The Good Fellow Lodge at Indiana Dunes National Park once served children of U.S. Steel employees. Now, after a $13 million drastic makeover, it’s back in shape.
“It was at the point of no return,” said Todd Ravesloot, chief of facilities at the national park.
“It was raining inside when we started this project,”
U.S. Steel operated a camp at the site now used by the Dunes Learning Center from 1941 to 1975. The lodge, the camp’s centerpiece, had a reception area, dining room kitchen restrooms, employee showers, office space and even a bowling alley.
The bowling alley is in storage, Ravesloot said.
Congress saved the building with the Great American Outdoors Act, which addressed some of the National Park Service’s deferred maintenance from decades of underfunding the parks.
The $25 million Indiana Dunes National Park received included a full restoration of Good Fellow Lodge and shoring up the exteriors of the House of Tomorrow and Bailly Homestead.
“This was really a hidden gem here in the park,” Ravesloot said. Hidden in decay, that is.
“I remember the first time I walked in here,” Ravesloot said. “I walked in this space, and I immediately went to Old Faithful or one of the great national park lodges out west. It really just took my breath away what this space was and what it could be.”
“The building structurally was still sound. It’s framed out of steel, so that kind of kept the basic box together,” he said. Along with the steel frame for the lodge, U.S. Steel installed a stainless steel swimming pool, which still exists but hasn’t been used in decades.
“We had an infestation that got into various places, which those things and where they defecate and urinate just destroys a lot of stuff,” Ravesloot said. “This whole front wall has just rotted so completely the whole front wall was just levitating in midair. That’s a true story.”
“The porch had collapsed completely years earlier, and what was still there was a concrete slab on top of a wooden deck, so you could imagine how well that went,” he said. It was demolished and replaced.
But a lot of original materials remained. Maple flooring from the upper levels was scavenged to replace damaged parts of the main floor’s floor.
The entire ceiling in the sunroom was replaced because of the raccoons. “Once the urine soaks into the boards, they’re kind of ruined,” Ravesloot said.
Artistic circular lights have replaced the “schoolhouse globes” that once hung from the ceiling in the main dining area. Ravesloot said the park wanted modern lighting that was unobtrusive.
That ruled out the wooden wagon wheel lights popular in so many older park lodges, acting park Superintendent Leo Lestino said.
The lodge will be used for public events as well as park staff meetings. A STEAM — science, technology, engineering, arts and math — teachers’ event was the first public meeting in the lodge since the raccoons began holding their family gatherings.
Downstairs is the basement, which has new concrete in places where pipes had to be replaced. The lodge has new HVAC, plumbing, electrical and mechanical systems.
There’s a small area for youngsters to gather on a rug. “I call it the inclement weather classroom area for the learning center,” Ravesloot said.
The basement once held the Bailly Trading Post, the camp store, but that was destroyed by a beetle infestation, Ravesloot said.
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A new elevator serves the basement and main floor, added to make the building ADA-compliant. Sending it up to the second-floor balcony and the third-floor meeting room wasn’t deemed feasible; too few people would go up there to justify the cost.
The second floor is a wide balcony overlooking the main area with an office and meeting area tacked on. Up one more flight of stairs from there is a third-floor meeting room wrapped in knotty pine paneling and pine rafters.
The renovation was about 4.5 years in the making, with two years for design work and two years for the construction.
When the project was almost finished, a large tree slammed against the building in a windstorm, taking out a Starlink satellite antenna but little other damage, Lestino said.
During construction, a time capsule was found in the building. No one seemed to remember it existed. It contained a U.S. flag with 48 stars — Alaska and Hawaii didn’t achieve statehood until 1959, 18 years later — along with speeches and other documents.
A new time capsule was added in the fireplace, which won’t see wood burning anymore, Lestino said.
A handout at the renovated lodge tells the story of the camp.
Original half-log white pine siding was used on the exterior until 1951, when most of it was replaced with horizontal tongue-and-groove redwood siding.
The reception room is where campers first saw the interior of the lodge, the limestone fireplace and rustic furnishings capturing their attention. Three pieces of the original furniture are on display there, having been donated by Ted Arendt.
Upon arrival, all campers received physical exams, including being weighed. “Staff also weighed campers at the end of their week, and found that most gained several pounds from eating nutritious food,” the handout said.
The dining room, or the great hall, was 59 feet long by 38 feet seven inches wide. The ceiling is 17.5 feet high. The dining room was used for talent shows, U.S. Steel meetings and banquets, and for community events.
The kitchen prepared meals for up to 100 campers at a time.
“The North room was constructed by U.S. Steel to enlarge the facility for entertaining when a group of Russian businessmen visited the company. U.S. Steel borrowed the U-shaped bar from the Gary Country Club for use in this room to enhance the dining experience,” the handout said. Later, the room was used as an office.
The second story mezzanine features a balcony along three sides. The enclosed office was for the director’s use. The camp director and his family lived in the third floor observatory before a cabin was built for their use.
The basement held the indoor recreation area for campers, complete with bumper pool tables, bowling alley and the Bailly Trading Post, where they could buy treats. A walk-in cooler, storage, furnace room and staff showers as well as large restrooms were in the basement.
After giving a tour of the renovated lodge, Ravesloot and Lestino stood on the new porch and pointed out concrete slabs where campers’ tents were pitched and the stainless steel swimming pool that once inspired campers’ splashes, whoops and hollers.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.