Around the 'hood

A “Parade of Homes” tour around the 2.5 mile circumference of Loveless Lake is a remarkable reflection of the sweep of the American Dream.

There’s a congregation of mobile homes at the western tip that leads to a bunch of tidy middle-class homes and humble cabins. That's where my little slice of someday heaven sits.

A bit further down, there's a curious stretch of blacktop, the length of about two football fields. It  begins and ends in front of a handful of really nice homes. While Chris and I get a tougher-than-Stairmaster work out each time we head down my bluff to Loveless Lake, these folks scored prime lots in the lowlands.

Sadly, the lake tour also seems like a dispiriting microcosm of the pre-recession boom times,  and the fallout when the bottom dropped out. The first time I visited, there were 13 properties on the market. Among those still listed are these gems:

This 3BR, 3BA was built in 2003. It’s listed for $450,000.

This 2BR, 1BA was built in 2002. Price: $199,900.

This lot is not on Loveless Lake – but has a view of it! -- brings up the land value rear at $19,500.

In the same way one hopes their alma mater turns out Nobel Prize winners and other brainiacs who will add lustre to their own humble degrees, I can only hope that these properties sell soon, and sell for their desired price -- no matter how optimistic that seems right now.

Cosmic meaning or coincidence?

This whole notion of a second home, a cabin, a place at the lake ... I never had much ambition for it. Which makes the fact that I bought a neglected slice of lakeside property in Wisconsin all the more bizarre.

But because I’m the type who likes to see cosmic meaning where others merely see coincidence, great things started flowing my way as the journey to Loveless unfolded.

• My friend Ramona phoned me up out of the blue (she had no idea about my wild hair) and asked me if I could use a canoe that belonged to her late husband -- and my very special mate -- William. (Did I ever!)
• Another friend, Ruth, called and offered up a pop-up trailer that had been growing mold at her Minnesota cabin and was in need of a new home. (Come on up to Loveless!)
• Chris came upon a brand new hand auger for $5. (Florida girl learns how to ice fish!)
• Neighbors set out a most excellent fire pit in their trash.

I try not to think too much about the whys and wherefores of this new adventure. In William's wise words, I just try to “be with it.”

Right now, we’re hoping some cosmic force will put a mini-van or truck (in their final life stages) in our path. Let's make a deal.

Archeological dig

The mind can't take in all the stuff inside the cabin at Loveless. If there were ever any treasures to be had, others carted them off long ago. We’ve been left with the Loveless Landfill (though we want to keep all of it out of the actual landfill, if we can.)

It's hard not to feel like we're on some archeological dig, in the way this New York Times piece talks about photos of what's been left behind at foreclosed homes.

I cycle through emotions like a dishwasher. It’s sad and depressing to pick through pieces of someone’s abandoned life. Then again, what the hell? Leaving food in the kitchen cabinet?

And beer, water in the refrigerator?

We also found coloring books, Fisher Price play sets, a dinosaur toy, child-sized sleeping bags and winter coats. We found an old notebook that was filled with a half dozen pages of game scores, a sketch of a Guns and Roses album cover, and notes between people coming and going.

“I left on Thursday about 7:00,” said one. “I left the door open and the fan on low. The dog still has food and water, but he might be out of food when you get back.”

And then: “P.S. I left a Weekly World newspaper for you… I was going to mow the grass before I left but the lawnmower won’t start.”

There once was a life here.

A woman curled her hair.

People sprawled on the sofa after a day on the pontoon.

Bit by bit, we’re creating new memories. No matter what unfolds, we’ll leave the place better than we found it.

Five funky things

Here are five funky things Chris and I have discovered since starting to clean up the property at Loveless Lake.

1 You can see a thin edge of shingles from inside the bedroom because, well, I’m not sure why. I think when they added the “master bedroom,” someone just knocked out the kitchen wall and tacked a room on.




2 There's no septic system on the property, and no outhouse. Yet there's a bathroom/throne inside the cabin. (I kept asking during the buying process whether there was a holding tank, and never got a straight answer.) One day, Chris tripped over a red garden hose down  by Loveless Lake. We followed it up the hill and into the house. Hmmm.




3 The hand-pump to the water well is ... in the basement. (A scary place I've yet to summon the nerve to visit.)

4 One of the healthiest trees on the property has grown smack dab against the window in the main living area. If I ever build a cabin here (first things first!), that tree likely won't survive. Breaks my heart.

