Once upon a time, legend has it, merchant Jacob Donges saw his two young daughters playing along Fish Creek near Lake Michigan. He remarked that the area looked just like a “fairy chasm.”
That was in 1890. The name was so appropriate for the magical view that it stuck.
Today, one side of the creek is known as North Fairy Chasm and is located in Mequon while the southern half is known as South Fairy Chasm and is located in Bayside, even though it is north of County Line Road.
“The first time I saw it, I thought it was just heavenly,” said Lorrie Otto, who was a young mother when she and her husband bought a Swiss chalet-style home on Lake Drive in South Fairy Chasm 50 years ago.
“On one side were the marshes that my husband loved immediately,” she recalled. “On the other side was the woodland that I loved.”
Best of all was the stream fed by 17 creeks.
It was the same visage that convinced Donges to create a development of summer homes some 50 years earlier.
Donges, who sold hats and gloves from a store near downtown Milwaukee, convinced a group of other men, most of whom also were nearby merchants, to form the Fish Creek Park Co.
The company bought 146 acres of land for a little more than $41,000, an outrageous sum for the time. The farmers who worked the soil must have thought these men odd: The land was not good for tilling or even for cattle to graze.
Most of the lots were only 66 feet wide, although many were quite deep. Lakeside lots sold for $50 and others for $25 at the turn of the century, but it took years for the land to sell.
Slack Ulrich razed a summer home built in the 1920s to build a year-round home on Lake Drive in 1956. One of the area’s unofficial historians, Ulrich said he is as happy with the area today as he was when his family was young.
“It’s gone through a lot of changes,” Ulrich said. “More younger families have moved in and restored the large number of children that were here when mine were young.”
The main entrance of South Fairy Chasm is guarded by two cement lions atop stone columns. The columns were erected in the mid-1950s after the last of several cars collided with the original wrought iron gates.
Guards once stood at the pillars–sometimes armed, according to a history of the area. The roads are still privately maintained and outsiders are warned to keep out.
Today, most of the early homes have been razed or so greatly renovated and expanded that the originals would be unrecognizable.
Though clearly affluent, homes in the area are smaller and sell for considerably less than many of the new mansions to the north in parts of Mequon. Ulrich estimated that most homes range from $200,000 to $500,000.
The members of the Fish Creek Park Co. were innovative in another way. They set aside some 20 acres of land along the creek that was used for recreation. The creek was dammed to create a lake for boating. A pavilion was built for elegant evenings of dancing and parties.
In 1923, the dam broke and the pavilion was washed away. The land was held in common by the homeowners association until 1970 when it was deeded to the Nature Conservancy, a group of environmental activists that since has gone national.
Marshall Loewi, another longtime area resident, said the residents of North and South Fairy Chasm considered becoming a village in 1954. Practicality won out and the north half went to Mequon, the south to Bayside.
