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In July of 1904 August Zahn made the journey from Germany to join his uncle Albert (Bird) Zahn in Baileys Harbor. Albert had emigrated here some years earlier and had written his young nephew about the opportunity that existed here for a young blacksmith such as himself. With about a month of hard work Albert and August built the smithy that still stands next to the Zahn House. August had his forge up and running by the end of that summer. Responding to homesickness for his family and his native land, August began construction in 1905 of a replica of the home and blacksmith shop he had grown up in. What is now the Zahn House took August 7 years to build. By the time he occupied the building in 1912 he moved in with a wife, Katrina, and son, Walter. Even though he had created the building to serve as both residence and forge, he never moved the smithy and it remains in the original blacksmith shop next door to this day.
August and Katrina raised two sons and a daughter in their sturdy home and Walter ultimately adopted both his father’s career and residence. Walter married Estelle and they raised two daughters. The first generation of Zahns lived in only the extreme north end of the ground floor with the rest of the building serving as storage barn. In the 1950s Walter and Estelle remodeled the north end of the second floor above their apartment into a weekly tourist rental and the street side of the ground floor into a shop for Estelle to sell aprons, doilies and other sewn goods produced by her and her group of friends over the winter months.
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In early 1994 Walter and Estelle sold both the house and the blacksmith shop to the partnership of Dave Haidlinger and Kevin Stoerr. Dave left his corporate job in Milwaukee and launched the transition of the Zahn’s residence into that of a bed and breakfast called the Blacksmith Inn. Two years later Dave and Kevin sold the fledgling Inn to Joan Holliday and Bryan Nelson who continue to own and operate it. Joan and Bryan were able to complete the purchase of the lot to the north of the parking lot and begin construction of the Harbor House in September of 1999. It welcomed its first guests in July of 2000. Joan and Bryan purchased the Orchard House across the street from the Inn in the fall of 2001 and opened it as a vacation rental house the following summer.
Joan and Bryan and staff are delighted that others can share in the unparalleled history and setting that comprises the Blacksmith Inn on the Shore to this day!
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