Black Point Estate and Gardens

2026 is the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Over the next 250 days we will be highlighting historic people, places or things from around Walworth County.

Up next is Levi Leitner.

Levi established a partnership with Marshall Field and Potter Palmer in a Chicago dry goods store in 1865. (Palmer retired 2 years later, creating Field, Leitner & Co.).

In 1881, Leitner sold his share to Marshall Field, and invested the proceeds in Chicago real estate. By 1888 he was worth $15 million.

In 1879, on Geneva Lake, Levi bought property from Sheldon Sturges and built his Queen Ann styled Linden Lodge on the north shore. The summer cottage had 19 fireplaces and 37 rooms; one fireplace in one of the the bathrooms—facing the tub, of course.

The estate included a small observatory and a large Dutch windmill with forty-foot arms. Starting in 1904, the estate hosted the Mid-Summer Fair, which raised funds for Holiday Home Camp.

Leitner sold part of his property to Adolphus Clay Bartlett who built House in the Woods in 1905 …speeding up the construction by building over the winter under a rented big-top circus tent.

Finally, his remaining estate was subdivided and is now known as Lake Geneva Manor.

Partnering with N K Fairbanks, the two avid fishermen stocked Geneva Lake with several million lake trout, bass and whitefish which they raised in the fish hatchery they developed on what is now the Big Foot Country Club.

Mattias Mohr had developed mill ponds to power his mill earlier on the site, and before that it was the site of the Seven Sacred Springs important to the native Potawatomi.
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Walworth@250 #46 ... See MoreSee Less