OTIS LODGE – RUTTGER’S SUGAR LAKE LODGE
OTIS LODGE was established in 1923. Development has been continuous. Our golf course was built in 1933-35. The airport was added in 1936-40.
Otis Lodge was the only resort in Minnesota with its own golf course, airline airport and seaplane base. It lies ten miles southwest of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and has accommodations for sixty guests. The main lodge is located eighty-five feet from the shores of Sisse-Bak-Wet Lake in a grove of hardwood and pine on a knoll facing south.
Otis Lodge has 200 feet of sand beach clear of weeds. A child can wade 500 feet from shore. Yet Sisse-Bak-Wet is spring fed, blue in color and in places over two hundred feet deep. It is noted for its prize-winning walleyes and great northern pike and has been continually stocked with pike fry for the last twenty years. In Little Sugar Lake (connecting) are black bass, crappies and sunfish. There are twenty nearby lakes within 15 minutes’ drive of the lake – seaplane service to the Canadian border lakes.
The cottages are cool, roomy, beautifully furnished and heated by automatized gas heaters or fireplaces. They are spaced 50 feet apart in a thick grove of hardwood facing south, thus taking advantage of the prevailing winds. Each collage has a glassed-in living room, one or two bedrooms with Simmons bed and Beauty-rest mattresses and bathroom with hot and cold water. Kohler tub or built-in shower. We have no housekeeping cottages.
Otis Lodge has croquet and horseshoe pitching courts as well as Children’s playgrounds on the shores of the lake. We have a well-kept nine-hole golf course with grass greens.
We serve pasteurized milk and cream on our table. Arco roasts our own special blend of coffee which we grind in an old-fashioned coffee mill to make you a cup you’ll never forget. We use Hormel’s hams, bacons and grade AA beef aged especially for us. Fresh vegetables from our own garden and home-made ice cream are served daily. All pastries, cakes, rolls and bread are baked in our own kitchen.
Otis Lodge was renamed Sugar Lake Lodge and continued for 40 years. Sugar Lake Lodge burned down in 1987.
Though he has nothing against the name, Fred Bobich can’t imagine calling his resort Sissebakwet Lake Lodge. “They couldn’t pronounce it”., the owner-operator said of those visitors to the remodeled resort located about 12 miles south southwest of Grand Rapids on Sugar – or Sissbakwet – Lake.
Ruttger’s Sugar Lake Lodge officially opened June of 1994. Like its Brainer-area counterpart, Ruttgers on Bay Lake, the new Sugar Lake Lodge offers golf, sailing, swimming and private cottages, plus an 18,000 square-foot lodge.
It also has a restaurant, called Otis, named after Art and Eleanor Otis, who developed the resort approximately 40 years ago.
However, the facility – built on the site of the former Sugar Lake Lodge that burned down in 1987 – is different from the Bay Lake site. The new $5.5 million Sugar Lake Lodge is more of a business retreat, said Bobich, who oversees the facility’s 120 to 130 employees.
We are a retreat location, with 6 remodeled lakeside cottages and 40 three-bedroom golf course villas. The lodge also offers conference rooms designed to give businesspeople a chance to work somewhere without all of the distractions of home or the office.
We will always operate as a resort that welcomes anybody to stay here, whether it’s families or groups.
