By John Steinbreder
KOHLER, WISCONSIN | There is something predictable about Destination Kohler. And I mean that in a very good way.
Start with the town of 1,800 residents in which the resort is located. Even after a dozen visits through the past 20 years, including one this summer, I remain enchanted by its quiet charm and Midwestern gemütlich. The main street is lined with maple trees and old-fashioned street lights, some of which have baskets of flowers hanging from them. American flags fly above most of the homes that overlook that roadway, and it is typical in the warmer months to see friends and family sitting in chairs and on loveseats on their front porches – and to see youngsters riding their bicycles down the street. Pedestrians sometimes wave to perfect strangers when they drive by.
The American Club, a 241-room inn that opened in 1981 in a former dormitory for employees of the Kohler Co., is still an elite property. Noted for its impeccable service and smartly decorated rooms, it also boasts bathrooms that are equipped with the latest in the company’s showers, tubs, faucets and sinks. Some guests are said to be so enthralled by these fixtures that they change rooms during their stays to check out the different products and the ways they are configured.
With regards to golf, the quality of the four Kohler courses endures. The Straits remains a favorite of mine, for its sweeping views across Lake Michigan, which is 60 miles wide in some places, and for the holes Pete Dye fashioned on its shores. Eight of those are constructed on waterfront cliffs, including all four of the par-3s, and those settings endow them with a seductive sense of the dramatic. So does the start of the golf course, with the lake coming fully into view as golfers stride due east down the first fairway, and then Nos. 2 and 3 turning south and running just above the sandy shoreline. I walk as close to the lake as I can when I play them, taking in the views and scouring the cerulean waters for the salmon you sometimes see rolling in them.
As for the nearby Irish Course at Whistling Straits and the River and Meadow Valleys courses at Blackwolf Run down the road, they are by no means slouches. And I relish every round that I get to play on them. It’s just that the Straits stands out: for its scenery, for its heaving fairways and wildly undulating greens, for the 900-odd bunkers of all shapes and sizes that are scattered around the property and for the way the course transports me back to the old country and the type of golf I most enjoy playing.
Equally as enticing is the Kohler Waters Spa. The massages are superb, and its grotto-like relaxation pool (the waters of which are kept at a perfect 86 degrees) is also a good place to repose after a long day of golf, especially sitting under the 8-foot waterfall that flows at the far end.
Then, there are the restaurants. Whether it is River Wildlife, which has a hunting camp-type aura and is celebrated for the walnut-encrusted walleye its kitchen puts out, or the pub-like Horse & Plow, housed in a part of the American Club that decades ago served as a tavern for Kohler workers. The list of craft beers only improves with age, as does the fairly priced collection of wines and whiskies. As for the food, the grilled bratwursts that are made in nearby Sheboygan are a triumph along with the chicken wings that the H&P’s chefs cook up, especially those seasoned with a fiery dry rub.
Best of all, though, is dinner in the Immigrant, which is located in the lower level of the American Club and consists of six rooms designed to reflect the different ethnic backgrounds of early Wisconsin settlers. This is fine dining, with locally sourced ingredients and brilliantly composed tasting menus that feature everything from pan-seared foie gras to butter-sake poached sea bass and an elegant A5 Wagyu strip loin that damn near melts in your mouth. As for the 51-page wine list, suffice to say that it includes some very special bottles.
As a traveler, I generally find predictability to be a very good thing, and I appreciate the assurance of a place where I know exactly what I am getting.
But predictability should never be confused with banality at Kohler, and I am keenly aware from my visits that as much as things stay the same here, they also get better and better. Constant improvement is a key element of the mission of the Kohler Co., as well as part of the resort’s DNA. It is one of the main reasons I keep coming back. I know that in addition to enjoying some old favorites, I invariably will find new and interesting things to see and do.
The first thing I wanted to check out on my latest trip was the new short course, the Baths. So named to pay homage to the company’s nearly 130-year history of making tubs, the 10-hole track was designed by Chris Lutze, a protégé and associate of Pete Dye, the man who crafted the resort’s four championship courses, and by Herb Kohler, the executive chairman of the company that bears his family name. The Baths is located on 27 acres of land between the first and 11th holes of the Meadows Valley layout at Blackwolf Run and features renditions of classic Old World golf holes. Like the Postage Stamp at Royal Troon, the Redan from North Berwick and the Dell from Lahinch. The course has a Punchbowl and a Plateau, too. Distances range from 60 to 160 yards, and there are four strategic water features, or “baths.” But the course is designed in such a way that golfers do not have to play over those hazards if they don’t care to and can take other routes to the greens instead.
“This space was long ago reserved for housing,” said Kohler as he showed me around the layout in a golf cart. “But we became so noted for having golf with no housing that we decided to do without, even though providing plumbing fixtures and furniture for housing are two of our primary businesses.”
The irony of that situation is not lost on Kohler. But he also recognized just how popular short courses were becoming at resorts, especially among golfers who no longer had the energy or endurance to play 36 holes a day. “Building the Baths was a very natural progression once we determined once and for all that we were not going to build any housing,” he added.
We sat in our golf carts for a spell to watch golfers tee off on the first hole. There were as many as five or six in some groups, and one couple took turns pushing a baby carriage between shots. A number of players were barefoot, and most carried only a few irons in small pencil bags the resort provided. Some golfers sipped craft beers they had bought at a restored wood cabin that acts as a combination starter’s hut and bar and grill.
Kohler beamed as he took in the scene. “People are having fun, and this gives them another way to enjoy golf,” he said, adding that the Baths can be rented out for events, be they birthday parties or corporate retreats. “We even encourage the kids to walk into the baths and get their feet wet.”
The day after I took a loop around the Baths, I toured a couple of the rustic yet splendidly styled abodes that make up the so-called Kohler Collection of cabins.
One of those is called Sandhills, and it is a three-level, 2,000-square-foot structure built of reclaimed timber from several Wisconsin farms. It is set in a 350-acre nature preserve in the nearby town of Mosel and is able to sleep up to six guests. It boasts weathered wood siding and a wraparound porch that provides panoramas of a pond at the bottom of a gentle slope as well as hand-hewn beams, floor-to-ceiling windows, a stone fireplace and a classic Kohler clawfoot bathtub.
Sandhills came online nearly a decade ago, and it became so popular that Kohler added three more: Red Fox, which opened in 2019, and Pond and Lake, which started taking in guests last year.
Lake was the second of the cabins I visited, and I found the one-story structure at the end of a trail that ran through woods and across a meadow of knee-high grass flecked with purple and yellow wildflowers. Beyond that was the body of water that gave this cabin its name, Lake Michigan, as vast as an ocean and glistening in the morning light. Rather than stepping right into the airy, two-bedroom structure with its white-washed wooden walls and modern kitchen, I simply sat down on the porch and savored the scenery for the next several minutes.
“People really seem to like these private lodging options,” Kohler explained. “The cabins are very isolated, very much in nature and a part of it. But they are beautifully appointed and come with five-star resort service and amenities.
“They also are equipped with cable television and high-speed internet. And even though their locales feel very remote, they are not at all far from the golf courses, the spa, the restaurants at the American Club and other parts of Destination Kohler.”
There are plans to add a fifth cabin to the collection this fall. “Only there will be no electricity in this one, and no running water,” he said. “But it will have a lot of charm.”
Quite predictably, Kohler keeps leading the resort he created 40 years ago to better places.
Top: The Straits and Irish courses at Whistling Straits
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