By Amanda Wegner
Time and again, history has shown that founding a new community is never easy. And for Lake Geneva, history tells us the founder was a bit of a pain. And a Payne.
What is today the city of Lake Geneva can credit its original establishment to frontiersman Christopher Payne. It can also credit this first settler for ushering in several generations of the Payne family, who have had a long and lasting impact on the local community. To paint a picture of the city’s founding and the family’s trajectory over the last 189 years, we chatted with several present-day Payne family members to learn about their family life and legacy.
CHRISTOPHER PAYNE: STAKING HIS CLAIM AND SETTLING LAKE GENEVA
Christopher Payne was a wanderer. According to the “Annals of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 1835-1897,” Payne was born in Somerset County, Penn. in 1786. At 14, Payne’s father moved the family to Ohio to be on “the frontier of civilization;” this set off a series of moves for Payne, who eventually settled in Illinois with his young family.
While visiting Chicago one day, Payne first heard a description of the Geneva Lake area, and thought it sounded like the perfect place to settle and establish a mill. Interest piqued, he gathered a small group and trekked north searching for the lake, but after five days, the party returned home unsuccessful.
Still, the thought of the area haunted Payne. After moving again, this time close to what is now Belvidere, Ill., he met another trader who provided more detailed information about Geneva Lake. Payne set off again, and this time, he found the beautiful lake of the sparkling waters. He remained for two days and walked the land, trying to determine if any claim had yet been made to it. Finding none, Payne cut down some trees and marked others along the lake. After staking his claim, he built a canoe and floated home via the Fox River, intending to return the next month to begin building a cabin.
If only it were that easy. “Christopher Payne wasn’t the nicest person in the world and got into some arguments, but he ended up being the first one to build a cabin and the mill,” Sean Payne, manager of Clear Water Outdoor in Lake Geneva, says of his forefather. Indeed, the arguments Sean references were many. Almost as soon as Christopher Payne staked his claim on Geneva Lake, another party also claimed the area, kicking off a maelstrom of frontier aggressions between the two parties. But eventually, a peaceful deal was struck, with Payne getting the rightful claim in July 1836, paying $2,000 in cash, wagons and horses for the land. Payne’s first mill sat where the Mill Creek Hotel is today, and later, he built a second mill on the shore of what is today Lake Como.
ALLEN PAYNE AND GENEVIEVE LAZARRONI PAYNE: TRANSFORMING THE HEART OF TOWN
From those earliest beginnings in the area, we fast-forward a few generations to meet the Payne family’s modern impact-makers, starting with the present-day family’s grandparents, Allen Payne and Genevieve Lazzaroni, whose family also has a storied history in Lake Geneva. Genevieve’s parents, Max and Mary, came to America from Italy in the 1890s, eventually moving to Lake Geneva from Chicago in the early 1900s.
Upon arriving here, Max Lazarroni entered into business and eventually purchased the Metropolitan Block building, today known as the Landmark Center, at the main crossroads in downtown Lake Geneva. Upon Max’s death in 1937, his children inherited the building and set to work reshaping it. The upper floors were transformed into a hotel called the Hotel Clair, with some members of the family living on site, each with their own room and sharing a common kitchen, dining room and living room. The first floor of the building became the Clair Lounge, a cocktail bar (now the site of Kilwins), and the basement contained a bowling alley, the Clair Lanes.
Sean Payne’s sister, Bridget Payne, andhisbrother,RichardPayne,spent some of their youth working on site, doing whatever jobs they were asked to do. “Some of us kids worked down in the bowling alley — they didn’t make us, but we did,” says Richard. “We’d take care of the shoes or fill the vending machines with Cokes and candy bars.”
“We used to have so much fun bowling downstairs, setting our own pins and getting our own [soft] drinks,” says another Payne sister, Courtney Wadsworth Klug. “Sometimes our parents and grandparents would bowl together on Friday nights, so the kids would hang out together.”
Richard also recalls having free reign to explore the building. “As kids, we had the run of it,” he says. “It was our playground.”
Sean has fond memories of Christmas at the hotel and dinners with his large, extended Italian family. Richard adds that any day of the week, “there was enough food for 25 people. You could bring friends over any time, but dinner was always at 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m. And if you didn’t get there, you didn’t get any food.”
“It felt like one big family,” adds Courtney. “Everyone watched out for everyone.”
Their grandmother, Genevieve, and her sister, Alma, ran the business’s day-to-day operations. The Paynes’ great-grandmother, Nona, who lived until the age of 99, was a regular in the lounge, keeping a silent eye on the place, recalls Richard.
Genevieve, shares Bridget, was also a fixture in the community and had a big personality. “She was more the party lady of the two sisters,” says Bridget. “She dressed very fancy and was out and about when she wasn’t working at the bowling alley.”
