I have a proclivity towards jealousy when I read about other resort towns hosting festivals. Not festivals that involve small transportable tea cup rides or miniature Ferris wheels, rather the sort of festivals that Aspen seems to attract. On my relatively short list of things to do before I die (prematurely), (I hate the term “bucket list”), there is mention of attending the Food and Wine Festival in Aspen. This event is a mecca for foodies, and I’d really like to go there. Soon. My friends are largely unable financially to go, and when you consider that admission for this three day event is around $1100- just for access- you really can’t blame them. Even so, festivals of this sort are popping up all over the country, including recent attempts at food and wine style festivals at The American Club in Kohler. Heck, even a small creepy town in northern Michigan hosts an epicurean festival each summer, and I have long wanted Lake Geneva to follow suit. If all these other towns can host food and wine festivals, why not us? If not here, where?
Last week, I read an article in some magazine about some new food and wine festival in some small California town. As I read, my jealousy grew. I read some more, and my jealousy grew so uncontrollable that I threw down the magazine in disgust. I angrily wondered why Lake Geneva couldn’t host a festival like that. Why do I have to go to Aspen to see Padma Lakshmi? I sat there, on the edge of my bed, head in my hands, counting backwards from 11. My jealousy turned to a pout, and in my pouting, I had a revelation. I experienced yet another Lake Geneva epiphany in my life filled with near daily Lake Geneva epiphanies. As I sat on the edge of my bed, staring down at the magazine page that I had just moments earlier stopped reading, my disgust turned to an understanding. The reason Lake Geneva doesn’t host any food and wine festivals is because Lake Geneva doesn’t want to host any food and wine festivals. The reason Lake Geneva doesn’t want to host food and wine festivals is because Lake Geneva is a town for owners. Vacation home owners to be exact.
In order to fully understand Lake Geneva, you have to understand a very basic element of her personality. Lake Geneva isn’t into fads. After a lifetime of catering to the rich and famous of Chicago, she’s not really impressed by newness, nor is she going to go out of her way to make someone like her. If someone doesn’t like her, it’s their problem. This disaffected nature has caused some to label Lake Geneva as aloof. Snotty. Condescending. Very funny people from Michigan, but no, I am not describing myself. Lake Geneva has been through so much, and she’s so sure of who she is, she doesn’t need to bend and twist to contort into whatever someone else wants her to be. She’s exactly who she is, and has no interest in changing. While other towns dance and tease and hike up their skirts a little more (thanks Dave), Lake Geneva yawns. She knows who she cares about, and it certainly isn’t the crowd that may or may not show up for a weekend to eat her food, drink her wine, and litter in her parks. She cares about her owners, the wandering well to do of Chicago who choose to vacation on her shores. Everyone else? Well frankly, she doesn’t give a darn.
Lake Geneva is, more so than most other resort towns, a destination for owners. Sure there are hotels and motels and rentals, but the area was never intended to be a party town for transients. If you take a look at the Story of Lake Geneva, the little booklet I wrote about earlier this month, you’ll see that the original plan for Lake Geneva was to have one estate home per thousand feet of lake frontage. This lake was always supposed to be a haven for the discerning rich, and even though many estates where subdivided into cottage neighborhoods, and hotels were built along her shores, Geneva has maintained much of that original appeal.
I recently had an email from a reader who asked about the rental limitations within the city of Lake Geneva. I asked the city building inspector about the issue, and in describing the rental policy of the city (30 day minimums), he used the word “transient” (with negative connotations) no less than three times. In spite of the hotels and resorts in the area, the goal has always been to make this vacation destination a destination for owners first, and renters second. That’s the way the lake was originally developed, and given the rental restrictions currently in place, that’s the way it is intended to be today.
While other towns beg for festivals, Lake Geneva just chills. Sure she’ll allow a few historical celebrations throughout the year, because that’s what the owners want. The Lake Geneva Food and Wine Festival sounds like a nice idea (there is a Wine Festival), but chances are you won’t be seeing an ad for one anytime soon. Lake Geneva is what she is, and in that stubbornness there is security. I’ll still plan on attending the Aspen F&W Festival some day soon, but instead of pining for an event like that to take root in my own hometown, I’ll leave the festivals to other towns and leave Lake Geneva to the owners.