Mark Harrison had originally bought the tiny fishing resort on Beebe Lake so he'd have a way to make an income while enjoying nature instead of fighting the traffic in St. Paul every day. He was an engineer by education and occupation, a fisherman by choice, and for the last six months, he'd spent most of his free time with Denise. It was after Denise he realized that of the three, he preferred fishing over the other two.
His job was OK, except for fighting the traffic every day and paying the outrageous parking fees downtown. As that job went on, year after year, Mark figured out another hard fact. Engineers for the most part were imprisoned in a six-foot square cubicle and did the same thing every day.
When he met Denise he thought she was fantastic. She was a pretty blonde with a great figure and a personality that was a compliment to his. Mark was a pretty quiet guy with a very analytical mind. Denise was spontaneous and not afraid to say what she thought. That personality fit very well with her job. She was a saleswoman for the same company, and that's how they'd met.
It had lasted six months, six months of Mark sleeping with Denise every weekend and a month of wondering why she'd picked him. At the end of that month he found out from another engineer on Thursday afternoon that Denise was sort of a hunter and once she'd made a catch, moved on to the next hunt.
They'd been careful to keep their relationship a secret, so he was surprised when a younger engineer asked him what he thought of Denise. Mark had just shrugged.
"She looks pretty good and she's apparently pretty smart. Why?"
The younger engineer grinned.
"I met her for a drink last Wednesday night to explain the product I'm working on. We had a couple drinks and then I felt her hand on my leg. We ended up at her apartment. Her tits aren't all that big and she's about ten years older than I am, but she sure knows how to fuck. She wanted a third time that night, but I was wiped."
Mark hadn't said anything, but he knew he couldn't see Denise again. As it was, he didn't have to tell her that. She never spoke to him again. That was when he decided he was fed up with his life and needed to change.
He was in good financial shape since he was still single at the age of thirty-three, and he was renting an apartment so he didn't have anything tying him to St. Paul. He sat down one night and listed what he liked to do besides engineering and then wrote an analysis of that. His list was short. It just had "fixing things" and "fishing".
His analysis of those two things told him there were a lot of ways he could do both, but neither one would bring in any significant income. He gave up and started reading one of the fishing magazines he subscribed to.
He was half way through an article about a guy who'd rented a cabin on a lake for a week and had fished every day. It had cost the guy eight hundred dollars to rent the cabin and a boat, but he said it was worth it because of the fish he caught. It was then that Mark realized he couldn't get paid to fish, but he could make some money if he was the one renting out the cabin and the boat. He went to the internet and typed in "Minnesota fishing resorts for sale."
The first three listings on the first realtor's site he went to made him reconsider. All three listings looked great and were on Lake Mille Lacs. The asking price was also over two million and one was three million. There was no way that was going to work. He'd been able to save almost half his salary over the last ten years, mostly in the 401K that his company matched dollar for dollar, but that was still only a little less than four hundred thousand. It would take most of that just to make the down payment and he'd have nothing left to tide him over the first couple years if business didn't go well.
After looking for three hours, he finally found what he thought he could afford and the listing looked pretty good. It was a three-bedroom house with an attached lodge and six, two bedroom cabins on Beebe Lake just outside of Dalton, a tiny little town in Ottertail County. The lake was only sixty-nine acres, but according to the listing, the resort was the only thing on the lake. Mark called the realtor to get more information
The place wasn't actually a resort. It had been a resort in the seventies, but had been sold to a man and his wife who turned it into a weekend vacation home for their extended family. Those kids put the place up for sale after their parents died. They didn't want to keep paying the property taxes and upkeep on a place they were too busy or too far away to use.
The cabins were "housekeeping" cabins, meaning each had a refrigerator and a stove and cooking and eating utensils. Mark liked that idea too. At the large resorts, meals were included in the rental price. Having guests fix their own meals meant he wouldn't have to hire people to cook and to serve the food.
The place looked a little run down, but Mark figured it wouldn't cost a lot to fix the place. The asking price was half a million. The realtor said most resorts calculate rental fees by assuming a fifty- percent occupancy from the first of June until the last of August. Before June, the weather was too cold and it rained a lot. After August, kids went back to school and families stopped taking vacations.
That night, Mark did some calculations using those occupancy figures, some guesses about electricity costs and other costs, and how much he'd have to pay on a loan. The rental fee he came up with was about ten percent lower than similar resorts in that area of Minnesota and half what the large resorts charged. He'd still make enough money to pay the payments on the loan plus some profit. The next day he called the realtor and asked him when he could show Mark the property.
The place was in better shape than it looked in the listing. The cabins were pretty dusty inside, but just hadn't been painted in a while and the gravel drive back to the place from Minnesota 51 needed some more gravel. The realtor said the refrigerators would probably all need to be replaced, but the propane stoves and the small wood stoves used for heat would still work fine.
