With Fire, Lutsen Lodge Gone in Hours; But Determination to Rebuild Already in Its Place

Fire engulfing the structure from the 1950s was too much to stop.

Under the February gray skies of Lake Superior’s North Shore, was the black and white aftermath of what once was.

Volunteer firefighters from every small community we’ve driven through along that shore were still at the fire scene in the morning.

But shortly after midnight, by the time they had arrived from up and down the shore, the wood and beauty were engulfed in flames.

A bright light against a dark backdrop on a grim night.

“It was a first alarm at 12:25. I was home asleep and then got a call. A few minutes later I was in the car and on my way down as fast as I could get down here,” said Lutsen Lodge General Manager, Edward Vanegas.

“The fire had not breached the windows, or the doors. It was contained inside the lobby. We don’t know the source of the fire quite yet. It did appear to come from a boiler basement area below the main lodge lobby. And then escalated after that very, very quickly into a full, engulfed fire by 1:30 or so,” Vanegas said.

Lutsen Fire Chief Steve Duclos said there were some fifty volunteer firefighters on-hand from nine different departments and communities.

“First arriving crew got here and there was heavy smoke,” said Duclos. “We weren’t able to make an interior attack. So, it was basically a defensive fight from the get-go,” Duclos said.

When he got the call, the lodge’s Vanegas said he did the 40-minute drive in 20. But, when he arrived, there was no doubt.

“We were going to lose it. There was no way that that fire could have been put out,” Vanegas said.

“The size of that fire, and the size of that building, and the materials that were used back in the 1950s to build that building, it was not going to be saved. I knew what I was watching was going to be the final fire, the final devastating fire of the building.”

The devastation is not new for the lodge. Originally built in the 1880s, it burned down the first time in 1949. The family hired the famous architect Edwin Lundy to rebuild in 1950–but then more devastation.

“That new building burned in 1951, leaving the chimney and fireplace in place that you see behind me,” said Vanegas. “And then Edwin Lundy built the building again–those same plans were used again–and built the building that burned last night,” said Vanegas.

For firefighters like Chief Duclos, it was not just a building.

“I used to work here, in the kitchen, along with some of our other firemen,” said Duclos.

And the loss spreads to countless others who don’t live in the area, and yet a piece of their heart remains here.

“We hear it every single day. People come in, they make reservations months in advance,” said Vanegas.

“They tell us when they arrive that their grandparents brought them here, and now they’re bringing their own grandkids here. So amazing memories that we hear every single day.”

“It’s heartbreaking to see that those memories will now just be a memory. They can’t come back to the same building that they used to come,” said Vanegas. “But our goal is to rebuild it, in the same way, using the same plans from 1951. We still have those architectural drawings. And to rebuild it in a modern way, with new building codes and mechanicals, and put it back and create new memories for some of those same people.”

What’s at stake and what’s been lost, is not lost on anyone.

“Oh, it’s huge,” said Duclos. “Like I said, I know it’s been important for a lot of people that have been coming up here for generations. So, you know, you lose a building like this, that person, they lose a little bit of themselves as well.”

That understanding of this most recent loss, and the history on this piece of shore, will drive the determination to bring it back again.