On Feb. 14 the last of the debris was removed from the Rowleys Bay Resort, where a fire destroyed a large part of the resort more than a year ago. A pile mostly consisting of concrete block and metal was hauled away by JF Construction Inc., a Sister Bay demolition and excavation company, according to Walter Kalms.
Kalms is the Town of Liberty Grove administrator and the County Board supervisor representing Liberty Grove and the Village of Sister Bay.
The Rowleys Bay Resort fire, on Sept. 5, 2023, was one of the largest structure fires ever to take place in Door County, Jewel Ouradnik said. The resort has been owned by Ouradnik’s family since the 1970s and she has been in the hospitality business her entire adult life, she said.
After the fire, a pile of debris remained on site for several months, leading to neighbor complaints about how long cleanup was taking and concerns about environmental impact. Two parts of the structure are still standing.
One part housed a restaurant and conference facility, and the other part includes 36 rooms. The portion which houses those guest rooms remains partially open to the elements. Both remaining parts were additions added to the original structure, which stood between them. All that remains of the original structure is a chimney.
The property sits on the water on County Highway ZZ, right across the street from a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources lake access dock.
Resident complaints and a Liberty Grove ordinance led to the town facilitating some initial cleanup in July 2024 after it was given permission to proceed by the Ouradniks. The family is responsible for all expenses incurred in the process.
According to the Ouradniks and information received by the DNR, three semi truck loads and 12 dumpsters of debris were removed in July, but there was still a large pile left over.
The cleanup was facilitated by the town, Kalms explained, because the debris left on the ground was in violation of the town ordinance.
Liberty Grove Town Ordinance 1-99 regulates “outside storage, unsightly premises, hazards and blight.”
The DNR has received two complaints about the Rowleys Bay site. One of them was resolved in March 2024, and the other was filed in early February 2025. An investigation in response to the most recent complaint is ongoing, DNR waste management specialist Dan Kroll said. Kroll is based in Green Bay and is handling the case.
The Rowleys Bay site does not seem to be a case of willful negligence, Kroll said.
In the weeks after the fire the Ouradniks planned to reopen the resort, but within a few months, the scale of the project overrode their desire to rebuild, Jewel Ouradnik said in a Feb. 17 phone conversation. The property is for sale and listed at $2.7 million. There have been two interested buyers, but both deals fell through, Ouradnik said.
“I’m 62, and my husband is 70. We are waiting for someone to want to carry on the dream,” she said.
The couple’s insurance paid for the initial cleanup, but the money ran out, she said. They postponed additional cleanup when they had interested buyers, Ouradnik explained, as they were hoping the new owners would take on some of the cleanup.
“Now we are just doing the next right thing: paying the property taxes,” she said. The cleanup has not happened as fast as the couple would have liked, she added.
Residents of the Wagon Trail condominium association and other neighborhoods close to the Rowleys Bay site registered complaints with the Town of Liberty Grove as well as the DNR about what they felt was an overly delayed cleanup of the debris.
Neighbor Pat Hickey, who owns a home in the Wagon Trail condominium neighborhood behind the resort, said she has concerns about toxins leaking into the two wells used to service 30 homes in the neighborhood.
“The resort is uphill a bit, and there is also runoff into the (Rowley) bay,” she said in a phone conversation.
Debris collects in bushes and along the shoreline, Hickey added.
“It’s wide open, there are broken windows, the roof keeps deteriorating and (there are pieces) flying off,” Hickey said. She added that children have been playing in the wreckage.
The site is marked by fencing and signage. Ouradnik said she cannot control people sneaking onto the property. She said she is aware of the “noise” from neighbors and is hoping the most recent cleanup efforts will address their concerns.
Janet Zuffa and her husband also own a condominium in the Wagon Trail neighborhood and she said she has contacted the DNR and local representatives to address the problem.
“My husband and I are both chemists. We were looking at stuff potentially washing out of the debris, styrofoam and insulation blowing around,” Zuffa said. She said she contacted the DNR recently with another formal complaint, and said she is “very happy” to hear that cleanup is progressing now.
“It’s a bit awkward,” she said. “We bought our property in 2019, but there are folks who have been there 20-plus years and have a long relationship with Jewel. They are being careful because they don’t want to ruin that. … I don’t envy her being in that position.”
“I still cry a little every day,” Ouradnik said. “Every day I was there, taking care and being a good steward. … It’s all I knew my adult life. … It takes time.”
Sometimes removing debris from larger structures like this takes a long time, according to Kroll. Kroll’s office received Zuffa’s complaint the week of Feb. 10, he said, and the first step will be reaching out to the property owners to get an update and “we’ll go from there.”
According to Kroll, after any disaster, natural or human-caused, the cleanup is the responsibility of the property owner.
The DNR takes a tiered approach to enforcement when it is alleged that solid waste is not being removed or dealt with appropriately, Kroll said. The process is usually initiated by the DNR receiving a complaint about a specific property. DNR staff then contacts the property owner and informs them of the complaint.
The DNR also will provide education and resources for the property owners to clean up their site and has several guidance documents, Kroll said: “Planning your demolition, what to look for, what hazards you might run into in a demolition, managing fire debris, where you can and can’t go with it depending on what is in there.”
If a property owner is willfully negligent or ignores the initial DNR contact, the case goes into “stepped enforcements,” according to Kroll. A notice of non-compliance could be issued and if not resolved at that level, some of the high-priority cases get referred to the Department of Justice.
“We try and always resolve stuff at the lowest level possible,” he said.
Kroll said his office will be contacting the Ouradniks for an update to address the most recent complaint very soon. He said he anticipated it would be resolved based on the cleanup on Feb. 14.
As far as the remaining standing structure, Kroll said, “I’m not sure where that is, if it’s still usable, and if they or new owners will fix it or if it’s going to be demoed. That’s kind of going to be up to them.”
Sister Bay-Liberty Grove Fire Chief Chris Hecht, who responded to the fire, told the Peninsula Pulse in September 2023 that the eastern addition to the building is “definitely salvageable” due to a cinder block firewall that separated it from the older section of the building.
According to Ouradnik, there is not a plan to remove any structures and the family has done what is required by the Liberty Grove ordinance.
Hickey has not observed the results of the Feb. 14 cleanup yet, she said, as she and her husband live part-time in Waukesha. She said she is skeptical about the cleanup being complete, however, and the standing structure remains a problem.
“It sounds like what they’ve done for cleanup is minimal,” Hickey said. “The middle that was destroyed by fire, they finally got that done, but it’s nowhere near cleaned up. It’s very frustrating.”
As far as the environmental impact of disaster sites like this, Kroll said, it really depends on the specific structure and property. Ash can contain chemicals and hazardous waste, he said, for example, if there was a janitor’s closet with cleaning supplies or some other chemicals present in the building.
Owners need to have that ash tested and work with disposal sites to find out where that debris can be taken, he said. If there is asbestos present, specific abatement procedures are necessary prior to handling any of that material as well.
Kroll added that there are “checks and balances” in place between demolition companies and the landfills or disposal sites to make sure the debris is tested and being disposed of at the appropriate type of site.
According to Kalms, the town facilitated the cleanup in line with all appropriate requirements.