Property Record
15867 TREE FARM RD
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Camp Lake Resort |
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| Other Name: | Camp Lake Resort |
| Contributing: | |
| Reference Number: | 118799 |
| Location (Address): | 15867 TREE FARM RD |
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| County: | Oconto |
| City: | |
| Township/Village: | Riverview |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
| Town: | 32 |
| Range: | 16 |
| Direction: | E |
| Section: | 7 |
| Quarter Section: | |
| Quarter/Quarter Section: |
| Year Built: | 1948 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 2015 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | Rustic Style |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Stone - Unspecified |
| Architect: | Swanson, Wilmot |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| National Register Listing Date: | |
| State Register Listing Date: |
| Additional Information: | A 'site file' (Camp Lake Resort) exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. The site file also contains documentation and correspondence relating to Memorandum of Agreement stipulations as well as Determination of Eligibility documentation. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Historic Preservation-Public History. In the early decades of the twentieth century, as Wisconsin’s logging industry waned, many people surveyed the state’s seemingly worthless cutover lands with dismay. But Wilmot Swanson, a woodsman and trapper, saw an opportunity to create a rustic retreat, a whimsical fantasy world where the woods had been. Whether by design or serendipity, Swanson produced a charming work of folk art. Arriving in 1920, he cleared the remains of a defunct lumber camp and began building a home for himself and the first of several log tourist-cabins. (The A-frame cabin is a more recent addition to the complex.) He eventually turned to the medium of stone, using native rubble of various colors and shapes to create free-form architectural designs. To enhance the resort’s fairy-tale atmosphere, Swanson erected elfin gates and turnstiles, rock benches, and stone arches along paths that wandered over 127 acres. His masterpiece was the Gingerbread House, created in the early 1950s of native cobblestone. Looking like an illustration for the Brothers Grimm, the house begins with a foundation of “teardrops,” between which rise "blossoms" made of red and purple stones with concrete stems. Above the foundation, cobblestones jut out from the vertical plane, while rows of stone "gumdrops," fashioned from painted cobbles, accent the undulating roofline. Round windows with scalloped surrounds, a lancet doorway formed by bent tree limbs, and a lantern-like chimney add to the fantastical design. Above one window, the open wings of a bird in flight, sculpted in mortar and stone, form an awning, with the bird's head and beak functioning as a birdhouse. The Gingerbread House interior is a fantasy in wood. A knobby burl forms a chandelier, pine knots become picture frames, and tree roots hold up shelves. All across the country, resort developers put up rustic lodges and cabins made of cobblestone and knotty pine, but few showed the imagination evident in Swanson's elaborate creation. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |