By Anne Morrissy | Photo by Shanna Wolf
Historic estate Aloha Lodge, located on the lake’s south shore, sold in August for a reported $21.85 million, making it the most expensive home sale in Wisconsin since 2022, when another Lake Geneva estate (the home formerly owned by Richard Driehaus) sold for $36 million.
Aloha Lodge was designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw and was originally built in 1901 for famed Chicago hotelier Tracy Drake and his family. The estate’s name was a nod to the family’s friendship with the deposed Hawaiian queen, Liliuokalani. The Drakes spent 21 consecutive summers at the lake, and maintained an active social life, raising their two boys there in the summer and using the home to throw parties and host friends and family.
After opening the eponymous Drake Hotel in Chicago in 1920, the Drakes spent less time at their Lake Geneva estate, but still returned whenever possible. However, eventually the family was hard hit by the Great Depression. The Drakes held on to Aloha Lodge as long as they could, but sold the house in 1936, along with many of the furnishings and other belongings. (Reportedly, the Drake family china remains in the home to this day.)
Shaw’s design for the home was rooted in Southern Colonial architecture and featured a hallmark of the architect’s design: an oversized living room, measuring 24 feet wide by 44 feet long. The home’s semicircular dining room originally featured white paneled walls and French windows that opened onto the home’s large veranda, which faced the lake and was supported by Ionic columns.
Much of this original house remains in the current iteration of the estate, including the veranda, the columns and the large rooms. However, over the years, the house has been significantly expanded, including the addition of wings on either side of the original structure and a swimming pool on the front lawn. The real estate listing indicated that the home now contains 10 bedrooms and 13-and-a-half bathrooms spread over 20,000 square feet, and still sits on the original 12-acre lot. Outbuildings on the property include a 3-bedroom guest house, a greenhouse and an 1,800-square-foot building containing a model railroad. The property boasts 368 feet of lake frontage.
Aloha Lodge was most recently owned by Harold Byron Smith, heir to the family which founded the Northern Trust Bank and Illinois Tool Works. Smith bought the home in 1998. Following Smith’s passing in 2022, ownership of the home transferred to his estate before it sold to an undisclosed buyer last summer. The house was originally listed in May of 2023 for $35 million before undergoing a price correction.
