Why does Artist couple Philip Walker and his wife Beth sell vintage prints of some random lake resort on Philips website??? 

Heres an explanation, My wife Elizabeth’s family ran a summer resort on the shores of a little lake in southern Wisconsin about an hour and a half north west of Chicago from the 1920s until the early 1990s. 

In its heydays The Aquilla Summer Resort and Lodge boasted a golf course, floating docks, boat rentals, cabin rentals, horseback riding, archery, fishing, swimming, and sailing.

At its heart, a grand lodge equipped with a restaurant, dining hall, bar, ice cream parlor and a bowling alley in the basement. The lake shore even had a roller coaster slide that guests labeled the “Screamin Mimi”. 

The Aquilla came about at a time when Americans hadn’t traveled by plane yet. The “Summer Resort” a few hours from town was the light at the end of the tunnel every year for a lot of people.  Families would pack up the kids and flock to the Lake. 

The Kozie Family was able to preserve this legacy for almost 6 generations. Each generation a steward taught to maintain the land. They also kept these original photographs and resort memorabilia in amazing condition.

Elizabeth and I realized looking through all these that they weren’t just created to promote a summer lodge, but more or less the founding of an entire community that is now known as Powers Lake Wisconsin. 

Running a lodge like this was never an easy task even in a good economy let alone a bad one. Eventually American vacations stopped requiring automobiles and switched to the easier and faster mode of traveling by plane. We started traveling farther than the lake each summer, and most of the traditional summer resorts and lodges closed their doors throughout the nation.

Nature eventually  took its course on the old buildings, and maintaining them proved impossible. The  Aquilla closed its doors forever in the late '80s . A silver lining could be stated though that by this time my wife’s family and most of the families that grew up visiting The Aquilla had eventually all staked their claims around the lake and for the most part are still within a footballs throw of where the lodge once stood.  

We are huge history buffs, very proud of Elizabeth's lineage and family's legacy, and happen to be total interior design addicts. So this is totally and absolutely what you're going to get from this collection.

Good news is, there’s a ton of stuff to still go through. For now, enjoy these! 

Cheers,

The Walkers