For me tonight there'll be no sleep until the dawn
Neon sign from paradise hotel across the street
Is blinking on and off and on and off and on
     - Eliza Gilkyson, Paradise Hotel

Wisconsin has lost many of its old resort hotels – The Fountain Spring House in Waukesha (opened in 1874, burned down in 1878, rebuilt in 1879, demolished in the 1950s), the Mirabel Caves Hotel in Manitowoc County (built in 1900, burned down in 2013), the Lake Geneva Hotel (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, built in 1912, demolished in 1970) and the Tonyawatha Spring Hotel near Madison (built in 1879, destroyed by fire in 1895) – to name just a few. 

Paradise Springs Resort Hotel is another casualty of time. It was located in what is now Paradise Springs Nature Area, in Kettle Moraine State Forest west of Eagle (Waukesha County). The spring and surrounding area were purchased in 1927 by Louis J. Petit, who built a horse track, fishing hole, tennis and shuffleboard courts and spring house.

Louis Petit was a prominent Milwaukee businessman. He was known as the “salt king” due to his business interests in salt mining. He eventually consolidated the Syracuse (New York) Salt Company and the Michigan Salt Association to create the L. J. Petit Salt Company, which produced most of the salt consumed in the United States in the early decades of the twentieth century. [1]

Petit also served as president of the Wisconsin National Bank, a director of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, an executive of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company [2] and a director of the Old Ben Coal Company. He was, apparently, also an expert with the rifle, having once tied the world's long-distance target-shooting accuracy record. He died in 1932. [1]

Petit’s horse track is visible on air photos as late as 1937 [3] but is now overgrown. 

Businessman Gorton Mertens acquired the property in the 1940s and built the Paradise Springs Resort Hotel – made of locally quarried stone. It had deluxe bedrooms with private, steam-heated tiled baths, a dining room, cocktail bar and roof garden with sundeck. [4]

A photo of the hotel [4] reveals a modern building, with a squat rectangular shape, round windows on the main floor, a large stone chimney and a patio surrounded by a rustic low stone wall. It is not a lovely building but was probably seen as chic and modern for the time. 

The inside of the hotel was finished in white oak from the surrounding area. The cocktail bar, known as the Marine Bar, had a nautical theme, which explains the round windows – they were designed to resemble portholes. [5]

The hotel was a popular spot in the 1940s and 1950s, when it was advertised as a vacation and honeymoon resort. Newspaper ads from the period highlight the hotel’s entertainment offerings:

New Year’s Eve Celebration with music and dancing, no minimum or cover charge. Tenderloin steak plate for $1.50. [6] 

See and Hear Television on one of the largest screens in Wisconsin at the Paradise Springs Marine Bar. Program (starting at 7:45 pm) includes the Shrine Circus (Wednesdays), wrestling matches (Thursdays), sports review (Saturdays) and a theater program (Sundays). [7] 

Toboggan sliding and ice skating, weekends only. [8]

Bob Doine, Master of the Organ, live five nights a week. [9]

The hotel had a short life. It appears on air photos as late as 1963 [10] and was still in existence in November of 1970 [5] but was demolished soon after. It had been unused for several years.

A water bottling plant, originally built by Petit, sat near the hotel and operated into the 1960s. The plant produced not only spring water, but pasteurized baby water – the only such water produced in the state. As noted by owner Gorton Mertens in 1954,

“The baby water contains calcium, magnesium, and natural fluorine. You need not boil it before giving it to the baby because it is pasteurized.” [11]

The baby water was distributed in half-gallon oval refrigerator bottles labeled “Lullaby Baby Water.” 

Today, the remaining Paradise Springs Resort buildings are in a state of decay. The spring house, built by Petit and originally clad with a copper roof, is now open to the elements. Spring water flows from the spring house into a shallow pond, which cascades over a waterfall created by what’s left of a concrete dam. The water flows into the Scuppernong River, then the Bark River, then the Rock River and then the Mississippi. Paradise Springs water still makes its way into the Gulf of Mexico, as it has for centuries, even as the human structures at its source have crumbled.

Sources and Notes:

[1] Louis J. Petit Obituary, New York Times, Dec. 3, 1932, p. 20.

[2] The same company that decades later owned the S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald. See Oddsconsin 45. 

[3] Wisconsin Historic Aerial Imagery Finder, Photo 16-1512 (07/29/1937). https://maps.sco.wisc.edu/whaifinder

[4] Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Paradise Springs. 

[5] Waukesha Freeman, Nov. 5, 1970, p 17. 

[6] Waukesha Daily Freeman, Dec. 26, 1947, p 3.

[7] Waukesha Daily Freeman, Feb. 24, 1948, p 3.   

[8] Waukesha Daily Freeman, Jan. 27, 1949, p 6.   

[9] Waukesha Daily Freeman, May 5, 1951, p 3.   

[10] Wisconsin Historic Aerial Imagery Finder, Photo 2DD-024 (08/20/1963). https://maps.sco.wisc.edu/whaifinder

[11] Waukesha Daily Freeman, June 23, 1954, p 11.