Located on North Broadway, “on the road to Lake,” Stegner’s offered tourist rooms and dinners served family style, according to an ad from 1946.
Stegner’s also served breakfast, lunches and late-hour snacks.
Owner was George Stegner, who kept the Homestead open through September, then went to a weekend schedule. He also had rooms for special events open during the winter months. Stegner and Henry Gutkin were chefs.
The colonial-style home accommodated 27 house guests. Rooms were decorated in pastel colors.
Stegner’s newspaper ad from May 1947.
The first season for the business appears to have been 1946. A Beachcomber article that summer noted that “There has been considerable speculation by passers-by during the last winter on what was being done to the huge, rambling old farm on the rest of the hill on the road from Geneva to Geneva-on-the-Lake.
“Under management of Mr. and Mrs. George Stegner and Henry Gutkin, the farm has been completely remodeled and will be called Stegner’s Homestead.”
“Our specialty will be chicken dinners served home style,” George Stegner said. “We believe we will be the only establishment to serve vegetables picked right out of the garden at the Homestead. We also are raising our own chickens, so that our guests will be assured of having fresh eggs and the best of chicken dinners.”
George Stegner’s wife, Marie (1893-1980), was a Pittsburgh native who studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and in New York city. She was a “dramatic soprano” who appeared with Rudy Vallee’s Coast Guard band at a bond drive in Cleveland, sang at the Cleveland Stage Door Canteen, and sang over radio stations in New York and Cleveland.
In 1946, Esther Lyon was head waitress and Doris Gildow was a head cook who made homemade rolls, biscuits, pies and cakes.
The Homestead was remodeled in 1946, with an enclosed veranda for dinners and a top deck.
See also The Homestead (Warner family) entry.