North Woods of Wisconsin and the Victorian Era

So I am up in the North Woods of Wisconsin in a cozy log home by a lake.  How on earth does this connect with the Victorian Era?

Ah, but it does.  My great grandfather, in 1902, built a tiny log cabin on this land and then went a bit wild....  there were small guest cottages (each had a name), tennis courts, a mote (yes, really) and a tiny hermitage back in the woods where he apparently went to REALLY get away from it all...as if being off in the woods wasn't enough!

There was a little round room where they played cards, there was (and still is) a piano.  

Now remember, we are talking about wood stoves and outhouses, so the word elegant really doesn't come to mind, but in spite of it all, it WAS a Victorian place!  I can't imagine how he got my great grandmother to come up here... probably not that often and perhaps with a bribe of jewelry.  :)

The guest cottages have long since crumbled, and though we search high and low, we can no longer find a remnant of the tennis courts.  I think I'd still be able to find where the mote was, and a hike way into mosquito land still leads to a brick chimney from the hermitage.

He was a character, my great grandfather, and I wish I'd gotten to meet him.  But I can sense him here, just as I sense my grandfather and now my own father.

We have a few remnants of that era... some photos, a candlestick or two, it must have been an amazing time!