CABLE, Wis. — A new investment group has purchased the financially troubled Telemark Lodge and Resort at a Bayfield County auction.
The company had the top bid of $926,000 for the property which last sold in 2011 for $2 million. The resort has gone through a series of owners and failed attempts to revive the business since it was opened in the 1970s.
The resort near Cable has been closed since March when it was abandoned by its operating company.
Rick Carpenter, a former Telemark employee, represented the investment group but declined to name the investors.
The lien holder, Great Southern Bank, received a foreclosure judgment in August, which paved the way for the auction at the courthouse in Washburn Tuesday. The bank also bid for the property, according to the Duluth News Tribune (http://bit.ly/19I4VJb ).
The resort near Cable is the starting point for the annual American Birkebeiner cross-country ski race in February. Ben Popp, executive director of the American Birkebeiner cross-country ski race that begins at Telemark each February, said race organizers have been working with Great Southern Bank on the assumption that it would take ownership of Telemark.
"It was kind of a shock," Popp said.
The Birkebeiner signed an agreement with the former owners and the bank guaranteeing it would have a place to start the 2014 race, Popp said.
