Last year, the Brainerd, Minn., resort saw damage to 20 buildings and more than 200 trees were downed following a destructive storm. After undergoing $13 million in renovations, the property will reopen this spring, with 85 new guest rooms and updated amenities.
Madden’s on Gull Lake in Brainerd, Minn., is reopening this spring after a destructive storm and $13 million in renovations, the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune reported.
On July 12, 2015, a series of microbursts pummeled Gull Lake, especially focusing on Steamboat Bay, home to Madden’s and Cragun’s Resort on Gull Lake. Guests were evacuated to shelters, and resorts were closed. No one was killed, but property damage to the resorts was substantial. Twenty buildings were damaged and more than 200 trees were downed on Madden’s property, which spans more than 1,000 acres, including golf courses, tennis courts, a marina and several restaurants, the News Tribune reported.
“We were blessed that no one was hurt,” said Abbey Pieper, the resort’s vice president and a third-generation family member of the resort, which her grandfather, Jim Madden, his brother, Jack, and their uncle, Tom, bought in 1936. When the storm hit, Pieper had just sat down for her birthday dinner across the bay from the resort with her two sons and an exchange student. “We just hunkered down until the storms passed. There was nothing we could do.”
Pieper said there was no question the resort would rebuild. “We got our core staff together and said, ‘What’s it gonna take? How long is it gonna take?’ Everyone was very cooperative.”
It wasn’t the first time destruction had beset Madden’s, which steadily grew from humble beginnings by expanding and buying neighboring resorts and lands. In 1964, a fire destroyed the golf complex at the resort’s Pine Beach Golf Course. The disaster gave the Maddens cause to rebuild, resulting in a superior facility, the News Tribune reported.
Jim Madden would later recall: “It may have been the best thing that has happened to us.”
Similarly, Pieper said there was opportunity following last summer’s storm damage. “There’s certainly a silver lining, to be sure,” she said. “The opportunity is that we’ve got 85 new guest rooms.”
The resort normally reinvests about $1.2 million a year, and Pieper said you can get a lot more done with $13 million, the News Tribune reported.
With golf, a spa, “day camp”-style child care for kids and a full suite of amenities, Madden’s is hardly a northwoods outpost with nothing to do but fish, the News Tribune reported.
“Everyone knows that we’re in lakes country, and we’re known for the great walleye,” Pieper said, noting that her father, current owner Brian Thuringer, is a fly fisherman and is wired into a network of area guides available for guests.
But the resort has never been big on promoting Gull Lake’s fishing. When Jack Madden ran the place, that was by design. Madden was fond of saying, “Fishing is one of the few things we can’t guarantee.”
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