When one door closes, another one opens. That’s the case with Alhonna Resort and Marina in Lake Ozark. Owner Shirley Gross-Russel has decided it’s time to pursue other interests, and Alhonna is under new ownership. New owners Aaron and Erin McArdle, along with their remote CEO and partner Jamie Huff, promise improvements while keeping the nostalgic Ozark ambience.
“My wife and I were invited to the Lake for the Shootout 15 years ago,” Aaron said. “We experienced it and we were hooked. We’ve been coming back with our children every year for family vacations ever since.”
The McArdles lived in Normal, Ill., and weren’t planning on purchasing a resort. Alhonna soon changed their minds.
“We saw that it came up for sale,” Aaron explained. “Frankly, we were just curious about it. We really weren’t very serious.”
The couple toured the property and decided to run a valuation test and opportunity analysis on it, and six months later made an offer. “The more we learned about it the more we liked it,” Aaron said. “I love the Lake. It’s literally my most favorite place in the world.”
The Alhonna Resort & Marina is located at the 8 mm by water and off Horseshoe Bend Parkway by car. Amenities include a motel, efficiency units and one- to four- bedroom cottages for rent. The resort houses a restaurant, two swimming pools, two hot tubs, a sandy beach and more. There is a full-service gas dock, boat docks, an enclosed fishing dock and boat rentals.
St. Louis native Bill Dubuque worked at Alhonna while attending college in the 1980’s. It’s there he got his inspiration to write a story. He then created a series and wrote the first two episodes for Ozark, which aired on Netflix.
The Netflix series Ozark may have come to an end, but tribute to the series will continue at Alhonna. Some of the improvements, Aaron said, will be recognizable to the series viewers.
“Most of the changes we’re going to make over the next year are going to be behind the scenes,” Aaron said.
Other improvements, however, are being put into place. There will be a roll-up door between the indoor and outdoor pools that will give swimmers access to both while in the water. Other additions will include new landscaping, a gift shop, minor improvements to the docks, live music on weekend days and eventually remodeling of some of the cabins. All events from previous years will continue, including the Sunday brunch and fishing tournaments.
“We’re making some improvements but when people pull up I want them to still be able to recognize the place,” Aaron explained. “We are making changes without taking anything away from it. This place is the best kept secret. We just want people to experience the Lake the way it used to be.”
To tie into the Netflix series, Bobbers restaurant will now be known as the Blue Cat Lodge. The menu items won’t change much but some of the item names will be changed to reference the series. There will be some branding changes and the logo for Alhonna has already adopted a new look. The Blue Cat Lodge sign from the set of the series is installed and welcomes guests as they walk from the parking lot to the restaurant. The sign was purchased by the previous owners after being made known of its availability by the series producer.
Aaron said all those employed by the previous owners have been retained and will continue working. The McArdle’s also own a company named Roomready, which installs meeting technology for Fortune 500 companies. There are four offices located in the United States and Aaron runs the company remotely. Although they live close by, the couple don’t plan on being directly involved in the day -to- day operations of the resort and have retained the previous managers for that purpose. The couples' two daughters, 22 and 23, are moving to the Lake and will be helping to run the resort.
For Mike Swift, Broker Associate at Swift & Co Realty in Osage Beach, the sale of Alhonna Resort and Marina provided him a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As the listing agent, Swift was instrumental in selling one of the most iconic places at the Lake.
“This was one of the coolest listings we’ve ever had,” Swift said. “First of all, it was so hard to get it. We had to really compete. We did a lot of stuff outside of traditional marketing.”
Swift created videos of the property that were marketed nationwide. Articles were written and went viral. Interest in the property came from prospective buyers all over the country.
“Because of the Ozark series, anything we put up went crazy,” he said.
The videos were produced from the initial listing period all the way through the closing with the new owners. The reason, Swift said, was to let people know what was going on and that everything was going to be fine.
The property was listed for sale in September of 2021. Just six and one-half months later it was under contract. The agent who represented the buyer, Clara Decker, works out of the same office as Swift. The property was showed 10 times with more than half being serious buyers.
“When everything was complete we all went out to dinner together,” Swift said. “It was just a pleasure working on this deal. It’s a nice way for the previous owners to step out and it still remaining nostalgic.”
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.