Today
Fresh, clean, attractive and comfortable, accommodations are just what you’ve been dreaming of for your vacation at the lake. Stay connected. Free wifi, good cell coverage and satellite TV make it convenient. Relax. Adirondack chairs on your deck and the beautiful views make it easy. Be busy. Area events and attractions, fourteen interconnected lakes and many area walking, biking and birding trails can keep the liveliest among you happy.
Lynn started resorting at the age of 2 weeks! Although her family left the business when she was just 12 years old, her heart was already entwined in hospitality. Returning to resorting in 1978, only a few miles down the road from the resort where she lived as a child, was a dream come true. Bob, outdoorsy, handy and personable, found the hospitality business to be a great fit for him too.
History
The Whitefish Area was awash with loggers from the late 1870′s to the early 1900′s. Drawn by the abundance of big, straight white pines and Norway pines, logging companies were doubly blessed by the close proximity of the Whitefish Chain of Lakes, a natural log-moving corridor. The Chain, created by the convergence of waters from many small creeks and the main water source, the Pine River, not only had the water depth to support major log floats throughout its nearly 15,000 acres of water, but it also had the bonus feature of several small secure bays for storage of log bundles awaiting transport.
One of the primary holding bays was the body of water now known by many people as Little Whitefish Lake. During the logging years and until the early 1990′s, this bay was known only as Pig Lake. The word, was a logger’s term for a bundle of logs. Those log bundles were so frequently held in this body of water that the name naturally evolved.
Black Pine Beach Resort is located on the southeast shore of Little Whitefish Lake (also known as Pig Lake). Looking out over the 230 acres of clear blue water in this bay, which opens into the 13 other lakes of the Whitefish Chain, it’s easy to picture the scene from logging history.
When the Corps of Engineers constructed a dam on the south end of the Whitefish Chain in the early 1900′s, it signaled big changes in the lake configuration. Water levels rose, adding lakeshore where there had been only low or swampy ground and making channels between lakes more easily accessible by larger watercraft. With these physical changes came other predictable changes in the lodging customers.
Now, more and more people were discovering the wonderful fishing available on the Whitefish Chain of Lakes. And, as the logging industry waned, the fishing and lodging businesses grew. By the 1940′s, resorts of all sizes dotted the shores of the Whitefish Chain and the surrounding area lakes. Fishermen began bringing their families to Paul Bunyan’s Playground, a vestige of the logging history that settled fondly into the heart and lore of the area.
Riding the wave of public demand for lodging facilities in the increasingly popular Whitefish Area, a banker from Salem, NE, put up the money for a friend named Marion Arnold to come up north and build a resort on a piece of property on Pig Lake in an area known as Black Pine Beach. Marion and his wife, Anne, armed with some money and a dream, packed their belongings and made the long trip from Salem to Ideal Corners, MN.
The year was 1939. Marion was not a carpenter, so he hired the cabin construction done. This was an unusual approach. Most everyone in the area believed in doing the work yourself. If you didn’t know how, you just learned how! But Marion was a different thinker. His cabins were constructed with Western lumber; another oddity in an area used to using local pine for almost everything.
The story is told about the Salem, NE, banker being so curious about what was being done with his money that he actually took a trip up to the site of construction and even pounded a few nails himself. But, the gem of the story is not the nail-pounding, rather it’s what happened to the banker’s attitude. Not only did he approve of Marion’s efforts, he fell in love with the Whitefish Area and Black Pine Beach Resort. And, in 1940, when the 5 original cabins were completed, the banker and his family were some of the first Black Pine Beach Resort customers!
The Arnolds owned the resort for many years. Finally, age and failing health forced them to sell in 1968. For 9 years, Black Pine Beach Resort was owned by a train engineer and his wife who cut back the operation to only 6 weeks a year. It became a hobby resort. But, through all these changes, the banker’s family, now the next generation, continued to vacation at Black Pine Beach every summer. In 1977 the train engineer and his wife divorced and the resort went up for sale by owner.
About that time, Bob and Lynn Scharenbroich were starting to search for a resort to buy. Lynn had grown up in resorting and was anxious to return to a business she loved. Bob was an outdoors enthusiast who enjoyed fishing and was handy with construction, plumbing, and general repairs. It was a good set of skills to bring into a business like resorting. After visiting a resort property that was for sale on a different part of the Whitefish Chain, Bob, Lynn and Lynn’s mother were on their way to a relative’s home for coffee before heading back to the Twin Cities where they lived. That decision to stop for coffee proved to be one of the best choices ever made! Traveling down County Road 16, they noticed a hand-painted sign saying Resort For Sale By Owner. That sign began a series of negotiations that resulted in a June, 1977, purchase of Black Pine Beach Resort.
Moving day was set for March 1, 1978. Luckily it wasn’t any earlier because an important event was taking place in February. Luke was born on February 14, 1978. Making all the life changes at once, Bob and Lynn loaded up all their belongings and the new baby, and took off for the beginning of a new life only 5 miles from Lynn’s childhood home.
Those first few months at the resort produced more stories than time to tell them, but when May, 1978, rolled around, the hobby business had been converted into a real business and Black Pine Beach Resort was once again welcoming vacationing families, couples, fishermen and golfers throughout the spring, summer and fall.
Stroll through the informational areas of the website. Your vacation enjoyment is the focus of everything we do. After you’ve viewed the photos and read about what Black Pine Beach Resort provides to make your vacation the best it can be, take a little time to contact us. Maybe you too will be surprised to find out how easy it is to fall in love with the Whitefish Area, just like the Salem banker and his family. Let us help you find a vacation time that can promise you the opportunity to become part of the history of Black Pine Beach Resort!
