
Geneva Lake Cruises Invite Serious Gawking
A good introduction to this resort community is Lake Geneva Cruise Line’s “U.S. Mailboat Tour,” a 2½-hour cruise that circles the beautiful, spring-fed lake. Besides insightful narration highlighting the magnificent manors and stories behind them, the tour (daily from June 15 to September 15) features the added drama of young mail carriers hopping on and off the moving boat as they deposit letters in pier mailboxes. Passengers cheer on the “mail jumpers,” hoping they make it back onboard without falling into the water (which they sometimes do). Mailboat service has been a Geneva Lake tradition since 1916.
Lake Geneva Cruise Line’s mailboat tour
For optimal viewing of mail deliveries and the passing parade of hillside mansions, snare an outer seat on the right side of the boat, which has an enclosed lower deck and an open, covered top deck. The cruise line’s two-hour “Full Lake Tour” (late April through October) does the same route without the mail stops.
“Wow, look at that one!” passengers may be heard to say as they gape and giggle their way through the circuit. They marvel at the pretty gardens, lavish landscaping and expansive balustraded terraces festooned with potted plants and posh patio furniture. Grand staircases thread tree-shaded lawns that sweep down to water’s edge. One homeowner has a big-screen television mounted to a tree so that he can enjoy the big game from his hammock.
Clad in timber, stone, brick, stucco, shingles or a combination of materials, houses range in style from Colonial, Tudor and Neo-classical to Greek Revival and Queen Anne. Rooflines sport fanciful turrets, cupolas, gables, dormers or chimneys. Most of the homes, curiously enough, are occupied in summer only and sit empty the rest of the year.
The most expensive lakeside home presently on the market is Aloha Lodge, built in 1900 for Tracy C. Drake, founder of Chicago’s Drake and Blackstone hotels. The estate commands 360 feet of shoreline.
Stone Manor and Black Point Estates
The largest Geneva Lake mansion is Stone Manor, now divided into seven condominiums and outfitted with a rooftop garden and swimming pool. In the past decade the wife of the Starz CEO has purchased six of the units and ultimately plans to restore the interior to its original floor plan. Built in 1899 for Otto Young, a German immigrant who made his fortune in Chicago real estate, Stone Manor over the years has been a school, restaurant and Christmas tree museum.
Throughout the cruise, your guide drops the names of famed business and industrial titans, people associated with companies like Morton Salt, Crane Plumbing, Nabisco, Vicks (maker of VapoRub) and John M. Smythe, a high-end furniture store that advertises in the Chicago TV market. Most of the homeowners these days, though, are not famous, just very successful and still come from the Chicago area, which is about 75 miles southeast of Lake Geneva. Illinois’ billionaire governor, J.B. Pritzker, claims one of the properties.
Black Point Estate
Black Point Estate is the only historic lakefront home open for tours, and it can only be visited via a Lake Geneva Cruise Line boat. A time capsule of the era, the 1888 Queen Anne contains much of its original furnishings. The summer retreat was enjoyed by four generations of the family of Conrad Seipp, a German who came to Chicago and built one of the largest breweries in the U.S.
The Geneva Lake Shore Path, originally a Native American trail, hugs the shoreline as it skirts the entire lake just a few feet from the water. Completing the circuit takes eight to 12 hours, but most visitors tackle a segment at a time. Depending on how the property owner maintains the trail, the surface may be boardwalk, brick, paving stone, gravel, dirt or grass. Signs posted in yards and on piers warn “Private Property. No Trespassing.” There are access points in the towns of Lake Geneva, Williams Bay and Fontana, plus a few other places. A little booklet sold in stores describes 103 points of interest along the public footpath. (Oddly, the town is Lake Geneva, but the lake is Geneva Lake.)
Delving Into Lake Geneva History
Boat tours on Geneva Lake depart from the Riviera, a historic building on Wrigley Drive in downtown Lake Geneva. Adjacent to Riviera Beach and an easy walk from the lively Main Street shopping district, the landmark opened in 1933 as a bathhouse/entertainment center and recently was restored to its Art Deco splendor.
The Riviera’s second-floor ballroom once hosted bands led by the likes of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Les Brown, Lawrence Welk and Louis Armstrong. In the 1970s, Herman’s Hermits, Chubby Checker and Stevie Wonder performed there when it was called The Top Deck. Later, the ballroom was turned into a disco, and “Queen of Disco” Donna Summer made an appearance. Today the venue hosts weddings and community events. The Riviera’s first floor has shops and eateries. Gracing its plaza is a replica of the Angel of the Waters fountain in New York City’s Central Park.
Downtown’s Geneva Lake Museum sheds more light on local history. Housed in the former Wisconsin Power and Light building, it displays artifacts from Stone Manor and other mansions. A brick Main Street features replicas of homes and businesses from the past. Other exhibits spotlight Native American heritage, mailboat service, and area hideaways used by Chicago gangsters in the 1920s and ’30s. Former resorts, such as the country’s first Playboy Club hotel, and one of America’s foremost observatories are remembered as well.
Historic Yerkes Observatory
Yerkes Observatory, occupying a 50-acre campus in Williams Bay, opened up to visitors after a $13 million renovation completed in 2021. An architectural masterpiece sporting Romanesque arches, three domes and whimsical carvings, Yerkes was built in 1897 and for over a century was home to the University of Chicago’s astrophysics program. It’s considered the birthplace of modern astrophysics, a branch of science that uses the principles of physics to understand the makeup of celestial bodies. In 2020 the university donated Yerkes to the Yerkes Future Foundation, which operates tours and stargazing events.
