August 13, 2018 at 5:18 p.m.
Pitlik's Sand Beach Resort celebrates 90th year, welcomes back early visitor
Pitlik's Sand Beach Resort celebrates 90th year, welcomes back early visitor
By Kayla Thomason-
That's the case for Howard Chana of Orange City, Florida, who still thinks about the icehouse and fish cleaning table at Pitlik's Sand Beach Resort in Sugar Camp.
Since his wife's passing in January 2016, Chana has been reminiscing about the vacations he took with his wife and two children and holidays he enjoyed with his own parents and brother nearly 80 years ago.
One memory that has stuck in Chana's mind over the years is a family vacation at Pitlik's in the summer of 1939 when he was 9 years old.
He remembers the layout of the resort, playing with the Pitlik children and how "lights out" came when the generator that operated the cabin's one lightbulb was shut down for the night.
Spurred by his memories, Chana reached out to the Pitlik family in the summer of 2017. He called Kent Pitlik and followed up with a letter recounting his memories and
requesting a current brochure and a photo of the resort.
The letter, and Chana's vivid descriptions, touched the Pitliks, who decided to invite Chana to stay in one of the resort's cabins this summer for free as part of the resort's 90th anniversary celebration.
Late last month, Chana and his daughter Lesa Young arrived in Sugar Camp as part of a whirlwind trip to the Midwest to visit a number of special locations from Chana's past.
While the resort has certainly changed over the years (more lightbulbs and indoor plumbing), Chana was pleased to see it has retained the rustic charm he remembers from his youth.
"Three years ago I thought I'd never see the place again," he said. "I'm glad to come back. It's different, I don't see the birch trees all over the place like I remember. I do remember the road coming in wasn't paved and it was single lane. I remember that because you were always hoping there wasn't somebody coming out when you were coming in, and it was all sand."
The resort's fourth-generation manager, Gary Pitlik, is proud that Pitlik's has managed to endure for so many decades while many other resorts have been shuttered.
"With every other resort on our chain of lakes closing or being condo'd off, I am proud to not only still be a family resort, but a family-operated resort," Pitlik said. "Hitting 90 years has not been easy and the resort has had some tough times for sure. But we are very proud of this resort and what it has to offer our guests. If my great-grandparents or grandparents and their siblings had a chance to see it today, I think they would be very proud to know it still operates in the same family-resort style it started as."
"I think it goes to show that you absolutely have to put as much into it as you get out of it," he added. "Many of the resorts in the area closed or sold simply because owners also had to make a living off of the income, not to mention lakefront taxes are exorbitant. Since the passing of my great-grandmother Rena in the early '70s, we have operated the resort as a business and not a source of income. Everything the resort takes in goes back to the resort in improvements, property taxes and employee wages."
Chana was nearly positive the last time he was at Pitlik's was in 1939, based on the brand new vehicle his parents were driving.
"In those days that was our big vacation, that was the family outing," he said.
He remembers helping the Pitlik boys - who were around his age at that time - making sure everyone had ice, the three cottages off the main lodge, running up and down the hill, and the cabin's platform-like porch. At the time, he wanted to be an engineer, so he also took notice of Joe Pitlik's Johnson seahorse outboard motor torn apart on the porch.
"There's more lightbulbs (now), I can tell you that," Chana said. "I remember that one little lightbulb in the big room in that place, and that you didn't have to turn it off, it just went out when Rena and Joe went to bed."
When the lights were out they used flashlights, which Chana pointed out weren't as strong as today's flashlights.
Chana particularly enjoyed meeting the descendents of the Pitliks he knew in his youth.
"It was good seeing parts of the family," Chana said. "Now these parts of the family are offspring of the people that I knew. I would liked to have seen some of the people that were here when I was here, but I was pretty young and that would have made them pretty old."
In addition to visiting the resort, Chana visited Eagle River - which he remembers as including little more than a gas station and grocery store. He also planned to visit the U.P. and travel to Flint, Michigan, to visit with the Buick Engineering Group.
Lesa Young, Chana's daughter, coordinated the trip and acted as the chauffeur.
"I'm just surprised my dad decided after 80 years he wanted to come back, especially if I had never heard of it," she said. "It's been a really good time."
Kent Pitlik, vice president of Pitlik's Resort, was very impressed by Chana's recall of events from so many decades ago.
"I look back at what I can remember, I remember stuff but I don't think as good as he does, he's quite the guy," Pitlik said.
Gary Pitlik loved hearing Chana's stories and learning about the resort from a customer's perspective.
"I think it's very special because I've always heard the stories growing up either from my grandparents or my parents or aunts and uncles, but hearing him as a kid as a customer, it's really cool and it's really cool how much he remembers," he said. "It kind of ties his experience in with all the black-and-white photos that are hanging all over the walls inside."
Kayla Thomason may be reached at [email protected].
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