Wisconsin

By Brian E. Clark In 1857, wealthy builder Alexander McDonnell asked architect and German emigrant August Kutzboch to design him “the best house money could buy.” The ostentatious McDonnell chose a wooded lot for his home on a promontory called Bug Hill on the isthmus between lakes Mendota and Monona

By Brian E. Clark On a recent balmy summer night in downtown Madison, WI, my girlfriend and I watched the sun sink into Lake Mendota from the deck of the Edgewater Hotel (theedgewater.com). The glowing red orb silhouetted a sailboat just offshore of the casually elegant hostelry’s pier before it disappeared behind

By Brian E. Clark For more than 60 years, the aptly named American Club was a dormitory housing hundreds of immigrant workers who toiled at the successful Kohler Co. making sinks, toilets, other bathroom fixtures and small engines. The imposing structure, built in the Tudor Revival style in 1918, was

By Brian E. Clark A cold-weather trip to Door County, Wisconsin can mean having much of the peninsula, its parks, trails and lodging options to yourself. That’s a far cry from this past summer when it was hard to find a room at any inn on the peninsula.  According to James

By Mark Orwoll Door County, Wisconsin, is one of those places you’ve heard of even though you’ve never been there. In the back of your mind, you kinda, sorta know about it: Lake Michigan, right? Farms, probably. Hmm…cute villages, cherries? Fish, maybe? No, sorry. You don’t know Door. Door County

Story & photos by Brian E. Clark Eau Claire, a city of 75,000 at the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers in northwestern Wisconsin, takes its public art seriously. Very seriously. With more than 50 sculptures – some serious, some whimsical – scattered mostly about its downtown, Eau

By Brian E. Clark Dave Holdener, who runs the luxurious Inn at Wawanissee Point near Devil’s Lake State Park with his wife, Trudy, likes to boast that he has the best view in Wisconsin from the huge picture windows on the south side of his lodge. Others might dispute that claim. But

By Brian E. Clark Roughly 16,000 years ago, the ice dam backing up Glacial Lake Wisconsin – then roughly the size of Lake Winnebago – burst, releasing a biblical torrent that carved out the narrow gorges and unusual rock formations of the Wisconsin Dells. Left behind was a deep, sandy

  Story by Brian E. Clark  Wisconsin’s Door County has long been famed for its cherries.  And I’ve eaten more than a few on visits over the past two decades to this finger-shaped peninsula that sticks out into the northwest corner of Lake Michigan.  The best cherry laced repast I’ve

Story & photos by Brian E. Clark Northern Door County’s charming White Gull Inn (whitegullinn.com) is on Main Street in Fish Creek. But not on the main drag, a key distinction. Rather, it’s tucked away on a quiet road, an idyllic location bordered on two sides by parks and an intimate city