Birch Cottage

The first tourist resort in the Sister Bay Area was the Liberty Park Lodge built in 1898 just north of Sister Bay. It is still in operation today, and is known simply as the Liberty Lodge. Around the 1910s, the lodge owners added 10 cottages across the road on the shore of Green Bay, and this Birch Cottage was one of them.

The 10 cottages at Liberty Lodge were in use for about 100 years, and in a number of cases, multiple generation of families stayed in them. In 2006 they were slated for demolition. Three were saved — this Birch Cottage; the Balsam Cottage next door, which now serves as our offices, and the Pine Cottage, which is on the grounds of the Liberty Grove Historical Society near Ellison Bay. The Birch Cottage has been restored to look like what it might have been in the 1940s and 1950s, when the summer cottage era was at its peak.

In the early days of this resort, tourists came by boat and stayed the entire time there. The owners provided the recreational opportunities — boats, other sporting equipment, and campfires — and three meals a day were offered at the lodge. The cool bay breezes in the summer made this tourist slogan ring true: "Door County — the air-conditioned peninsula.”

Birch Cottage: https://sisterbayhistory.org/museum/the-birch-cottage/