Camp Wandawega

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Camp Wandawega

The Historic Camp Wandawega
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09/08/2026

TXA TXA CLUB 🤝 Tereasa Surratt

Thanks for another night of insane food and beverage, and thank you to everyone who came out and joined us

📸 matt alaniz

09/04/2026

Lately :

Outtakes from Yesteryear Retreats a photography workshop led by Meg Loeks & Elizabeth Blank & Vanessa Rivera. A few photos here by/with Laurel & Cole | Charleston Family Photographer Kate Zeilon Lizzie Dove | Photographer & Newborn Zero Birthday Celebrations Flying Hearts Photography - Dani Slater Lizzie Dove | Photographer & Newborn Zero Birthday Celebrations

09/03/2026

Apparently we built an amphitheater.

We thought we were just clearing out an overgrown glacial kettle in the backwoods, hauling in some old boat docks from a former Boy Scout camp, cutting stairs into a hill and giving Zach, Jesus + Steven another opportunity to question our judgment.

But Hospitality Design⁠ called it a “hidden woodland amphitheater carved into a glacial kettle,” which sounds considerably more sophisticated.

The old docks became decks.
The hole in the woods became a gathering place.
The fire pit became a destination.
And somehow the two glass boxes we bought off Facebook Marketplace ended up nearby looking like we had a master plan all along.

We did not.

Just another corner of camp made mostly from things somebody else was done with, a lot of manual labor, and the persistent belief that if you drag enough old stuff into the woods, eventually it becomes architecture.

Thanks to Hospitality Design for making us sound fancy.

And to Zach, Jesus + Steven for doing the part that actually required work.

08/29/2026

Nothing like old school film.
A few film scans came in this week from Caden + Simone’s Wandawega weekend of ❤️ captured by the talented Devon║Lifestyle Photographer

08/28/2026

Proof that good things happen when you turn a bunch of wildly talented people loose at camp.

Thanks for coming to make some magic with us, Meg Loeks Vanessa Rivera Elizabeth Blank Yesteryear Retreats — we loved having you.

And this made our day:

“Holding a retreat at Camp Wandawega has been a dream of mine for many years. It was everything I hoped it would be and more.” — Meg Loeks

Come back anytime, campers.

SIGMA America Profoto

08/27/2026

Eleven summers of Studio Gang coming to camp.

They cook. They sketch. They make stuff. They sit around fires. And they birdwatch. Like, REALLY birdwatch.

Somewhere along the way, they got us looking up, too & we have Jeanne Gang to thank for teaching us to pay a little more attention to our feathered neighbors around here.

Which makes their annual migration to Wandawega feel pretty full-circle.

Our friendship with Jeanne & Studio Gang goes back further - to when they designed our home in Chicago (last pics) & started opening our eyes to how design can be a better neighbor to nature.

Fast-forward to now: Studio Gang has designed and co-curated Flyway City: Architecture for a Flourishing Ecosystem at the Chicago Architecture Center Center… all about making cities (especially our very glassy Chicago) safer for birds.

And in a tiny bit of full-circle fun, some of our own birdwatching goods have found a perch in the CAC Design Store, too.

Thanks for coming back for summer No. 11, friends.

We’ll keep the campfire lit and the binoculars handy.

08/21/2026

THE FIND of a lifetime.
Last week, we posted a handful of old film slides. Then a stranger reached out: “I have something from an old friend of mine I think you might want.”

They were the life of a man named John McCarthy. He lived to 99 in Berwyn, married to Val, worked as a-driver for a beer company & spent his life photographing —- everything.

Thousands of images, packed up in so many crates. Decades of a life, obsessively labeled..

We’ve only started sifting through it, but already John’s world is coming back to life- roadside stips. Tourist attractions. Camping. SO many road trips

>>Swipe to end for the box we weren’t expecting (a while collection devoted to n**e artist models)

I’m obsessed by people who spent their lives documenting their everyday (the ones who weren’t doing it for anyone else)
No audience, No followers & No reason to believe a stranger would someday care.
(maybe that’s what makes these feel so intimate)

By the looks of them- most never made it back out of the crates.

For more than 60 years, John kept looking & now (one slide at a time) we get to see what he saw.

*Unfortunately for all of you, he saved thousands of them and I have absolutely no self-control.
*Cont. in comments…

08/19/2026

ESTATE SALE FIND!
(Every now & then an estate sale pops up that I can’t ignore)

This one was up on the North Shore.
huge old house.
The owner had been a liquor distributor who lived big life into his 90s.

His office looked like he’d just stepped out in 1973 and never came back.
8 tracks. answering machine. 8mm camera. Avon novelty aftershave.

The basement was a pure 1970s bachelor pad time capsule magc.
Pool & pingpong, conversation pit, fireplace (& insane wine cellar)
Heff vibes.

Then I hit the garage.
That’s where I found the tackle box for 45 bucks.

Inside was decades of fishing.
including a Langley “Fisherman’s De-Liar”
& unopened cans of cat food and corn for bait (& one random pin-up matchbook)

It wasn’t curated. It was lived. (and coated in what felt like rod grease & fish guts)
Trip after trip, year after year.
That’s why I love these places. You’re not really buying stuff. You’re buying evidence of a life.

the only unboxing video you’ll ever see on this feed is slide no. 2.
Everything else in this post was pulled from all over camp.
(& seeing all of it together reminded me that fishing has always been at the core of camp)

Forever it’s just shown up everywhere from our brochures & business cards to our lake maps & placemats. patches & postcards.
(and all the campers casting their lines here for a 100+ years and running)

Which is kinda why im obsessing over this complete stranger’s tackle box .

maybe he spent his Saturdays on little lakes like ours?

So this box is staying together.
(nothing in it is really special collectible-
i just wanna keep it all togeher,
it tells the story of one person’s lifetime spent chasing something that maybe he never caught.

so now It’ll live in the Department of Objects, alongside a hundred years of other people’s summers.

We don’t collect things because they’re valuable. We hold onto them because they carry fingerprints & little histories.

also, to justify my hoarding-
i keep telling myself that the object is just the excuse- The real artifact is the life behind it.

got a shot of a fish you caught in lake wandawega? DM us!

08/14/2026

When’s the last time you ventured out in the middle of the night to cast your line ?

These two showing us how it’s done ❤️GOODY VAULT™️ Ryan Cascarano

Good things are coming.

📸 Nathan Bobey Ryan Cascarano

Address

W5453 Lake View Drive
Elkhorn, WI
53121

Website

http://wandawega.com/

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