Painter Avon Waters Will Be Our Vonnegut House Artist In Residence March 1-10

The Clemens Vonnegut Jr. House is pleased to announce the residency of Avon Waters at the home from March 1-10. His dynamic plein air style, mostly of waterways in Northern Indiana, will allow us to see Lake Maxinkuckee through his unique eyes.

His biography is provided below, and you can find his work online and on the various social media.

He has already engaged the Culver Library for a 10 am Saturday, March 6 event and is available for two more events during his time in Culver as part of his residency so if you have something in mind for him, please let us know! otherwise, we hope he enjoys some home away from home, albeit an hour from his real one, a different Indiana for him to enjoy.

Avon Waters - Modern Artist 

Avon Waters is an American artist known for his vivid landscape and wildlife images painted in expressionist and semi-abstract styles. Also an accomplished plein air painter, Waters is a lifetime member of the Indiana Plein Air Painter’s Association and currently serves as the organization’s vice-president. 

Born in Peru, Indiana and raised on a farm near Amboy, Indiana (population 373), Waters learned early on to occupy his solitary hours by drawing. Encouraged by his mother—who showed him how to use paper after finding him drawing with crayons on a plaster wall—five year old Waters soon followed her to college, making coiled pots and painting while she studied art. Time spent with his father exploring fields and farmlands and contact with an aunt and uncle who wrote, travelled and made art helped expand and shape Water’s growing imagination. 

After completing high school, Waters attended Indiana University at Bloomington where he studied both photography and plant biology. Dis-satisfied with the studio art program, Waters transferred to Indiana University at Kokomo, where he took painting as many times as possible before the department chair asked him to apply for graduation in 1988. Waters later completed an MA at Ball State University in creative writing and supported himself as a journalist and adjunct professor teaching freshman composition. While remaining active as a painter throughout this period, Waters helped found the artist colony housed in the former Stutz auto factory in Indianapolis, created a contemporary plein air art collection in the small town of Converse and participated in numerous group exhibitions beginning in the early 1990s. 

Water’s mature work reflects the influence of a diverse range of artists and periods including Pre-Columbian Art, Abstract Expressionism and Tonalism. Interested in pushing color to its limits, Waters has paid special attention to the works of Henri Matisse, Mark Rothko and Wolf Kahn. An engagement with diverse media—including drawing media, pastels and oils—has endowed Waters with a flexible approach and broad stylistic interests. Over time, Waters has moved closer to representation, but still experiments by making abstract drawings with his eyes closed while listening to music. Currently working in a renovated 1890s post office, Avon Waters

is an artist just hitting his stride, deeply interested in seeing where his art can take him next. 

- John Seed

John Seed is an art writer whose work has appeared in the HuffingtonPost, Hyperallergic and Art Ltd. Magazine

We are excited for his time at the house, and seeing our surroundings in a new colorful way. Help us welcome him to Culver!

A Pricing Nudge at The Vonnegut House

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Henry Schnull and Clemens Vonnegut Jr. conducting important matters.

We don’t want to count our chickens before they hatch. Or perhaps our innoculations before they make the rounds. However, it appears that The Vonnegut House, if all goes as expected, will survive this pandemic intact.

There were some tight moments, some patient customers while we tried not to commit ourselves to any overpromises of financial restoration, and more than once concern for the enterprise as a whole, but as it’s a businesses job to look a year ahead, and next year looks a lot better than this year, therefore we plan to still be in business from where we sit now.

It’s been a tough year for Indiana, America and the World, and we mightily acknowledge this fact. As we speak, people are paying the price all over America for seeking fellowship during a disease that thrives on keeping us isolated. This house at 130 years old has seen more than one war to end all wars and crisis, and left the hands of it’s eponymous family only to be bought back by them some decades later, so was the affection for this place, although it’s neighbors to the north did not have the opportunity to reenter Vonnegut Service, just 814, our house.

As we so enjoy providing this service and unique opportunity to our clients, time in a little piece of Hoosier paradise, the management of The Vonnegut House have decided to adjust the rates of pay for our stay and services so as to not only increase our level of service ( it’s an old house, it’s a lot to take care of to get it right!) but to pay our considerable debts to secure our future as an enterprise.

As of this publishing, our summer season rates will appreciate from $835 a night to $890. As an incentive for those who wish to stay over 7 nights, our weekly rate will be $5990, giving a $240 incentive to do so. the longer you stay, the more relaxed you will be!

