By Anne Morrissy | Photo © Camp Wandawega
Summer camp nostalgia runs deep: a longing for a time of newly discovered independence, relationships forged in the crucible of Capture the Flag and stories swapped around campfires. If you were lucky enough to attend summer camp as a kid, you know that a part of you will always carry the experience with you. And if you weren’t one of the lucky ones who went to summer camp as a kid, fear not: it’s never too late.
Nestled on a petite and picturesque lake in southeastern Wisconsin, you’ll find Camp Wandawega. The 25-acre summer camp is one of the most authentic, vintage camp experiences you’ll find as an adult, with lodging options that range from A-frame platform tents to geodesic domes to rustic lodge accommodations. In an era where other camps that cater to adults are full of luxury yurts and glamping amenities like climate control, mini bars and dedicated spa services, Camp Wandawega is proudly bare bones. (All potential visitors are sent a copy of the camp’s “Manifesto of Low Expectations,” which explains, among other things, how they have “banned the word ‘glamping’ here because there’s no glamour in a century-old, primitive lake resort.”) And to read the guest reviews, the camp’s visitors wouldn’t have it any other way.
Camp Wandawega is the passion project of husband-and-wife owners David Hernandez and Tereasa Surratt. The couple bought the camp more than 20 years ago when it was decommissioned and offered for sale by the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, an order of Chicago-based Latvian Catholic priests who had used the property as a spiritual retreat and de facto summer camp since 1961. Hernandez had deep ties to the camp — he had first visited Camp Wandawega as a young boy in this Latvian Catholic community in the 1970s.
In fact, the property itself dated back to the 1920s, when it was originally built as a rustic lake resort that marketed itself to working- and middle-class Chicagoans who wanted “good fishing, [a] wonderful swimming beach… a real golf course… dancing every night… [and] plenty of airy rooms overlooking the lake,” according to an early ad. By the time the Catholic Church put the camp up for sale in the early 2000s, a handful of buildings on the property were still standing from these earliest days, and others had been added over the decades to accommodate the camp’s subsequent uses.
Hernandez and Surratt drove up from Chicago to look at Camp Wandawega with an eye toward purchasing it. By that time, the camp had seen better days. “It was really dilapidated,” Surratt explains. “Many of the buildings were missing windows, there were caved-in roofs, there were junked cars on blocks on the tennis court. The whole property — all 25 acres of it — was not just neglected, but heavily abused. It was a rough place. We didn’t even know at the time what we were getting ourselves into.”
Surratt and Hernandez bought the camp in 2004 and spent several years just clearing out all the trash and securing the buildings, trying to bring everything to acceptable safety standards. “It was a massive undertaking,” Surratt explains. “The truth is, we did not have a master plan. We just started tackling it. First, getting it safe and securing it. Uncovering it from under the rubble. And then we slowly started to piece it back together.”
Luckily, the couple was perhaps uniquely suited to the work of piecing Camp Wandawega back together, restoring it to a state as close to its mid-century heyday as they could approximate in the 21st century. Both Surratt and Hernandez worked in high-powered creative jobs in the advertising industry in Chicago, and counted among their hobbies a shared love of history and commitment to historic preservation. Camp Wandawega and its 25 acres could easily have been sold and subdivided for upscale housing, but instead, Surratt and Hernandez embraced a restoration of the camp. They focused on a lo-fi, authentic experience, which they starting offering on Airbnb as a kind of “summer camp for grownups.” It turned out to be a hugely popular idea.
As bookings filled up, Surratt and Hernandez began brainstorming ways to add capacity to Camp Wandawega in a way that felt natural and authentic to its history. They started sourcing mid-century camp buildings from around the area that they felt would blend organically into the Camp Wandawega’s rustic look. “We have been able to expand it considerably and add lots of buildings,” Surratt explains. “We consider ourselves the current stewards of Camp Wandawega, and our mission is to expand, not for the sake of monetizing it, but for saving it for the future.”
Today, there are multiple tents, cabins and indoor accommodations available to rent at various points throughout the season (generally May through October, weather depending). Some of the camp’s original structures include the Lodge, which features a few bedrooms available to rent, in addition to the dining area, game room and other common spaces. Then there’s the Bunkhouse, which served as the original rooming house on the property, and can be rented as a whole building (it sleeps up to 24 people) or can be rented per floor.
Farther out on the property, there are the Girl Scout cabins (rescued from a nearby camp on a neighboring lake), the Hickory Tent (a platformed, canvas tent situated deep in the woods) and the Rustic Camping Cluster, an assemblage of smaller tents, cabins and structures that can collectively sleep up to 10 people.
The appeal of Camp Wandawega turned out to extend beyond just individual visitors to larger creative retreats as well: today around 50% of Camp Wandawega’s bookings come from creative companies, national brands and other groups looking to maximize their stay at Camp Wandawega for things like TV and movie shoots, catalog shoots, team building events and artists’ retreats. “Having that collection of architectural styles, periods and buildings has enabled us to have a range of offerings that then attracted the film industry, movies, TV and brand print campaigns,” Surratt explains.
But don’t worry: there are still dates released on Airbnb for small groups and individual visitors to experience the magic that is Camp Wandawega. If you’re interested in booking a stay, be ready to act fast! Surratt says the slots book up almost as soon as they are released and for the busiest times of year, camp is often fully booked up to a year in advance. The best way to learn about upcoming booking releases is to sign up for Camp Wandawega’s newsletter, which also includes info on new products, collaborations and other ventures Surratt and Hernandez have in the works. (The latest is a brick-and- mortar store in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood called “The Tourism Bureau.”)
Now, more than 20 years after they first bought Camp Wandawega, Surratt says their passion project has far exceeded their initial dreams for it. “It started with a desire for preservation and storytelling,” she explains. “We’re a nontraditional model, and we’ve found that this is an incredibly fun way to share the story of this camp.”
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