Background for those that don't know! The cottage was built the winter of 1924 - 1925 by Ray & Edith Greenwood. They gave the cottage to 2 of their children, David and Barbara, as a wedding present - 1/2 to each. Later, David and his wife Jane, bought out Barbara & her husband. My husband, Tom, met the Greenwoods when he was a teen and I met them after we were married. Tom and I took over maintenance of the cottage about 1977 after Jane lost her husband. Tom & I bought the cottage from Jane in September 2001. Unfortunately, Tom never got to spend a summer there when we owned it due to his death in November 2001.

In the summer of 2014 I began to think about what was to become of the cottage. I staying all summer at the lake and found that while for a few weeks it was fun to be "campy", after awhile it got a bit tiresome. In addition, there was more and more upkeep: a new well pump was installed, and the bathroom roof leaked. I knew the septic was eventually going to be a problem, and I was getting tired of finding big black spiders in my bathtub every morning. To say nothing of the hatch of queen carpenter ants every few years. And finally I realized that "they" lied to me and that birthdays don't go backwards and you don't grow younger after 50...

So I invited Paul Lundy, a well respected builder who lives on the Lakes, to come and take a look at my cottage and give me some advice. In addition, I met with the zoning administrator, to find out what I could legally do. This turned out to be not much since the cottage was within 35' of the lake. The bottom line was I decided to build a new house, higher up on the hill and build it so the main floor would be a zero step walk-in from the garage.

This decision was not easy. I have many treasured memories tied to the old Greenwood cottage. The many hours Tom and I shared with Jane Greenwood and family on the porch overlooking the lake or in front of the fire are some of my favorite memories.

I got busy the winter of 2015 and prepared my house in Wisconsin Rapids to put on the market. It successfully sold in July of 2015. I also announced to the Greenwood clan that the cottage was going to go and they were all invited for a last visit. I was delighted to have many accept the invite and had a wonderful summer full of Greenwood visitors; Jane's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I thoroughly enjoyed their company.

Thus began the process of building a new house.