Local architect pens historical book

When Joseph Louis Moore, the founder of Elkhart Lake, purchased the entire 160 acres of Elkhart Lake’s shoreline back in 1844, he paid just $1.25 per acre.

The U.S. Exemption Act of 1841 granted 160 acres of government land to persons who built a dwelling on that land, so Moore constructed a log cabin along the lake, at the present site of Siebkens and East Street. People living along the lake may find Moore’s name on their original deeds.

Moore also built a larger house on the eastern shore and in 1855, sold it to Peter Sharpe (who became a future resort developer). Moore later served as mayor of Sheboygan from 1863-66.

Elkhart Lake resident Larry Bray, 84, relates these accounts in his recently published, 61-page, coffeetable book, “Historic Elkhart Lake.”

Sun Graphics, Plymouth, printed the handsome spiral-bound book with laminated covers, containing 75 of Bray’s ink and watercolor sketches.

An architect, Bray retired in 1996 from Bray Associates Architects Inc., the Sheboygan-based firm he founded in 1962. With a passion for story telling, he had begun journaling in earnest about his life’s events back in the 1960s, and with more time available continued journaling in earnest after he retired.

He also took several art classes at the Bonita Art Center in Bonita Springs, Fla. – among them, a watercolor class. Bray and his wife Lynn had a home in Bonita Springs and spent winters there from 1992- 2006.

In 2006, he published “The Growing Years,” the first book of the Larry Bray Journal, encompassing the years 1925-51. He wrote the book in his own meticulous script.

Two years later he completed book two of his journal, “The Working/Family Years.” The book focuses on family accounts that occurred from 1951-79. One of these discloses the heart-wrenching tale of the death of his 17-year-old son Gregory in 1968. Gregory was accidentally shot while he and a friend were target shooting near the Bray home in Elkhart Lake.

Sun Graphics also printed Bray’s first two books. He is currently working on the third installment of his journal. “These books are a tribute to the people I know and knew, especially my dad who was a very influential person in my life,” Bray noted. “I always wanted to write a book about our family.”

His journals reveal he was smitten with the village of Elkhart Lake from his early years. His first visits there occurred during his years as a student at Valders High School, playing basketball games against Elkhart Lake. His father the late C.E. Bray, superintendent of the Valders School District, coached the Valders basketball team. He passed away in 1961.

“I also spent two weeks at Crystal Lake for several summers with five boys from Valders,” Bray said. “We would walk across the golf course and look in the resort windows to watch the gambling. We thought Elkhart Lake was part of Chicago.”

He noted that the resurgence of Elkhart Lake with its road racing in the 1950s coincided with his family’s move to Sheboygan. “My interest in Elkhart Lake was totally renewed at that time, which led to our family buying a home on the lake in 1968,” he writes in his latest book.

While the Bray family – Larry, Lynn and their seven children, used that home mainly as a summer home while residing in Sheboygan from 1961-76, they moved to Elkhart Lake on a year-round basis in 1976.

Bray’s “Historic Elkhart Lake” is both educational and entertaining. For instance, his narrative about the interurban trolley notes that the electric-powered interurban lines were added to Kohler in 1899, Plymouth, in 1903 and Elkhart Lake, in 1910. The ride from Sheboygan to Plymouth took one hour and 13 minutes at 45 miles per hour, with nine stops and cost 55 cents for a round trip ticket.

Bray noted that the late Peter Laun, a local historian, had written a book, “A Photographic History of Elkhart Lake,” “His book has small photographs,” Bray said. “He wrote that book about six or seven years ago, and the book is sold at the Elkhart Lake Area Chamber of Commerce.

“I then suggested that we work on an illustrated book of Elkhart Lake history. But he passed away.”

Bray took on the project by himself and completed his book earlier this year. Copies of “Historic Elkhart Lake” are on sale at Book Heads, Plymouth, and in Elkhart Lake at Cottage Wood, Three Gables, Siebkens Resort, Victorian Village Resort, Oosthoff Resort and the Road America Store.

Prior to writing his latest book, Bray created 10 pen and watercolor sketches of Elkhart Lake landmarks for note-cards, and later he had them printed on posters. He donated proceeds from the sales of the notecards and posters to the Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah School District.

He credits his junior-high teacher Miss Hanrahan and his father for jumpstarting his early interest in writing and architecture.

When Bray was a seventh-grader, he wrote an essay about putting salt on a sibling’s cereal as an April Fools’ joke. “I wrote that the cereal and salt resembled a snow-capped mountain peak,” Bray recalled.

“Miss Hanrahan read that and said, ‘That’s creative,” Bray noted. “That comment really inspired me.”

On another occasion, “Miss Hanrahan asked me to line up some pictures on the wall. She told me, ‘You have a good eye,’” Bray said. “I started thinking about studying architecture at that time.

“And my father was good at cartoon drawing. He seemed at times to be a frustrated architect,” Bray said, smiling.

While enrolled in a math class at Valders High School, Bray designed a home as a class project.

Following his high school graduation, Bray enlisted in the U.S. Navy from 1943-46. He served in World War II in the South Pacific, aboard the USS Burleigh (APA-95), a Bayfield class attack transport.

He then began his college career, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics at Ripon College in Ripon. He and Lynn were married in 1948, and then moved to Massachusetts, where Bray completed a Bachelor of Architecture degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

He then spent three years working for architects in Manitowoc, Milwaukee and Sheboygan prior to being designated an architect himself. The Sheboygan firm was Edgar A. Stubenrauch Architects. Bray worked there from 1954-62, resigning as vice president. He established his own firm that year.

During his tenure, he designed and provided architectural services for the construction of 980 schools and school additions in Wisconsin. The first school he designed in 1962 was Valders High School. The gym there was named in honor of his father, the former superintendent of the district from 1922-61.

When the gym was renovated into the school library in 2002, Bray constructed a 40-foot mural on top of the library walls, of photos from the Valders High School yearbooks.

In addition to working on the third installment of his journal, Bray enjoys golfing and spending time with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchild. Two of his sons – Larry Jr. and Geoffrey are the owners of Bray Associates Architects Inc. Larry Jr. is the CEO of the firm, while Geoffrey, the lead design architect, is the president.

Bray’s other children are: Patti Balliet, Holly Welsch, Lori Bray-Levinsohn, Janine Bolz and the late Gregory Bray.