What we know about the Lutsen Resort arson case and the owner charged with setting the fire

DULUTH – News of arson charges filed against the owner of the Lutsen Resort this week came as no surprise to many along Lake Superior’s north shore, as speculation ran rampant in the 22 months since the blaze destroyed the landmark.

“What I and thousands of other people already knew was confirmed,” said Alex Hilterbrand, a former employee of the resort. “We just knew.”

Bryce Campbell sat in a jail near Detroit on Friday, awaiting extradition to Minnesota. He’s facing three counts of arson and one count of insurance fraud related to the Feb. 6, 2024, fire that took three days to extinguish. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Thursday that Campbell “knowingly caused the fire to fraudulently collect an insurance payout.”

Lutsen Resort, a cherished place to locals and visitors, billed itself as the state’s oldest, in operation for nearly 140 years. The lodge that burned was built in 1952, after fire destroyed two previous iterations.

With a three-story structure destroyed and all the evidence in the basement, it was still unclear how the 2024 fire started, the state fire marshal said. Charges allege accelerants were involved and that Campbell had researched them online.

Here’s what to know about the case.

A Canadian citizen, Campbell, 41, bought the Lutsen Resort for $6.7 million in 2018.

He also owned the Copper River Inn in Ontario, but has since sold that property, one Lutsen Resort employee said Friday. Campbell often owned businesses alongside his mother, Sheila, who died in 2021.

Campbell told the Star Tribune shortly after the fire that he had nothing to do with it. He had recently invested millions of dollars in improvements to the three-story lodge, he wrote, “So you don’t [expletive] torch a place and burn up $5 million of your money. ... Let’s use some common sense here, people.”

Resort general manager Edward Vanegas, who watched the historic building burn, said he isn’t sure Campbell started the fire.

Campbell had himself hired a private forensic fire investigator, Vanegas said.

And while authorities are citing opportunity and motive, he said, they haven’t found proof, and he pointed out inconsistencies in the complaint:

He explained Campbell’s online search for glycol, which investigators said could also be used as a fire accelerant, related to a burst pipe on a vintage boiler.

The resort’s insurance policy was increased, Vanegas said, because of extensive renovations at the lodge, adding a third floor of rooms. The lodge had recently been appraised for $14 million, he said.

Joe Friedrichs, a Cook County-based journalist who has met with Campbell and exchanged messages for months, described him as an imposing figure at about 6-foot-4, 250 pounds who constantly drinks diet soda.

“With me, he was pretty mild-mannered and calm and would kind of present himself as an aloof, clumsy entrepreneur with an innocence: ‘I wouldn’t hurt a fly kind of thing,’” Friedrichs said. But he is also known as a tough person to work with, Friedrichs added.

A night worker at the lodge’s front desk mistook the smoke for steam coming through the floorboards just after midnight, court papers detail. Within minutes, the lobby was a haze of smoke, he told investigators, the lights had gone out and alarms were sounding. He called 911 twice, in addition to notifying his supervisor.

The blaze consumed the entire structure. Firefighters used an excavator to demolish the pool and kitchen areas.

It took Campbell more than a month to tell an insurance company investigator that he had stopped at the resort around the time the fire started, according to the criminal complaint. He said he spent no more than 5 minutes, just long enough to pick up a travel bag. Surveillance cameras along his route confirmed that the white SUV he was driving at the time was a few miles south of Lutsen just before midnight and north of Lutsen minutes before the fire was detected by the lone staff member on duty.

During the nearly three hours he was unreachable on the night of the fire, Campbell eventually told investigators he had met with someone he had connected with on an app at a condo in Grand Marais.

“What are you going to tell them about where you were?” his husband messaged him via Facebook in February, according to the complaint.

“I definitely can’t tell them everything,” Campbell responded. “Can you imagine if our extracurricular activities got in the news?”

The criminal complaint shows Campbell had debt of more than $14 million. It included: $467,000 in past due invoices to more than 80 entities; $521,000 to Lutsen’s previous owners; $247,000 to two Lutsen townhome associations; $277,000 to Highmark Builders and $13 million to Superior Shores Resort, due in June of 2024.

Bank account records cited in court documents show that his various business checking accounts had a negative or low balance ($28 in one) in January of 2024. An operating account had shrunk from an average balance of $214,000 in 2023 to $31,000 in January 2024.

A payroll account for Lutsen resort showed a balance of $6,000, despite a bi-monthly payroll of $65,000.

Campbell increased the insurance policy for the resort to $13 million in 2023, a $4.5 million increase from 2022, authorities said.

The National Bank of Commerce told Campbell in January of 2024 that it couldn’t see how lodge operations could support his debt load, and sent him a default notice, even as Campbell pursued a loan, the complaint said.

“I along with everyone else is wondering what is going on and what should I do?” Vanegas wrote to Campbell three days before the fire.

It’s unclear whether the valuable Lake Superior-front property that sits aside the Poplar River is already in the hands of creditors.

Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliasen said it remains privately-owned and warned the curious to stay off of it.

As of Friday afternoon, Campbell was still in the Oakland County Jail in Michigan, where he was taken after he was arrested on Wednesday. He did not yet have a defense attorney listed in court filings. He will be brought back to Minnesota by December 18, according to Eliasen, and will be housed in the Lake County Jail.

Court scheduling will be determined after he is back in the state, according to Cook County Attorney Jeanne Peterson.

“I’ve been kind of living and breathing this for so long, nothing about yesterday was shocking or new,” he said.

He said he’s still not entirely convinced that Campbell did what he is accused of.