Door County Living

17/07/2024

The cover story from our early summer edition takes you to one of the most fascinating rooms on the peninsula – Shadowcliff.

I walked to the window and inched as close as I could to the glass without touching it, staring straight ahead for a moment, seeing no floor in front of me and no walls in my periphery. Just sky and water. Floating. I could hold myself there, at the edge of the floor-to-ceiling window 150 […]

07/06/2024

On Dec. 30, 2022, Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy bought Maxwelton Braes golf course from Jim Bresnahan. Though many residents had feared the course would sell for development along the southern entrance to Baileys Harbor on Highway 57, Murphy made it clear that his intention is simply to maintain and improve the golf course.

That’s a welcome relief, considering that just eight years ago, Bresnahan bought the historical links from Baylake Bank after the Baileys Harbor course lingered for five years in foreclosure.

The turnaround in the fortunes of the game isn’t just seen at Maxwelton. Golf is thriving throughout Door County and drawing investors and lovers of the game to its courses.

When Randy Abrahams bought Alpine Golf Course in 2021, he focused on the golf experience first, renovating the clubhouse, and investing heavily in new equipment and employing a maintenance routine that has the greens rolling as well as or better than they have in 15 years. This after the course was closed in 2020 and the property up for sale.

On Dec. 30, 2022, Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy bought Maxwelton Braes golf course from Jim Bresnahan. Though many residents had feared the course would sell for development along the southern entrance to Baileys Harbor on Highway 57, Murphy made it clear that his intention is simply to ma...

29/05/2024

Occupying a little more than three acres of trees and meadows just outside Sister Bay, Thyme Restaurant; its sister wine bar, Twelve Eleven; and an oversized Quonset hut catering hall are the culmination of a decades-long journey home for two of the peninsula’s hardest-working restaurateurs.

Although Thyme opened in 2021 in this location on Highway 57 just south of Sister Bay, owners Karl Bradley and his wife, Tonda Gagliardo, have been working in Door County’s food and wine industry for 28 years. Their tenure began at the late Mission Grille, which they helped to develop into one of the county’s early fine-dining spots during the late 1990s.

Bradley has been working in the kitchen since he was 16, but Thyme is the first restaurant kitchen he has owned.

“It’s great not leasing or renting from somebody – being able to take out a wall or add something, and not having to get permission,” he said.

Occupying a little more than three acres of trees and meadows just outside Sister Bay, Thyme Restaurant; its sister wine bar, Twelve Eleven; and an oversized Quonset hut catering hall are the culmination of a decades-long journey home for two of the peninsula’s hardest-working restaurateurs. Altho...

16/11/2023

Conserving Door County gives us more than beautiful vistas. Catch an encore presenation of Ridge and Swale on the big screen at Door Community Auditorium on Saturday, Nov. 18 at 2 pm and learn why we're drawn to our natural spaces more than ever.

17/05/2023

22/11/2022

Thank you Door County Living magazine and Grace Johnson! We had such a great conversation and I am gleeful to see my shout outs to my Sturgeon Bay teachers, especially Dee Paulson and Gretchen Montee, and my gratitude for Write On, Door County, made it in the story! And thank you as always Black Lawrence Press.

29/09/2021

The hoodie.

Simple. Versatile. Essential. How many Door County evenings have been made better by its presence? How many have been ruined by its absence?

This article appeared in the Autumn 2021 edition of Door County Living magazine. The hoodie.  Simple. Versatile. Essential. How many Door County evenings have been made better by its presence? How many have been ruined by its absence?  In early spring, I jump the gun, shedding the thick layers of ...

12/11/2020

How a city couple found their way to a farm in one of the most remote places in Wisconsin.

For Russell and Alessandra Rolffs, life on the farm on Washington Island started as a one-summer deal: a no-obligation taste of a simmering idea of combining agriculture with education. But once they got their hands dirty, it became harder to pry them out of the soil. They were recruited to the isla...

