Our Place

Stone Manor.
As the largest single structure on Geneva Lake begins to evolve into what it’s going to be, Tina Trahan is now receiving her personal mail there. She recently spent $6 million for the purchase of the ground floor of the manor. Trahan recently spent $7.1 million for a home in Santa Monica along with her place on the lake in Evanston. What does that portend? It tells the GSR staff that the rumors coming out of the Dawes House, near where Tina’s place in Evanston is located, that Tina is unhappy with her neighbors in that coastal Illinois city quite probably have some validity. Tina may hopefully discover that, by passing through the Southern Wisconsin cultural filter, that the Illinois residents up around Lake Geneva are quite a bit warmer, friendlier and life there is slower. That last word should not be taken out of context.

First Snow from Stone Manor 3rd floor Lake Geneva

Christmas comes along with deeper winter, as seen from the third floor window of Lake Geneva’s Stone Manor

 

Footloose.
Kevin Bacon starred in the movie about a community that had little interest in having anyone (particularly young people), get together to dance and enjoy music. The film Dirty Dancing; starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray, had a bit of the same theme. In our part of the world, Richard and Virginia Travis are ballroom dance instructors who’ve performed on cruise and expeditions ships, nightclubs and hotel ballrooms worldwide, and now share their expertise here. Both are former students of the Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire dance studios, and now they instruct for the Elkhorn Recreation Department, as well as once a month they sponsor a ‘Date Night’. This month ‘Date Night’ is on December 10, 7-10 PM, at the Elkhorn Recreation Department on Devondorf Street, in downtown Elkhorn. This event is something to behold, inexpensive (six dollars per person), and a grand place to meet other people interested in getting out and about in a world where the Internet, social media and television seem to be keeping so many people inside and alone.

A shovel full of what?
It’s winter in Lake Geneva. You can tell because the most popular color everywhere is white. The first snowfall came and left about half a foot of soft and wonderfully clean white snow. The shop owners up and down the main streets of downtown Lake Geneva still have to dig themselves out. If they get to it in time, then they can throw the snow into the street and the city will come by and pick it up. If they are late in the morning at getting to the task, well, too bad. Eat or pound snow. They are not allowed to throw the snow in the street once the city has picked up. Why do they have to shovel at all? Because the City of Lake Geneva pays lip service to really caring about their survival through the winter months. What other reasons could there be? The cost of plowing the sidewalks would add about twenty percent a year to the city’s budget. Twenty percent (20%)of what the job to re-sod the Riviera Park cost this last summer!

Come on! And the city gets the revenue from fining the businesses that don’t shovel in time. This nicely timed installation of video cameras, with feeds piped directly into city call, should be a new and ideal way to see who has shoveled in time, and who gets to be fined. Money is a big motivator and Lake Geneva is voracious in its pursuit of fee revenue, if you haven’t noticed.

Featured Photo from Keefe Real Estate Blog

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