The dock in the lake was in good shape as were the six small boats and outboard motors that came with the resort. The resort sat on about eighty acres with almost a thousand feet of lake shore. The realtor said it wasn't likely any more development would take place around the lake because of the cost of building drives from the highway. He also said the place had been on the market for two years, so the owners would probably take considerably less than the asking price.
Mark offered four hundred thousand and they settled for four fifty. It took a down payment of fifty thousand from his 401K and then a month for Mark's loan application to be approved, but on the first of July, he quit his job, loaded everything in his apartment into a U-Haul truck, and drove to Beebe Lake.
Mark didn't expect to make any money at all until the next year. His plan was to use what was left of the warm weather to paint all the cabins inside and out and to have the gravel drive fixed. By the time the first snow fell, that was done and Mark had fished the lake enough to have some idea of what the fish population was like. After he'd named the resort, "Beebe Lake Family Camp", Mark started placing ads in fishing magazines. He figured he might need a liquor license so he applied for and got one.
He didn't expect to make a lot of money for at least the next two years either. Since the place hadn't been a resort for years, he'd have to do more than put a few cheap ads in a few fishing magazines. Those ads might bring in a few men who liked to fish, but Mark wanted to attract a younger crowd who had more money to spend and were willing to spend it on a vacation.
He had brochures printed with pictures of the newly painted cabins, the boat dock, and the inside of the lodge. He put those brochures in all the filling stations in Fergus Falls, Elizabeth, and Pelican Rapids. He also put some in each hotel in Fergus Falls. He also placed an ad with a few pictures in one of those, "what to do and see" booklets that were free in all the gas stations along I-94 from Chicago to Fergus Falls.
His brochure and ads painted a picture of a quiet setting close to nature with good fishing for bluegills, bass, northern pike, and walleye. He included pictures of some of the fish he'd caught as well as pictures of the shoreline he'd taken from one of the boats.
It was the first of May when he finally got a call about reservations. The caller was a woman and said her husband had seen the brochure for the resort when he was traveling through Fergus Falls on business and said it looked like just what they were looking for.
She first asked if what the brochure said was true, that there weren't any other houses or resorts on the lake. Mark said that was the case. The woman then asked what the temperature was like in July. Mark replied that it would be about eighty during the day and drop down to around sixty at night.
Mark thought it a little odd when she asked if he had any rules for people who stayed at the resort, but she sounded very interested so he said, "I don't allow drugs, of course, and if you get too loud, I'd probably ask you to keep it down. As long as it isn't against the law, you can do about whatever you want to do."
She then asked about pricing and if he offered group rates. Mark had to think about that. He'd looked at the financials and he'd set a weekly rate for each cabin. That rate would let him make a little profit as long as he had half the cabins rented for the months between June and September and two cabins rented from September through the hunting season in December. A thousand a week was a lot of money, but the big resorts charged upwards of a fifteen hundred a week and over two thousand if meals were included. Most resorts charged an extra fifty a day for a boat rental too.
He asked the woman how many cabins she'd need and had to think again when she said was calling on behalf of a club and that she'd need all six cabins for two weeks starting on the first of July. That would be over half the income he'd planned for. After some quick math, Mark told the woman he'd drop the price to nine hundred a week per cabin if she paid in advance for all six cabins for two weeks.
The woman then asked a couple questions about what else there was to do at the resort. Mark told her there was a sand beach next to the dock and a few walking trails through the woods that surrounded the lodge.
When he finished, the woman said her name was Sherry Michaels and then asked who she should make out the check to. A week later, he got the check for six thousand dollars made out to Beebe Lake Family Camp. A week later, the bank in Fergus Falls said the check had cleared. Mark spent the last week of June making sure all the cabins were spotless, there were clean sheets and pillowcases on the beds, and that the cooking utensils in each cabin where there and clean. He also made a trip to Fergus Falls for soft drinks and snacks along with a case of each of a few brands of beer, some local wines, and one bottle each of reasonably priced scotch, bourbon, gin, and vodka along with a few mixers.
On the first of July, Mark met Sherry and was surprised that she wasn't what she thought she'd be. On the phone, she sounded like she was pretty young. The woman who walked up and stuck out her hand looked to be at least in her forties. She also looked pretty sexy in her shorts and tank top. She smiled.
"Hi, I'm Sherry, the woman who made the reservation. The others will be along. We spent the night in St. Cloud and sort of got spread out on I-94. We'll decide on who gets which cabin when they get here. Why don't you show me around until then."
Mark had expected Sherry's husband to be with her but he wasn't, so he asked.
"Uh, Mrs. Michaels, on the phone you said your husband saw my brochure. Didn't he come with you?"
Sherry giggled.
"Well, we celebrated a little last night and he decided to sleep in a while longer. I came ahead because I made the reservation. Jack's coming with Abby and Joe."
Mark had just finished showing Sherry the little beach when five other cars pulled into the parking. Sherry grinned.
"Here they are. Let's go get them signed in so they can pick out a cabin."