We will also be extending our Spring and Fall rates into the month of October, ending Halloween Night, Oct 31. Fall has become increasingly popular and enjoyable over the whole house, and we don’t want to nip that in the bud, but we think the experience is worth it.

We have also increased our Special Weekend Rate to $1200 from $1000 per night for the Culver Academy Winter School Reunion and Graduation Weekends when available, and other special events as might arise.

All other categories will remain unchanged, and this is not retroactive to contracts already signed.

Feel free to talk to us about any of this. While we need to secure the enterprise, our mutual happiness is our ultimate goal. We delayed posting this a bit in order to get our most enthusiastic early birds booked without a tif, but we do need to act on this to keep up with the market and our costs.

Looking forward to prosperous and profitable 2021! We’ll see you down by the lake…

Lake Maxincuckee from the Vonnegut House

A Little Video Project at the Vonnegut House

Coming soon……

A couple years ago friend of the house and Culver Historian made a very gracious offer. “I want to do a video shoot of the Vonegut House and make an ad for it.” Something was telling Jeff it was a good idea.

You are a lucky business when you have one friend willing to contribute something like that. Jeff has been at this a while, making videos for Culver Academies History, the latest in a series of creative public acts by Jeff to highlight the fascinating and diverse history of the areas around Lake Maxinkuckee. But what if you have 6 friends so dedicated.. you are a very lucky house at that point.

This June, despite challenges associated with the epidemic, 6 friends of the house came from as far as Minneapolis and Indianapolis to tell it’s historical story and brag on us a bit as well. And Jeff didn’t even get saddled with the editing. Kathy Taylor Mulder, fresh off of a fantastic family history film that might jump into some film festivals, grabbed the reigns, set up a shooting schedule, and along with Jeff managed to wrangel up the necessary gear and then picked an almost perfect evening to film on, with light splashing off the lake like a summer dream.

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We will be releasing a number of different videos over the next few months, and many thanks to our film crew/on screen talent, Kathleen Aman, our rental agent, home manager, and host, Kathy Mulder Taylor, our Director and an Archivist at the Indiana Historical Society, Maire Gurevitz, our behind the scenes PA, also an Archivist at the Indiana Hisorical Society, Jeff Kenney, Museum Director and Historian at the Culver Academies, and head ot he Culver Union Township Herativge Inc., Josh Clemmons, a representative of Old East Shore LLC, owners of the Clemens Vonnegut House, and last but not least, Former County Comissioner Kurt Garner, Historic Preservation Architect and head of the Mythougan Valley Historical Society.

The Vonnegut House Guide to Vacation Renting on Lake Maxinkuckee

While The Vonnegut House would always like to be your first choice, and we are partial, there are a lot of neat places to stay on Lake Maxinkuckee, in Culver, Indiana.

Today there are approximately 300 homes on the lake,  approximately 103 on the East Shore, 20 in Venetian Village, 59 on the South Shore, and 113 on the West Shore, and at least as many again within a 2 minute walk of the lake. There also are a few condominium units on the north and west side of the lake that offer lake front views and lake access. 

Of all these, perhaps about 10% are available for rental on any given summer week. That gives you maybe 30-60 options!

Ways to Rent on Lake Max

Click on any of the links below to decide if a place is right for you, and contact the rental agent or owner.

Charmers on the Lake: The Grand Old Homes of Lake Max

The Clemens Vonnegut Jr. House

Queen of the Lake  If you can book it, this place has earned its name.

Hendricks-Hollowell House, AKA Cole Porter House

Aubenaubee Lodge 

Lake Max Regular Vacation Rental Homes:

These are nice homes, not necessarily of any historical significance, on or near Lake Max, marketed by a handful or reputable local companies.

Culver Lakes Realty AKA Aloha Realty

Access Culver

Culver Lodging

Culver Rentals    AKA Pam Baker Rentals

These National companies also have a nice selection of rentals, although it might take you back to the inventories of the companies above. Some people like dealing directly with the management company or owner, some like the comfort of a middle man.

VRBO culver  (Vacation Rental by Owner )

Home Away  Culver

 If VRBO and home away seem similar, they both belong to expedia. Home Away is geared towards slightly longer stays, and has lower commissions.

Airbnb   

US Lakes   focuses on lake homes

Condominums on Lake Max:

Culver Cove While part of us wishes Culver Cove wasn’t built, since it blocks off downtown from the lake, part of us actually has good memories of the place, and finds it to be pretty relaxing to stay there.