As your tour guide explains, many important discoveries, such as the Milky Way’s spiral shape, were made at Yerkes. Leading astronomers who spent time there included Edwin Hubble (as in the Hubble Space Telescope); Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief of astronomy; and Carl Sagan, the astrophysicist, author and television personality. The latter two completed their graduate work at Yerkes. On Albert Einstein’s first trip to America in 1921, Yerkes was one of two places he asked to see (the other being Niagara Falls).
The tour highlight is going inside the largest dome and riding the world’s largest indoor elevator, a platform that rises 26 feet to meet the world’s largest refracting telescope (63 feet long, 19 tons).
Surrounding the observatory are grounds originally laid out by the Olmsted Brothers, the firm founded by Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York’s Central Park.
Maxwell Manor
Historic Hotel Properties in the Lake Geneva Region
History-minded travelers spending an overnight in Lake Geneva can commune with the past at Maxwell Mansion, a boutique hotel just a few blocks from downtown. The property, owned by enthusiastic young innkeepers Luke and Monica Pfeifer, consists of six guest rooms in the Italianate-style home itself and 22 more in the rustic-chic and barn-themed Stables and Carriage House buildings. Built in 1856 by prominent Chicago surgeon Philip J. Maxwell and originally a five-acre estate known as The Oaks, the hotel is acclaimed for the craft cocktails served in its antique Apothecary Bar, which originally was the house’s front porch. Also fun is the below-ground, passcode-requiring Speakeasy Bar, a cozy Prohibition Era-themed watering hole. The wood flooring is original to the home, as is the white marble on the fireplace.
Another vintage hotel property is the French Country Inn on Lake Como, a smaller lake in the region. Back in the day, notorious gangsters like George “Bugs” Moran, Baby Face Nelson and members of the John Dillinger hid out at the inn, then known as the Lake Como Hotel. The guesthouse and portions of the main house, including the hand-carved oak staircase and inlaid parquet floors, were built in Denmark and transported to Chicago as the Danish Pavilion at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. After the fair, the pavilion buildings were moved to Lake Como. During Prohibition, the space occupied by resort’s restaurant, The Getaway, was used as a speakeasy.
More history surfaces at Delavan Lake in Delavan, also part of the Lake Geneva region. Traditions abound at Lake Lawn Resort, one of America’s longest operating, year-round vacation sites. It started in 1878 as a modest guesthouse with facilities for 50 boarders and 50 horses. During the Big Band era of the 1930s and ’40s, the nation’s top orchestras frequented the ballroom.
Lake Lawn Queen on Delavan Lake
Fronting two miles of Delavan Lake shoreline, Lake Lawn today is one of Wisconsin’s finest full-service resorts and sparkles after recent renovations, with more upgrades to come. Amenities include indoor and outdoor swimming pools, the Calladora Spa and Majestic Oaks Golf Course. The Lake Lawn Queen provides cruises on the lake, which boasts five Frank Lloyd Wright-designed homes. The resort’s new signature dining destination, 1878 on the Lake, offers panoramic waterside views.
Grand Geneva and The Abbey: Wisconsin Classics
What started out in 1968 as the Lake Geneva Playboy Club-Hotel is now the grandest of the region’s full-service resorts. In a woodland setting on 1,300 acres, the 358-room Grand Geneva Resort & Spa features Frank Lloyd Wright design elements and boasts two championship golf courses, a ski hill with chairlifts and snowmaking capabilities, and a stable offering trail rides and hayrides. Other facilities at the AAA Four Diamond property include WELL Spa + Salon, indoor and outdoor pools, pickleball courts and fine dining restaurants Geneva ChopHouse and Ristorante Brissago. South of the main building is the family-friendly, 225-room Timber Ridge Lodge & Waterpark, which has indoor and outdoor aquatic playgrounds.
Grand Geneva Resort & Spa enjoys a pastoral woodland setting.
After Playboy Enterprises head honcho Hugh Hefner, another powerhouse from Chicago, opened his hotel, Lake Geneva became a nationally known destination. The cabaret stage attracted some of the era’s top names, from Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. to Liza Minnelli, The Monkees and Sonny & Cher. Guests were served by skimpily clad Playboy Bunnies sporting puffy tales and bunny ears. Playboy sold the resort in 1981 to Americana Hotels Corp., and in 1994 Milwaukee-based Marcus Corporation, the current owner, purchased the property and fueled its rebirth.
No mention of venerable properties in the area is complete without a mention of The Abbey Resort in Fontana, the only full-service resort on the shores of Geneva Lake. Built in 1963, it has long been recognizable by its soaring A-frame, the largest such structure in North America. Originally an elegant restaurant, the cavernous room now hosts special events.
Set on 90 landscaped acres, The Abbey has 334 guest rooms and suites, plus two-bedroom villas. There are three swimming pools and a variety of dining options. The highly regarded Avani Spa, offering a complete menu of massage services and body and facial treatments, claims a private atrium pool, a whirlpool, and sauna, salt and steam rooms, plus outdoor lounge areas and a state-of-the-art fitness facility.
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