GREATER KALAMAZOO HOME IDEA GUIDE & LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2013 COMPLEMENTARY AT HOME IN THE HEART OF TEXAS MADE IN THE SHADE THE KALAMAZOO COUNTRY CLUB WATERFRONT LANDSCAPING © 2 • Welcome Home • Summer 2013 Great Things Local Feature Home ( ON THE COVER ) 17 Navy blue walls with trim both painted and stained make the formal dining room unique in this Texas Corners home built by Roberts Built Homes. S T N 23 The Kalamazoo Country Club E 9 Olympic Medal Connection T N O 27 Waterfront Landscaping C 13 Made in the Shade! 7 Bravo! Whitefish Recipe © 4 • Welcome Home • Summer 2013 Great Things L ocal VOL. 20, NO. 2 Summer 2013 PUBLISHER O’Keefe Publishing, Inc. EDITOR John O’Keefe ACCOUNTING MANAGER Donna O’Keefe EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Amanda Emme ADVERTISING Betsy Gesmundo [email protected] 269-998-8727 jan k guigue [email protected] 269-383-6040 John O’Keefe okeefepublishing @sbcglobal.net 269-547-0333 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Kaye Bennett Zolton Cohen Linda Hoard Brian Lam PRODUCTION O’Keefe Publishing, Inc. PRINTING & MAILING JB Printing Welcome Home Magazine © is published 4 times each year by O’Keefe Publishing, 8235 East O Avenue, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49048 SEND INQUIRIES TO: Welcome Home Magazine 8235 East O Avenue Kalamazoo, Michigan 49048 Phone 269-385-9281 [email protected] www.welcomehomekzoo.com Publisher is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or photos, and they will not be returned to sender unless accompanied by return postage. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved - No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Errors: The Publisher will not be responsible beyond the charges for the advertisement itself, for errors, misprints or omissions. Welcome Home Magazine reserves the right to edit or reject advertising which may be objectionable by law or considered undesirable by the Publisher. Information in this magazine on products and projects is from sources believed by the publisher to be authoritative. The publisher, however, cannot assume responsibility for damages, losses or injuries resulting from the use of any of these products or involvement in any of these projects. Before under - taking any project, you should be certain that it is suitable to your skills. Consult with professionals, if necessary, and observe safety precautions. Before using any product, you should study and understand the manufacturer’s instructions. Welcome Home Magazine is owned and pub - lished by O’Keefe Publishing and is not affili - ated with any other publication or organization. © Great Things Local Welcome Home • Summer 2013 • 5 Recipe by Shawn Hagen Photography by Linda Hoard Bravo! is recognized as one of the finest Bravo! Whitefish restaurants for Southwest Michigan dining. Adding to the outstanding dining experience • Four 6 oz. Filets Fresh Whitefish is the fact that Bravo! is locally-owned, and • 1/2 cup Flour provides the personal attention and service • Pinch Salt that is as much a Bravo! tradition as the • Pinch Black Pepper superb cuisine. • 1 1/2 oz. Vegetable Oil All Bravo! food is made from scratch under • 1 Tbs. Finely Diced Shallots the watchful eye of Shawn Hagen, chef • 6 oz. White Wine and owner. • 3 Tbs. Lemon Juice • 2 Tbs. Chopped Parsley • 2 Tbs. Capers • 3 Tbs. Sundried Tomatoes • 4 oz. Butter Heat a large Sauté pan and add vegetable oil Salt and pepper fish filets and lightly flour filets just before cooking Place filets flesh side down into hot pan and saute until golden brown (about 3 minutes) Add shallots, white wine and lemon juice to fish pan and let simmer for 1 minute Remove fish from pan and add butter, capers, and sun dried tomatoes to wine mixture Stir continuously over heat just until butter melts Chef Shawn Hagen Ladle sauce over fish © Great Things L ocal Welcome Home • Summer 2013 • 7 © 8 • Welcome Home • Summer 2013 Great Things Local Jon VanderMolen, North American Center Sailing, and crew pilot a PStar similar to the ones his company furnished to 13 of the 2012 Olympics qualifying teams. VanderMolen’s PStars took all three medals. 