There are a small handful of other condos on the lake that might be for rent, but the majority of the lake was settled as individual houses except in the town of culver, and  a few just off the lake on the West Shore.

Other unique vacation rentals near Lake Max:

The Culver Cottage AKA Main Street Manor

Lake Max Meadow’s Studio

Lake Max Meadow’s Loft

The North Shore is dominated by three main features, Culver Academies, The Indian Path Woods belonging to The Academies, which are preserved as a woodland, and the town and its Lakeside Park. There are a few cottages with access to the park and the lake in town, but you have to cross a road, although village living has it’s charms.

If you are looking for grand old homes, reflective of 130 years of summer retreat culture, to rent for a family getaway or event, the East Shore possesses the bulk of them.

If you are looking for a condo or a bit of neighborhood and community feel, that is mostly found on the North West corner of the lake, although the East Shore is inviting in its own right, this is Indiana, not Saint Tropez, although you’d be permitted to make that mistake.

Wedding Venues:

Lake Max Meadows

Culver Academy Chapel 

The Clemens Vonnegut Jr. House

Meeting Spaces:

The Clemens Vonnegut Jr. House

Lake Shore Park Beach Lodge

Vandalia Train Depot

Culver Cove Banquet Hall

Bass Lake:

While Lake Max is the playground of the Indianapolis Jet Set, Bass Lake in Starke County, 20 minutes to the West, with it’s lovely active Drive In Theater and well reputed Bar B Q, is a similar playground for the hard working people of Chicagoland.

If Lake Max isn’t working for you, Bass Lake might.

The Hampton House

Chain of Lakes:

There is a line of smaller lakes, almost ponds, to the north of culver running between it and the County Hub of Plymouth Indiana. They do have charm, but they are more year round places to live than the vibrancy of Lake Max. Many people who live and work in the Plymouth area have their homes on the Chain of Lakes.

Lake Wawasee:

While we prefer Lake Maxinkuckee for obvious reasons, the other surviving big nautral lake in Indiana is Lake Wawasee, about an hour east near the town of Syracuse, Indiana. While we can’t argue it’s a nice place, and the lake is certainly bigger, some 10 times bigger, there is sometimes a charm in not being the biggest, and Lake Max enacts that charm well, still feels small town. Lake Max is a little deeper, it’s fair to say.

However, if there was one place we’d dream of staying on Wawasee, it would be the old Spinks Hotel where Al Capone is reputed to have stayed, but it’s condos now sadly.

‘Lake Max’ as it’s known, is the southernmost natural Lake in Indiana, due to the glaciation from the Ice Age, which gave the midwest its generally flat appearance down to about the east-west line of I-70, cutting through cities like Indianapolis, Columbus and St. Louis. If you notice, when you get south of there, you get into more hilly country almost down to the Gulf Of Mexico. All lakes south of here are artificial as they say, man made lakes by usually cement dams. There is nothing like the spring fed waters of the real thing.

According to Wikipedia, Maxinkuckee means ‘Big Stone Country’, for the glacial erratics and fieldstone that the glaciers brought down from the north with them into Limestone country.

While the first European settlers trickled into the area after the removal of the Potawatomi to Oklahoma in the 1830’s, there was a period of quiet for many decades as nature retook the lake, but the settlers were busy, and a town called Marmont, later to be renamed Culver, grew up on the northwest corner of the lake, and a smattering of hunting camps and cabins began to occupy the shores of the lake. 

The railroad came to the Marshall County Seat of Plymouth, Indiana in 1856, but it wasn’t until 1884 that the Vandalia Railroad connected Lake Max to the population centers of Chicago and Indianapolis, and smaller cities like Logansport and Peru, opening up Marmont and Lake Max to people seeking temporary or permanent refuge from the same urban centers. You can still see the grade running along the west shore of the lake, through town, and on up to Hibbard.

In the late 1880’s, people spread all over the lake by foot and boat looking for their sanctuary. While the west shore offered convenience to town and the tracks, the east shore offered sunset views, bluffs in places to put one into the prevailing westerly winds for cooling on hot summer days, and a bit of wilderness.

Famed author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. called Lake Max his Aegean Sea, from which he made his map of the world. We hope you will find it as appealing and relaxing as he did, a place to ponder the world on the shores of a lake in the presence of a good community.

Sunset at The Vonnegut House Pier on Lake Maxinkuckee in 2013 Photo Courtesy Garth Kiser

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