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So, you’re on your way home from “Down the Shore” and you get hungry and thirsty after passing Two Harbors. Being new to the area, you consult your map program. Voila: it recommends the Beaver Bay Club, located right behind the Green Door muni bar and liquor store on Highway 61. Wrong!!
You got an address on Club Road showing bar/grill with 5-99 employees. Wrong!! What you happened into was the 95-year-old Beaver Bay Club, a less expensive but perhaps more exclusive cousin of the Encampment Forest Association, a summer retreat for the well-to-do, and the subject of two prior columns here. Learning about this Club is even harder than we expected. (There is also a Beaver Bay Club in Hillman, Minnesota; I know even less about that.)
The only news article about our Beaver Bay Club was the report of a lawsuit over a dying fish house on the Club property. In a 2013 article, updated November 17, 2015, the Associated Press reports on the pending trial between the occupants of the 1898 fish house and the Club. The Duluth News Tribune reported:
“No one has ever complained, including the Beaver Bay Club, which is taking us to court, and no one has ever contested the fish house being there until now,” [the occupant] said. In a statement Wednesday, the Club said it’s not seeking removal or destruction of the structure, which it termed a boathouse. The statement said the club has offered lease terms to the Andersons and still hopes the two sides can work out an agreement. “The Club understands and respects the historic significance of the boathouse,” the statement said.”
[A nearby resident said] “… she would like to see the building preserved and is upset that someone wants to tear it down. ‘It’s a Beaver Bay landmark,’ she said.”
An agreement was reached in 2013 for a five-year lease, subject to a five-year extension at the discretion of the Club. The lessees planned to restore the 1898 building. A petition drive in 2013 involving a Minnesota legislator sought to make the building’s easement permanent. Grant a permanent easement for the Beaver Bay Fish House.
The same AP article noted “the Beaver Bay Club was founded in 1926 by 15 people who originally pitched in $1,000 each for the abandoned logging camp land. The property today includes cabins and a lodge by Lake Superior.”
Our “Where’s Waldo” search did yield four items of note. First, the Visitors’ Bureau says, “Beaver Bay was established in 1856, two years before Minnesota became a state and shortly after the La Pointe Treaty of 1854 in which the Ojibwe bands ceded the Minnesota shoreline of Lake Superior to the United States.” The Bay was the first white settlement on the North Shore. The town served as the Lake County seat for 20 years, until 1886, when it was replaced by the growing Two Harbors. We who wonder while wandering already knew the rest: Split Rock Lighthouse State Park is just four miles away while Gooseberry Falls State Park is 12 miles from town. These are the two busiest parks on the Minnesota shore. Tettegouche State Park, with breathtaking Palisade Head and Shovel Point, is about seven miles away…. Trails are among the major attractions, including the Superior Hiking Trail and the Gitchi-Gami State Trail for bikes, both with local trailheads.”
Second, Zillow had several listings of modest properties that had been sold for unnamed prices. All were less than 1000 square feet. I suppose Lake County property tax records might reveal how much you might have to pay to join the Club. Those listings do not mention having to get approval for purchase from the Club, but who bets against that?
The third internet find was the Secretary of State’s listing for the Club. Minnesota says, “Beaver Bay Club is a Minnesota Non-Profit Corporation (Domestic) filed On May 12, 1920. The company›s filing status is listed as Active, and its File Number is 2108-NP. Click that file number link and get to a fee-based search agency. The Registered Agent on file for this company is (Optional) None Provided and is located at C/O Maristem 601 Carlson Parkway #800, Minnetonka, MN 55305.”
A search for the building directory was fruitless but revealed that Suite 800 is for rent with some 10,000 square feet in one of the Class A office towers you see at the junction I-494 and I-394. I suppose an enterprising investigator could search the Secretary of State’s public records to find the name of the attorney who filed the Club’s papers.
Our last discovery was the product of googling” Meristem.” Now on the 14th floor of their building, Meristem Family Wealth, LLC has 40+ employees in Minnetonka, Sioux Falls, Naples, Florida, and Phoenix. Founded in 1999, it manages the $4+ billion of assets owned by 200 families. In 2016, an investor group led by Richard Schulze, former Best Buy CEO, bought 25 percent of the LLC’s stock. One infers that Meristem includes at least one family’s wealth that includes a place in the Beaver Bay Club. (I know of no relationship between Meristem Family Wealth and a Nigerian company also called Meristem.)
An attempt to visit the Club at its internet listed address was met by many “private property” and “No Trespassing” signs. We asked a polite, older couple who told us “Nothing here.” As we drove back on Club Road, we noted one property with the name “Morrison.” My bet is the Morrison there is part of the clan that created large Minneapolis banks and not the Morrisons who lived at Chippewa City. I could be wrong. As Dylan noted, “The times they are a-changing.”
Steve Aldrich is a retired Hennepin County lawyer, mediator, and Judge, serving from 1997-2010. He and his wife moved here in 2016. He likes to remember that he was a Minnesota Super Lawyer before being elected to the bench. Now he is among the most vulnerable to viruses but fully vaccinated. Steve really enjoys doing weddings, the one thing a retired judge can do without appointment by the Chief Justice. He officiated at a well-masked wedding this year where the “congregation” was in Grand Marais, Norway, and White Bear Lake.
Copyright Stephen C. Aldrich and News-Herald, 2021.
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