Date in History: 1920s – 1980
The Haven Motel with its adobe cabins sits south of Fort Atkinson on highway 12 on the way to Whitewater. Built in the late 1920s by the Lein family, it was originally called Lein’s Cabins and advertised as the only motel between Chicago and Minneapolis. During the time that the Lein’s ran the business, they hosted quite a few celebrities from Ozzie and Harriett Nelson to Joe Lewis to the Von Trapp family of Sound of Music fame.
The Leins sold the cabins in 1958 and the name was eventually changed to the Haven Motel. The last family to operate the motel was the McCord family, but when Mrs. McCord became too elderly to run the business, it was closed in the 1980’s. The property now sits abandoned with items left just as they were over 20 years ago conjuring up all kinds of stories and questions about its past.
This historic document aired on the radio as an Historic Minute on 08/29/2005.