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A future in offering the past

Little town offers a return to a simpler, more personable way of life

KEWAUNEE – This tiny Lake  Michigan  community harbors ambitions to graduate from pit stop to hot spot.
     Newcomers determined to improve fortunes in this Wisconsin community about 25 miles east of Green bay, population 2,800 are sprucing up the long-suffering downtown, lonely waterfront warehouse district and hilltop smattering of stately old homes.
     Their goal: refashioning a 19th-century fishing settlement from a “gas station here” mark on  motorist maps to an artists’ colony that draws tourist dollars away from glamorous northern neighbor Door County — without its heady growth.
     Going back is their future.
     “Instead of building new, we want to put historic buildings back in use so you can walk wherever you want to go. People who have had to drive everywhere will appreciate that,” said Diane Kemp, a Chicago-based landscape architect with a Kewaunee vacation home.
     Kemp, her husband Kevin and his mother Ann have purchases and rehabbed nearly a dozen downtown properties in the past two years under the corporate name Kewaunee Renaissance Co.
     The result: 10- new or expanded businesses, from Simply Sweet German bakery and Get Your Fix Internet Café to Alpha Nouveau Décor and the Kewaunee Artists Gallery, celebrated a joint grand opening this summer.
     Changes surfaced just as John and Connie Rieben relocated here in January from Madison after leaving country-hopping university careers.
     “We fell in love with this place, but I was concerned a little bit about living in a small town,” said Connie Rieben. “Meeting the Kemps, seeing what they’re doing here with the arts — now I don’t want to move anymore.”
     John Rieben revels in their home’s over-the-treetops view of Lake Michigan and residents' friendliness.
     He worries, however, that his adopted hometown is doomed to be loved only part-time.
     “Get people to live here 12 months — that would be good,” he said. “Otherwise,  in time this will become just an extension of Door County.”

Wanting to be small

Diane Kemp said her family and its private investor allies are determined to prevent that from happening.
     “Kewaunee is small, with the zoning in place to keep it small,” she said. “We’re hoping it can grow, but keep the working-family character established by its farmers and fishermen.”
     Kewaunee Renaissance Co.’s latest venture is Hamachek Village, a proposed group of live-work spaces for artists and craftsmen in long-vacant shoreline factory buildings.
     Units would be 400 to 1,200 square feet and monthly rentals at $300 to $500 per month, Kemp said.
     The Kewaunee Artists, local independent organization, sponsored an online survey of 5,000 artists nationwide this spring that revealed a hankering for a place like this, she said.
     “Many were interested in coming here permanently,” Kemp said.
     This was music to the ears of Dick and Norma Bell, owners of Barnsite Art Studio & Gallery.
     The couple moved here from California seven years ago after an online realty search showed a barn for sale near Kewaunee’s north side harbor — a sight they found reminiscent of rustic Stonington, Conn.
     In that barn, the Bells created Kewaunee’s first live-work place, provided a high profile art venue and set the stage for property investors like the Kemps.
     People here are magnificent,” Dick Bell said, “and prices for homes are ridiculously low.”
     Kewaunee’s housing prices range from about $80,000 to $400,000, said Betty Bultman, partner with Tony Jeanquart at Town & Country Real Estate.
     Kewaunee County’s median sales price in this year’s second quarter was $108,000, compared with $203,600 in Door County, Wisconsin Realtors Association figures show.
     “Waterfront property here is about $1,000 a foot,” Bultman said. “As you get up toward Sturgeon Bay (in Door County), the price goes up to $7,000.”
     Being largely overlooked has helped preserve Kewaunee’s charms: “a quiet small town where you can still leave doors unlocked,” the realty agent said.
     Area businesses yearn for a higher profile, however.
     “Getting people to notice us and stop — that’s what we need,” said Nicky Friend, co-owner with husband John of Britannia Bed & Breakfast, on Highway 42 between Algoma and Kewaunee.
     To that end, they changed the B&B’s name to accentuate their English heritage and repainted their doors and shutters bright blue. Their “vacancy” sign still gets heavy use.
     “I’m not sure what else we do without chucking out those little things that puncture tires,” the innkeeper said.

Different future

     Early this decade, residents envisioned Kewaunee’s future as a small but nimble industrial center on the lake.
     “I think people understand that’s not going to happen,” Dick Bell said.
     Dominion Generation Co’s 560-megawatt lakeside nuclear power plant on Highway 42 about a mile south of Kewaunee, is a prime employer with a good safety record but apparently is not pivotal in local economic development.
     The 33-year-old station’s domed plant and massive wire and metal towers loom from the highway but aren’t noticeable from downtown Kewaunee.
     Some locals predicted a trade boost with the widening of Highway 57 to four lanes.
     “It may be as much a curse as blessing,” said Jack Novak, president of Novak Agency Inc., a real estate, insurance and investment firm in Kewaunee. “It gets very easy for people driving to Door County to get on the interstate and fly right through all these communities. But there are always people who take the scenic route and people attracted to the very low-stress living we have here.”
     Scenic spells “salvation” for Kewaunee, in Bell’s view.
     “I could see this area, if we manage things properly, as a summer center for the arts,” he said. “We’ve got the beauty, clean air and fresh gardens for it — and our only traffic is the three cars behind the hay truck while it’s moving from one field to another.”
     Newcomer Diane Hausman loves Kewaunee for what it is.
     “I’ve lived in Florida  and the (New York) Hamptons for decades, and here for two years. I’m telling you this is paradise,” Hausman said. “People here live the way I want to live — the ‘love thy neighbor’ way.”
     Now her sister, Floridian Lynn Minet, is shopping for a second home here.
     “Southern Florida is so inundated. It’s people on people,” Minet said. “This is a sweet harbor town. I don’t know if I could handle it year-round — it gets pretty rough here around January — but maybe (it’s) just what I need.”

Photos by Karen Sherlock

Close proximity to Lake Michigan and other waterways is one of Kewaunee's advantages.

Many Kewaunee residents, like the ones painting in an Academy of Fine Art workshop, would like to make the community of 2,800 people an artists’ colony.

“People here live the way I want to live — the ‘love the neighbor’ way.” -Diane Hausman (who bought a summer home with her husband in Kewaunee)