Camp Wandawega: A Wisconsin gem with a past stranger than fiction

ELKHORN, Wis. (CBS58) — A campsite nestled on what has been dubbed a “lake nobody has ever heard of” in Southeastern Wisconsin has an virtually 100-year historical past that features bootleggers, a brothel, and the Catholic Church.

“When we have been little youngsters, we used to fantasize about, ‘after we develop up, perhaps we will all purchase a bit cottage and construct little cottages up on the hillside, and we can all keep collectively endlessly on these little cottages up on the hillside,’” Camp Wandawega Co-Proprietor David Hernandez stated. “It by no means occurred to me as a bit child that sometime we’d have the ability to purchase the entire place.”

Hernandez began visiting the camp a long time after the infamy it was identified for within the 30s and 40s. By the point Hernandez stepped foot in Wandawega, it was an old school American summer season camp run by Latvian clergymen fleeing the soviet invasion within the late 60s and early 70s.

“It was a lifesaver,” Hernandez stated. “I say that perhaps metaphorically, however virtually actually, simply to have the ability to get out of the town, and have a spot like this, was simply actually wonderful for a bit metropolis child from Chicago.”

The Latvian Marian Fathers owned the Camp, identified to them as “Camp Vandavega” as a result of there isn’t any “w” sound in Latvian, for 42 years.

Due to the church’s possession, Hernandez and his spouse and Camp Co-Proprietor Tereasa Surratt imagine it flew below the radar, one purpose they name it “the lake nobody has ever heard of.”

“You understand what’s loopy? The locals do not know we’re right here. We’re 100 years previous, and we have been in the newspapers quite a bit within the Nineteen Twenties. Through the prohibition period, when it was a brothel and speakeasy, plenty of loopy issues went down right here,” Surratt stated.

Hernandez as soon as informed the priest answerable for the camp he can be first in line to buy it if it have been ever on the market.

“In the future, we obtained the telephone name, and he stated, ‘okay, in the event you’re critical, now’s the time,’” he stated.

Saving the camp, with all its reminiscences and historical past, was the couple’s principal focus. They’ve since turned what was as soon as the “Wandawega Resort,’ a brothel and speakeasy, into a spot guests can lease throughout their keep, renaming it “The Bunkhouse.”

“Right this moment, The Bunkhouse is a contemporary constructing in a 100-year-old shell,” Surratt stated. “It was constructed for use as a home of in poor health fame. The Madam Anna Peck ran this and used the bedrooms for the ladies that labored right here…If you stroll down the halls, you may see there are simply rows of bedrooms on either side.”

Peck, a Swedish immigrant who made her option to Wandawega within the mid-twenties when her adoptive father bought it, ran a bootlegging operation out of the resort together with a brothel. She was arrested a number of instances, finally serving just a few years in jail earlier than ending out her life on the primary avenue in Elkhorn.

“After I inform folks in regards to the historical past, that there’s the whole lot right here from criminals on the run, to contempt of courtroom, a number of prohibition padlocks, a number of federal raids a homicide, kidnapping, suicide. So many issues that occurred right here over time that folks take a look at me and suppose I’m loopy,” Hernandez stated.

“Our imaginations ran wild after we have been little youngsters. We all the time thought that this place with a prohibition previous in all probability had some wonderful tales, however the tales that we made up have been nothing in comparison with the fact that we discovered over time.”

From girls of the night time to a grisly murder-suicide that crossed state traces: the story of “Johnny Sweetheart.” John Gabriele, a Chicago man, killed his lover after she denied him within the metropolis, kidnapped a pal, pressured her to drive him to Camp Wandawega, and in the end took his personal life inside one of many buildings. Many who’ve stayed on the camp declare to have seen the ghost of Gabriele wandering the lakeshore.

“I personally have not seen him, however we’ve had quite a few experiences of different individuals who have. So, I’m going to need to take them at their phrase,” Hernandez stated. “I’m undecided if it was an excessive amount of whiskey across the campfire late at night time, or in the event that they actually noticed a ghost. Perhaps we’ll by no means know.”

All of Wandawega’s historical past, sordid and nice, fueling the couple’s ardour for the camp. They’ve owned the 25-acre property since 2004, rehabbing and reviving its buildings whereas including their very own.

“For the previous 18 years, we have been spending each free greenback from our day jobs and minute that now we have out there right here fixing it up, saving it,” Surratt stated. “It has been a labor of affection, emphasis on labor.”

One early addition to the camp was a tiny cottage that made a 350-mile journey to finish up at Camp Wandawega. It’s a cottage that when belonged to Surratt’s grandmother in Central Illinois.

“It was so significant to have the ability to save a bit of my childhood, convey it again right here and convey it again to its glory days,” she stated. “It feels prefer it’s all the time been right here.”

One other extremely significant constructing on the property is what they name “Tom’s Tree Home.” It’s a treehouse devoted to Surratt’s late father, who christened the camp once they purchased it by including swings to varied bushes.

“When [Tom] handed away, the tree died additionally. Even if the limbs have been beginning to fall, and the tree was getting ugly, Tereasa would not allow us to reduce it down,” Hernandez stated.

Discovering magnificence and objective in lengthy deserted buildings has saved the 2 on a journey of preservation in the case of issues others may simply discard.

“Certainly one of our greatest passions, and one of many causes now we have Camp Wandawega, is as a result of we love saving previous buildings. We love shifting previous buildings, we love restoring previous buildings,” Surratt stated.

Whereas they proceed to develop the camp with new additions, they’re additionally protecting previous traditions alive, like “Mass within the Grass.” Hernandez, who grew up going to Latvian Catholic Church Mass at Wandawega within the summers, promised to maintain the custom going.

“The Latvian volunteers began making church pews, and the altar as effectively, and now it’s been happening because the Sixties. It’s a practice going again over 50 years,” He stated “We did a handshake cope with [Father Baginskis]. We stated so long as the need of the folks needs to proceed to have mass right here, we’ll proceed to sponsor it and assist it…I see grandparents with their kids and their grandchildren sitting there having fun with mass and I simply think about myself again within the early Seventies doing the identical factor,” He stated.

On any given Sunday between Memorial and Labor Day, as much as 200 folks is perhaps exterior having fun with mass at Wandawega.

“We do joke typically on this facet of the chapel…we’ll have folks ingesting Bloody Mary’s and, on that facet, we’ll have of us saying Hail Mary’s,” Hernandez stated.

Right this moment, Camp Wandawega is on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations, and guests can lease a keep within the couple’s one-of-a-kind American getaway, study its in depth historical past and revel in its beautiful views.

“There’s a lot wonderful historical past right here, a lot wonderful nature right here that I feel we typically take without any consideration,” Hernandez stated. “We’re attempting to get increasingly folks enthusiastic about embracing the cottage vernacular, embracing the easy structure, and preserving the issues that may nonetheless be preserved quite than pushing issues over, utterly gutting issues. I feel that’s a part of the story that we attempt to inform right here. Get folks to essentially recognize the historic property and the pure property of the place.”