Cook County’s oldest resort is up for sale. Actually, it has been on the market for some time, and rumors that the business already has been sold and off the market — which are untrue – have circulated through the county over the past few months. Owners Scott Harrison and Nancy Burns are now letting the public know the business is available to someone who is able to make that kind of purchase.
Dig deep; the price tag on the 50-plus-acre resort is $9.95 million.
With 43,000 square feet of finished space in the main lodge, the CliffHouse Townhomes, Poplar River condominiums, Sea Villa Town Homes and Log Homes, the historic resort offers 700 beds for guests, plus a ballroom, restaurant, swimming pool, small golf course and many more amenities. Last but not least, with the Poplar River flowing through the grounds into Lake Superior, there is some great fishing, rock skipping, or lake watching a stone’s throw from the lodge’s doorstep.
Famed architect Edward Lundie, who called for native white pine and area rock to be used in the Scandinavian structure, designed the main lodge.
C.A.A. Nelson, a local fisherman, logger and hunter, filed homestead for 160 acres at the mouth of Polar River in 1885. It must have been the best $12 he ever spent.
Nelson built a shanty, then a log home, fish house and dock in 1885. His wife and infant son joined him the next year, moving from Duluth.
The Nelsons’ nearest neighbor was 10 miles away. When new people came to the area (hunters, fishermen, mineral explorers, loggers, etc.) the Nelsons put them up at first in the hayloft of the barn. By 1893 the Nelsons had guests stay in the second story of their home. The “Lutzen House” was born.
Two fires in 1948 caused major damage to the resort. Fire destroyed the dormitory early in the year and then on Oct. 21, fire destroyed the main lodge. A new main lodge opened in 1949 but two years later it too was destroyed by fire. The lodge you see today was built using the Scandinavian designs of architect Edwin Lundie in 1951.
George Nelson Sr. and George Jr. began Lutsen ski hill after George Jr. returned from the Second World War where he was in the 10th Mountain Division Ski Troops, where he learned to downhill ski, and he convinced his father that Lutsen Mountains would make a great ski hill. The Nelson family sold the ski hill to Charlie Skinner in 1980. In the 1990s Charlie’s son, Charles, and son-in-law Tom Rider purchased the ski hill.
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