2012 Olympic Medal Winners Had a Local Connection By Brian Lam Photos Courtesy of Jon VanderMolen As Jon VanderMolen was growing up sailing on Gull Lake, North American distributor for Cantiere Natuico Lillia, an little did he know his passion for the sport would lead to an Italian boat-maker. The Euro was weak compared to the U.S. international business that would take him to the top of the dollar at that time and VanderMolen was able to sell boats racing world. profitably for a few years due to the exchange. VanderMolen created a business selling Stars, a class Toward the end of 2003, things were going so well that of two-person keelboats. His boats were sold to 37 different he built a brand new facility to keep up with the demands of countries attempting to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in business. He left the daily operations of the Marina, moved London. Of the 16 countries to qualify, 13 did so with the into the new facility, and put all his energies into his distribu - locally made PStars. VanderMolen watched his boats take all tion business. three medals, solidifying his operation – North American It was an ill-timed move. Lillia boats took Gold, Silver Sailing Center – as the top Star-class boat maker in the world. and Bronze in the 2004 Athens games, which gave the Italian The avid sailor said it took the perfect storm to reach the boat-maker an excuse to significantly raise prices. This top of the boat-making business, and it was the success of the happened just as the Euro finally hit its stride, which meant Euro that rousted the first winds. VanderMolen now had to buy his boats for more, but sell them Back in 1999, VanderMolen was the General Manager at for less. He recalls, “I thought, ‘What am I going to do now? I the Gull Lake Marina, a business that has been in his family can’t sell these anymore.’” since the 1950s. While managing, he started to pursue a side With the distribution business struggling, VanderMolen business selling boats. He even signed an agreement to be the considered building boats of his own. © Great Things Local Welcome Home • Summer 2013 • 9 THAT’S WHEN MARK PICKEL ENTERED THE PICTURE. Pickel was a German sailor and boat-builder who VanderMolen had a good friendship with. The German had been working on a model of Star- class boat for the 2008 Olympics that VanderMolen says Pickel was keeping close to the vest. “I knew he had a winner, so I asked him what he was going to do with his tooling and molds after the games were over.” Pickel felt the U.S. needed a Star-class builder and agreed to sell his American friend the boat program, which he had named the PStar. Pickel took 7th aboard the PStar in Beijing, and was all set to hand the reigns to VanderMolen when world economics intervened once again. “The recession hit,” says Vander - Molen, “and I realized that this was not the time to make this kind of investment. But I didn’t want to completely abandon the dream, so I told Mark to build me a boat and we’d wait to see if the economy bounced back.” VanderMolen headed to Florida for some pro-am competitions with Pickel’s PStar. Never technically classified as a professional, the lifelong sailor says at his peak he was able to stay relatively competitive with the pros. With the 2008 Olympics over, VanderMolen found himself sailing against the world’s best in these events. “But suddenly I’m beating every - one,” VanderMolen says. “Everyone wants to know what’s going on. I kept saying, ‘It’s not me. It’s the boat. This is the boat I’m going to build.” Instead of selling the program to VanderMolen, Pickel became his partner. He moved to Richland and the two assembled a team to get started on the American production of the PStar. The key hire was Andy Lowe, one of the premier boat builders in the world. He was brought in from Brazil, and he brought with him the working knowl - edge of a technique typically reserved for airliners. Pre-preg is a term for pre-impreg - nated composite fibers where materials, like resin and hardener in the case of fiberglass, are already present. Typically, fiberglass is purchased as dry, cross- woven cloth. The cloth is soaked in hardener and then laid into a mold, where resin is rubbed in. Because it’s rubbed in by hand, there can be inconsistencies with the weight of the fiberglass. © 10 • Welcome Home • Summer 2013 Great Things Local Pre-preg is unidirectional cloth, and the hardening materials are already soaked in evenly. It’s just a matter of laying it out and heating after that. Pre- preg material is typically considered too cost prohibitive, but VanderMolen’s suc - cesses in Florida caught the eye of some clients with pretty big pocketbooks: countries. VanderMolen explains, “We were the only ones in the world using pre-preg for fiberglass boats. It’s way too expensive for retail sales. If we hadn’t found this niche selling to Olympic teams, we couldn’t have made Gold Medal Winners from Sweden. Freddy Loof and Max Salminen any money.” It took VanderMolen, Pickel and their team eight months to build their first boat, and that was after several months of simulations on specific software designed to identify drag coefficients. Once the new pre-preg PStar was complete, the orders came flooding in.