She also had a side hustle as a “jail mother.” Sean explains that, because the police department had no female officers, Genevieve was deputized to do the bookings when a woman was arrested. “I remember staying there at night and her being called out,” recalls Bridget. “It could be two in the morning and away she’d go. Aunt Alma would ask her what she was doing it for and she’d say, ‘I gotta help these girls.’”
JOE AND JANE PAYNE AND THEIR KIDS: EXPANDING THE HOSPITALITY
Genevieve and Allen Payne had one son, Joe Payne. He married Jane McElroy and together they had seven children — Mary Lynn, Bridget, Penny, Richard, Kellie, Courtney and Sean.
Both Joe and Jane would follow in Allen and Genevieve’s footsteps and go into the hospitality business. Joe ran the family business at the Hotel Clair for some time, but, wanting to branch off on his own, he bought Emil’s Lunchroom, which he renamed Joe’s Other Place. (Today, it is the site of Flat Iron Tap.) When Joe and Jane Payne divorced, Joe moved out of the state and Jane took over the bar, renaming it Jane’s Bar, which she ran until 1985.
Sean says he spent many hours working in Jane’s Bar. As a kid, his summer routine was to go to the bar in the morning to stock beer and ice, then head to the beach. After lunch, he’d head back to the bar, take out the garbage and restock for the next bartender. “It’s what taught me my work ethic,” he explains.
“[Jane] was a single mom, raising seven kids and running a business,” says Bridget. “She was a good businesswoman and everyone kept an eye out for her.”
Sean explains that Jane’s Bar served two sets of clientele: On weekdays, the stools were taken up by “suits and real estate” folks, but at night and other times, it attracted more of a “rowdy crowd.”
But Sean says his mom knew how to handle the rowdier elements when necessary. “She just worked 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and she had this club in case anyone got out of line,” he recalls. “She said there was only one time she thought she’d have to use it, but one of the other guys in her group of regulars grabbed the culprit, sat him down and made him apologize.”
That “group of regulars,” says Richard, was a collection of about a dozen bartenders and bar patrons, dubbed the Charmers, who “kept an eye” on their mother and helped out.
“My mother was a little thing, but the guys that hung out there took care of her,” says Courtney. “No one messed with her.”
“It was a unique thing they did for her and it tells you what a great place Lake Geneva is,” adds Richard.
Jane kept the bar until Sean graduated from high school; after that, she sold it and went to work for McCullough’s drug store. But “the Charmers” showed up for Jane even after she passed away in 1997. To honor their mother’s giving spirit, the Payne siblings started a charity golf outing, the Jane Payne Charmers Classic. It initially raised money for hospice, then other causes, including families and individuals in need. “Bridget did a lot of the work [for the fundraisers], and after 25 years, we decided to put a bow on it,” says Sean.
“It was a great way to honor [our mom],” adds Richard.
SEAN PAYNE: EXTENDING THE FAMILY LEGACY
Almost 200 years after the first Payne’s arrival, the family continues to build its history and legacy in Lake Geneva. Three of the siblings — Sean, Bridget and Richard — still live in town. And Sean, the youngest of the siblings, plays a key role in keeping the Payne family name well-known in the area.
Like many of his siblings, Sean initially left the state after graduating from high school. But eventually he returned, first working at Hillmoor Golf Club, then moving to Clear Water Outdoor in 2007. Luckily, Sean says, he has a good relationship and rapport with Clear Water owner Brian Waspi, which allows him to have his hand in several other projects in Lake Geneva. This includes running the Lake Geneva Farmer’s Market at Horticultural Hall for 14 years, which has grown from about 25 to 60 vendors in that time.
For the last decade, Sean has also teamed up with Jim Gaugert for the annual Geneva Lakes Family YMCA auction, where the two “make fools” of themselves for this good cause. He also sits on the board of Kisses From Friends, which offers support to children undergoing cancer treatment. His son, Will, is on the organization’s junior board.
And that’s just the shortlist of local projects he’s involved in. “I love Lake Geneva and what [the Payne family] represents around here,” he says.
Sister Penny Mahmood says that, growing up, she didn’t think much about the Payne family and its legacy, but it’s great to see how the family continues to contribute to the city. “As an older sibling, I look at how Sean runs the farmers market, does the Y auction and participates in a lot of fundraisers,” she says. “Our mom was outgoing, but not like Sean. To see what Sean is doing for Lake Geneva and the community, I think that’s very cool. It makes me proud to be a Payne.”
Richard adds that he hopes the friendship, generosity and hospitality the Paynes have come to be known for is also part of the family’s enduring legacy. “How my sisters and brother have been so involved, so kind and generous, so helpful and just good friends to a lot of people along the way, that’s what this family is and has been,” says Richard. “What a great family we have, how everyone helps one another out. We’ve always been close-knit and still are today after 70 years.”
The Paynes are hopeful that the family legacy will continue. “I hope that my son stays and keeps the family legacy alive,” says Sean. “Many say he is following in my footsteps, but what the future holds is up to him.”