5 Speaking of trees, this one sprouted inside the aluminum frame of a lawn chair. Wonder how many years that chair has been there undisturbed?

In the immortal words of R&B groove-master Lee Dorsey: "Everything I do gohn be funky, from now on." Check out the tune, and I bet you'll be funky, too.

Pop the champagne

We're pretty sure there's two feet of snow inside the cabin now -- what with a giant hole in the roof and that fresh-air picture window -- so we haven't been up to Loveless in a spell.


So let's reminisce about those early days...


On our maiden voyage (with title in hand), Chris and I bought a bottle of cheap champagne to christen the place. We slammed it on the deck, and busted one of the rotten boards.


Chris then threw it against the furnace with all his might. (Them bottles are thick!)


Finally, I just popped the damn thing.

We let out a few hoots and hollers, and got to work.


For me, a surprising thing happened. Not inner peace, exactly, but a deep calm. The cleanup job was so absolutely daunting that there was no need to rush or panic or do anything else but start pecking away at it.


After a few clean-up cruises, we took out out three TVs, a microwave and countless bags of glass, plastic and tin cans and hauled them back to the Twin Cities to recycle.


To the Polk County recycling center, we delivered 22 pounds of aluminum, for which they paid us $11.88. At the same time, we also dropped off two tires, which cost us $6.75. (Net gain: $5.13)

Our friend Mike came out and hauled away a good bit of the scrap we'd put in a pile.


Before Mike:

After Mike:

Happy Mike. And a little more love for Loveless.

With the cleanup before us, Chris and I made a few rules.


First, we would ALWAYS make time to play and enjoy the lake.

Actually, that's our only rule.

Genesis

This was our first view of the property at Loveless Lake.

A moldy runabout with a fern growing in the motor well, and a moss-covered pontoon with a rotted out deck. Both boats were strewn with beer cans and bottles.

We later learned that the boats started sinking, and one of the year-round residents pulled them out of the lake and dropped them by the side of the road. Years ago. The boat registration sticker on the pontoon: 2001.

Chris and I hacked our way down the hill, over toppled trees and brush so thick that there was no sign of the cabin until we were practically on top of it.

The real estate description didn’t lie: “Do not enter cabin. Unsafe. There is a tree on the house. Sold as is.”

Yes, it was a dump. Two lawnmowers, a snowmobile carcass, tires and barrels were just the most obvious pieces of left-over junk.  Nothing about the structure likely could be salvaged.

But, what a nice little lake, we thought. Pretty clean, too. We could see the bottom, even though it was late July.

We were on our way to visit friends on the South Shore of Lake Superior. We spent most of the trip thinking about what it would take to clean the property up, and how much I'd be willing to pay for it.

Loveless Lake: A love story?

Why on earth would a level-headed raised-in-the-South woman, with no mortgage and no debt, buy a long-abandoned lakefront property in Wisconsin smack dab into the worst housing market in modern America?

Can't really say. Other than one person's recession is another's opportunity.

Somehow, I just sense an opportunity. An affordable "get-away"? An investment that feels more tangible (and immediately rewarding) than my 401(k)? A healthy distraction from life's more mundane chores? The satisfaction of restoring an eyesore into a lovely piece of land -- without dumping into the landfill?


Ah hell, who knows.


So here I am, with my able partner-in-restoration, Chris, venturing into the great unknown.

I closed on the property Oct. 18, 2010. The purchase agreement was accepted in late August, but a number of hurdles needed to be cleared-- four years of unpaid taxes, an ex-girlfriend still listed on the title, a lien of nearly $6,000 on the property from an old lawsuit.


Whether by poetry, fate or just good literary luck, the property sits on, yes, Loveless Lake.

Chris notes, it's the UPPER West Side.


It has been a great adventure already. But while I'm lovin' every second of our mission -- to bring the love back to Loveless -- there's something deeply sad about walking into a life abandoned.


This was once a place of promise and freedom for the guy I bought it from. Where was the tipping point? When did life get so complicated, the debt so suffocating, that it was easier to walk away?

I'm going to use this blog to "process" (as Chris would say) the range of emotions I have about this place we simply call, "Loveless," and our work restoring it.


Thus, I join the legions of Americans in the look-at-me, social-media generation, and aim to document the biggest project (other than raising Labs and surviving Minnesota winters) I've ever undertaken.