Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Majestic Hills stood on the south shore of Geneva Lake, near Fontana. Bill Grunow Jr., a keen skier, built it on the land of his father's Val-Lo-Will chicken farm, which had closed in the mid-1950s, and made the chalet from an old chicken coop with A-frames added.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayThe old ski hill has sat largely untouched since, its remains visible from Geneva Lake. (2022)4,5
Timeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Majestic, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Majestic
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1973–1986 · 2.5 mi away · WisconsinA small ski hill at the Interlaken Resort near Lake Geneva, open from 1973 to 1986, with 100 feet of vertical.
- 1960–1970 · 6.5 mi away · WisconsinA ski hill north of Lake Geneva that Ed Meltzer ran from 1960 to 1970 with 12 runs; its slopes are now part of Hawk's View Golf Club.
- 1970–1982 · 14.3 mi away · WisconsinA ski area near Burlington with 192 feet of vertical, open from 1970 until a December 1982 ad said the hill would not open that season.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 5 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Majestic Hills stood on the south shore of Geneva Lake, near Fontana. Bill Grunow Jr., a keen skier, built it on the land of his father's Val-Lo-Will chicken farm, which had closed in the mid-1950s, and made the chalet from an old chicken coop with A-frames added. It opened in December 1957 with a ski shop, a cafeteria and a bar and lounge.1,2
In 1960 Grunow added a driving range and a nine-hole golf course across the ski hill, and from 1960 to 1970 the Majestic Bandstand held summer concerts by acts including Stevie Wonder, The Who and the Beach Boys. MWLSAP gives the hill 230 feet of vertical, and a 1978 listing it cites shows six rope tows and three chairlifts, one of them a quad. Skimap.org holds a 1981 trail map.1,2,3
Fire destroyed the chalet on March 7, 1988. The $500,000 loss was uninsured, and the hill never reopened; Visit Lake Geneva also points to an unexciting winter and competition from Wilmot, Alpine Valley and Americana. A Chicago builder bought the land in 2020 and put it up for sale in 2022.1,4,5
TodayThe old ski hill has sat largely untouched since, its remains visible from Geneva Lake. (2022)4,5
Sources for this history (5)
- 1At The Lake Magazine · How Majestic: A Look Back at Majestic Hills Ski Area
- 2Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Majestic (Majestic Hills, Majestic Ski Area, Ski Majestic), Fontana — Wisconsin
- 3Skimap.org · Majestic ski maps
- 4Visit Lake Geneva · A Peek Into The Past
- 5SnowBrains · Wisconsin Ski Hill On the Market for $5.75 Million (April 14, 2022)
Photos
No photographs of Majestic we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Majestic, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.5519° N · 88.5121° W · Wisconsin
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1957–1988
Closed after the 1988 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain