An ideal vacation might offer great scenery, spas, ice cream parlors, beaches and adorable cafes right outside the resort or Airbnb door. But what if you didn’t have to give up those amenities when the PTO ended?
Where to live was one of the many things that snapped into focus during the pandemic’s uncertainty, and with many companies now offering hybrid or fully remote work options, putting down roots in a vacation destination suddenly seemed in reach. This shift has revitalized Wisconsin’s resort towns by injecting residents and increasing activities and opportunities available to locals – both for work and play.
Kathie Perkins, owner of Fontana Home in Fontana-on-Geneva-Lake (pop. 1,741) in Walworth County, sees this shift in her customer base. People are moving full time to their vacation homes or trading the city house for a country one. Many are young families relocating from Chicago.
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Perkins and her husband did the same in 2019, moving from the Chicago area into the home where they’d spent weekends and vacations for the past 25 years. “We had the big house in Barrington, but what do you do with that when the kids are no longer home?” she says. But she wasn’t ready to retire. She opened her home decor store, and her husband opened Little Bar, two doors down, serving pizza, cocktails and beer.
In the last three years, Derek D’Auria, Walworth County Economic Development Alliance’s executive director, has seen more full-time residents in Fontana-on-Geneva-Lake, Whitewater, East Troy, Lake Geneva, and on lakes Beulah and Delavan. And they’re not just retirees, he says, noting the high quality of public schools is appealing to families. “They don’t need to go to a private school [here].”
During the pandemic, he fielded many calls from people wanting to move their businesses to the county – or open new ones – in a mix of retail, commercial and manufacturing.
Will this longing for small-town life continue? For Perkins, her return trips to Chicagoland reinforce her decision to move. “It’s just a simpler life,” she says. “Why wouldn’t you want to be on a lake in a little resort town?”
A Lakeside Revival
EVERY SMALL TOWN needs a developer to champion its comeback. In the summer, Chicago real estate developer Matt Rogatz now lives in Green Lake (pop. 965) with his family in a house he bought in the spring of 2022. But until he heard about a local hotel for sale and embarked on its renovation, he had never been to the community.
“It was like a ‘Schitt’s Creek’ hotel – run down a little bit, but still OK,” he recalls about Green Lake Inn. Last summer, he welcomed his first guests, targeting fishermen, golfers, corporate team-building retreats and families. Rogatz is also fixing up Green Lake’s 45,000-square-foot former jail for a cosmetology school and catering company. On top of that, he bought Goose Blind, a restaurant in a building dating back to 1891, and opened a day spa and cafe in town. “I’m trying to create my vision of a year-round community,” Rogatz says.
