Douglass-Stevenson House

The lover of rustic life may long for more rural scenes than is presented by a modern hotel teeming with life, fashion and beauty. To such, the fullest enjoyment of a summer vacation comes from camping out, or in a semi-rustic life in lake-side cottages. There are many camps and camping grounds about the lake that offer to the visitor every facility for the free enjoyment ot life, untrarameled by the requirements of society. Among such camps or parks at the command of the public, in addition to those mentioned above, may be mentioned Fontana, or Porter & Montague's Park, Camp Collie, Russell's Park and " Warwick," and private parks - Lakeside, Harvard, Belvidere, Oak Park, Englewood, etc.

Passage source: History of Walworth County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources...its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin...and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution.., published 1882.

This hotel is admirably located near the head of the lake in a beautiful grove of oaks. It commands one of the finest views of the lake it is possible to obtain from any point. It is managed by Misses Bissell & Reed, who came here in 1880, from Toledo, Ohio. The park is situated directly opposite Fontana, and in addition to the hotel contains a number of cottages owned by people of Marengo, 111., which has given the park its name. The hotel is a large two-story mansion with broad piazzas like a Southern planter's home, and the cottages, bathing houses, boat houses, laundry, office, and other substantial buildings which surround it add to that resemblance. A broad, beautiful lawn of many acres slopes from its front to the water's edge. Swings, croquet grounds, a dancing platform, and numerous rustic benches and decorative flower beds ar« distributed about it.

Passage source: History of Walworth County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources...its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin...and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution.., published 1882.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Fontana-on-Geneva Lake Village - 25,986 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.