11/11/2020

Just south of Baileys Harbor is a small stretch of road that’s much like the Door peninsula itself: not on the way to anything — a destination unto itself. The dead-end road is tree lined and quiet, and walking there feels like stepping into a fairy tale.

Just south of Baileys Harbor is a small stretch of road that’s much like the Door peninsula itself: not on the way to anything — a destination unto itself. The dead-end road is tree lined and quiet, and walking there feels like stepping into a fairy tale. What makes this road so unusual are the ...

01/04/2020

A good reminder now, when you can't do much, but you can still get out and experience the wonders of Door County's natural world. Watch and get inspired with this video from Peninsula Filmworks.

Experience Door County through the eyes of locals in this ongoing series of "Our Door County" videos. This episode, It's All Natural, explores Door County's ...

02/03/2020

A throwback to an article from 2007 that remains relevant today. How does a community celebrate itself without exploiting itself?

(User tip: don't answer without reading :).

It’s a dilemma every tourism destination must confront at some point and one Door County is grappling with now. You need to attract visitors to drive your economy, to provide the economic lifeblood that allows you to live in a place you love. But those visitors and the growth that accompanies them...

06/02/2020

"People talk a lot about what constitutes Door County character. They look for it in buildings. They find it on rural roads and shoreline strolls. But nowhere was it encapsulated better than in the man known only as Digger." - Myles Dannhausen Jr., on the late Digger DeGroot.

People talk a lot about what constitutes Door County character. They look for it in buildings. They find it on rural roads and shoreline strolls. But nowhere was it encapsulated better than in the man known only as Digger.  Digger was a man of another time in Fish Creek – a time when people didn....

29/01/2020

This guy is giving a talk on surfing the waters of the peninsula tonight at the Kress Pavilion. It's going to be cool, but if you can't make it, read this! If you can, RSVP here: http://doorcountylibrary.org/node/1415

Ryan Heise discovered surfing when he lived in Florida, and wasn’t going to let a move far from the ocean stop him from finding waves.

01/12/2019

Meet Nick Dumas, who will play at the White Gull Inn with Special Consensus Dec. 3 and 4.

Nick Dumas found his match in Sturgeon Bay In a musical genre built on tales of loneliness, loves lost and the pain of change, it makes sense that, despite its successes, the bluegrass band Special Consensus would pen the title track of its 18th album, Long I Ride, to lament the fruitless efforts of...

24/11/2019

Fish Creek’s Cottage Row is among the few roads in Door County where it feels as if the clock stopped a generation or two ago.

Fish Creek’s Cottage Row is among the few roads in Door County where it feels as if the clock stopped a generation or two ago, and we all get to watch from the road above the water. The narrow street’s thick canopy covers historic stone fences and old cottages that many of Wisconsin’s wealthie...

19/11/2019

If you've bellied up at the Bayside Tavern, you've probably asked yourself who Coony Fish was. We went searching for the answer.

The photo has become a local legend, but the man who took it sometimes wishes he never had.  It’s hard to miss Harold “Coony” Fish when you visit the Bayside Tavern in Fish Creek. His angry eyes keep watch on the tavern’s comings and goings every day, his face almost entirely covered by a t...

19/11/2019

In 1967, when Don and Jane Wienke moved to a farmstead on Highway S between Algoma and Sturgeon Bay, they not only found an idyllic setting, but started a business that would become a staple for lovers of Door County products.

In 1967, when Don and Jane Wienke moved to a farmstead on Highway S between Algoma and Sturgeon Bay, they not only found an idyllic setting in which to raise a family that would eventually include four children, but they also nurtured a garden that produced more fruits and vegetables than their fami...

14/11/2019

For some it's an office in a basement. For Norb Blei it was a chicken coop. For Jeff Pearlman it's a bustling coffee shop. Alyssa Skiba talks to writers about where they find their writing groove.

Ben Franklin did it in the bathtub. Toni Morrison in a motel room. Stephen King on a table between the washer and dryer. Where authors go to access their creativity often begins with their physical space. Whether it’s a bustling coffee shop or a secluded study, the end game for writers is the same...