Couple’s beloved lake cabin turned into a year-round home
When Mark and Kim Alba talk about their home, the story line sounds a bit like a funny love story with a cast of characters that includes their grandparents, parents, friends and a whole lot of turtles.
Kim said the saga started in the ’40s when Mark’s grandparents rented the tiny summer cottage on Turtle Lake in Walworth County that is now their much larger year-round home.
In the ’50s and ’60s, her parents and his spent vacations at nearby campgrounds, but by the late ’60s, friends of Kim’s parents had purchased the cottage and her family spent nearly every summer vacation there. Mark’s family also rented cottages in the area during that time.
“In 1971 my parents bought the cottage from their friends and in 1972 our parents met on the beach,” she said.
“My father and brother were fishing offshore and my dad had a fish on the line, but it was tangled in the weeds. An old fisherman told my father to take his clothes off and jump in the lake to get it untangled. And he did. Then he started swimming to shore.
“Mark’s parents were sitting at the beach and saw this crazy man taking his clothes off and swimming and commented on it to my mom. She said ‘that’s just my husband,’ and that’s how our parents met and how we met when I was 10 and Mark was 11.”
The two continued to spend time with their families at the lake as they grew up and Kim began collecting turtles because she loved watching them in the lake and loved spending time there.
Their friendship eventually turned into love, and they married in 1981 and moved to Beloit and began raising their family. Both are now retired; he worked at Woodman’s Market and she was a secretary at an area school. They have two adult daughters.
Kim said that while raising their family, they continued to spend time at the cottage — with Mark often making repairs for Kim’s parents. By then, the house — which was built in the early 1900s — had been expanded a bit with the addition of an open front porch.
In 1999, after Kim’s parents passed away, they became owners of the cottage, and they began making their own repairs and updates, and Kim lovingly decorated the small space with the many turtles she had collected.
“This house was always special from day one,” she said. “When I was little and we rented it, I can remember what it looked like and that cabin smell — that musty smell — but I still loved it.
“I was blessed that Mark loved it, too. That’s hard to find. A lot of people like the same things, but they don’t necessarily always love the same things,” she said.
They continued to spend summers there until 2002, when they were forced to make dramatic changes to the structure.
“One day I noticed that one end of the house was sinking,” said Mark.
“For more than 20 years Kim’s dad had been trying to create a basement. He was digging wheelbarrows of dirt out from under the house and he was tossing the dirt on a slope next to the house.
“It was being held up with a tree stump and Kmart floor jacks,” added Kim.
“We had always planned to finish what he started one day but were waiting for our kids to get out of school,” said Mark.
Because the structure of the house was compromised, they hired professionals to add a lower level, but they also decided to turn the cottage into their year-round residence.
“To create a lower level, they lifted the cottage into the air,” said Mark. “It took eight weeks, and I would put a ladder on the ground to reach the door so I could get inside and get a beer out of the refrigerator.”
Once the lower level was complete and the house on firm ground, they began making additional changes to their home, with Mark doing 90% of the work.
They added a new furnace, plumbing, electrical, insulation, new windows and a new roof.
On the first floor they added additional space that now includes a living room, sitting area, three-season porch and a stairway to the lower level. Mark also redid the kitchen for the second time.
Space on the new lower level was turned into a master bedroom with a bathroom, a laundry room, a large closet and a spare bedroom. From that area they can now access their front yard, which overlooks the lake.
Because Kim started a career as an artist/photographer after her retirement, they also added a space she calls her art studio that overlooks the lake.
The couple recently talked about their home, the turtle collection they now both contribute to and the many pieces of turtle artwork Kim has added to the home.
Q: How many turtles are in your collection?
Kim: There are too many to count. I started to collect them because of the name of the lake and because it’s where
we met. In addition to pieces we bought as accents, we also have dinnerware with turtles on it, curtains, bedspreads, and we have turtles in etchings in our kitchen cabinets and on tiles in our kitchen backsplash.
Q: How large was the original cabin? Mark: It was just the kitchen, two bedrooms off the kitchen and there was a small bathroom. The doors on the two bedrooms are the original doors and the wall between the rooms has the original wood. I gutted everything else. Now, it’s about 2,000 square feet.
Q: Did you find anything interesting in the walls when you gutted it? Mark: Fossilized hornet’s nests and a paper sign that says “We Sell Schmidt Bros. Ice Cream — Elkhorn Wis. We had it framed. We also found a wood sign that said, “boat launch” in the attic.
We also found knob and tube wiring in the house that Kim’s dad — who was an electrician — had spliced into. I took it all out and updated all the electrical, but I kept a portion of the knob and tube and put it on an old piece of wood and we have it hanging on the wall.
Kim: It’s like an art piece. Our hearts are here. We decorated our home with our hearts.
Q: How did you change your kitchen?
Mark: I added the vaulted ceiling myself. That’s knotty pine boxcar siding. We had hickory cabinets custom made and for one cabinet we had a stained glass insert made. It has turtles in it for Kim and a little bottle of beer in it for me.
We put black mosaic granite from Brazil on the kitchen countertop and on a peninsula. We connected a large table-like area with seating to the peninsula and put the black mosaic granite on that, too. We also had a hickory kitchen table and chair set custom made. Most of the pieces of furniture in our home are made of hickory.
Q: What about the walls?
Mark: It’s all boxcar knotty pine siding. In the lower level we white washed the ceiling, but we put polyurethane on the walls so they are darker.
Q: Did you add the fireplace in your living room?
Mark: I did some of the work. When we were doing the kitchen, we got some stone for an area over the cabinets. We got additional stone to use when we had the fireplace put in because we wanted it to match.
Q: How many bedrooms and bathrooms do you have now?
Mark: We have four bedrooms and two bathrooms. I added a larger bathroom off the kitchen behind where the original one was.
Q: Is there a story to the boat motor in your sitting
area?
Mark: There is a story to everything in this house. That motor was my grandpa’s. It has the original spark plugs in it. It’s an Elgin from the ’50s. I set it on the stand it came with.
Q: And the boat with the fireplace in it?
Mark: That was an old Cape Cod Potato Chip display case from a grocery store. I took out a shelf and added a fireplace. It was originally red, and Kim painted it green.
Q: Do you have a favorite turtle?
Kim: That’s like asking which is my favorite child. I can’t say. I do love my table from Hawaii that’s in the living room. The base is made of three wood turtles and it has a glass top.
Mark: I can’t give a favorite either. I just know that when I see a turtle, I have to get it for Kim.
Q: Where did you get the turtle shaped chocolates? Kim: My mom in-law, Nancy Alba of Beloit, made them. They are her candy molds. But I do have small turtle gelatin molds and a lot of turtle serving pieces. Do you, or does someone you know, have a cool, funky or exquisite living space that you’d like to see featured in At Home? Contact Fresh home and garden editor Nancy Stohs at (414) 224-2382 or email nstohs @journalsentinel.com.