Little Gems
Uptown Motors. Will Wilkening has opened his automotive and recreational equipment repair operation in Elkhorn, after closing up shop in Lake Geneva. The Automotive Guru is no more, except for the fact that Will really is the Guru, and is brilliantly capable in diagnosing and fixing engines, and other mechanical stuff. He is such a perfectionist that several people have experienced long wait times, and that doesn’t do much for keeping an even revenue stream rolling in. Will is all over that problem, and now plans to employ more assistance to follow up on the jobs he undertakes. He’s also particularly good at working on outboard motors, a pursuit that’s sought after by so many boaters as the boating season is set to begin.
Rumor mill. Panera is still coming to town, but the details are not worked out. That likely coming partnership is being hashed out at Inland Properties, where the retail spaces Nine West (the shoe store) and Caribou (the former coffee shop) used to be. The distillery, coming in across the street, is still percolating away. The company that bought the Bagel Boat Yard is still planning on opening this summer with a custom small distillery where they can serve their own product without a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar liquor license. More rumors. No additional bakery is coming. Apparently, one was coming to Main Street, but when they went to apply for a business license from the building inspector approval was denied by the temporary building inspector, who told them that there were already too many bakeries in town. Those potential renters pulled out of their lease and moved on. Supposedly, the two wonderful women who run the Thai restaurant in Walworth want to come to Lake Geneva to open up a second restaurant (their food is cheap and quite wonderful). The people who own the Tempura House are thinking of retiring. Those entities may mesh and hammer out a deal.
Stone Manor. There are three livable levels in the manor. Each floor has approximately twelve thousand square feet of living space. The first floor is owned by Tina Trahan, the wealthy and sharp business woman from Hollywood, Santa Monica and Elmhurst, Illinois. She paid six million for the first floor and is currently redecorating that place. It will be classier than ever if Tina’s talents equivalently extend to interior design. The second floor is broken into two halves. Wealthy couples live in both sides of that floor. The top floor of Stone Manor was owned by Mike and Kathleen Kocourek before they sold out last week to Tina for two and half million, and change. Fortunately, Tina is quite a caring person, so it’s likely that the appearance of the structure is going to improve, inside and out. Most people don’t know that there’s an easement running east and west, up and down the southern exposure of the property. It’s ten feet wide and allows for two vehicles to be parked down by a pier that sits at the end of the easement. That strange easement’s been there since 1896 and is seldom used by anyone. There’s also a big tunnel that runs from the main building of the manor up and under South Lake Shore Drive. It was put in when the manor owned the adjacent property across that road. In winter or bad weather the owner of Stone Manor could attend to the horses at the huge stables that once stood on the eastern side of the road. Today that property, sold off years ago, has condominiums and apartments on it. Both ends of the tunnel are still there, but sealed over. The tunnel itself remains in unknown condition since nobody’s been down there for sixty years, or more.
GSR Reporter “Hiding” at Stone Manor
GSR reporter successfully hides behind bushes in pursuit of a story at Stone Manor.
