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To rock and roll fans like me, this place is renowned for hosting KISS in October of 1975. See Jim Neff's Cadillac KISStory for the full story.
By Jeff Broddle Cadillac News Sep 16, 2013 Updated Oct 12, 2017:
Live bands almost every night. A massive smorgasbord fit for a king. Two dozen lanes of bowlers rolling late into the evening.
Skiers, snowmobilers, golfers, bowlers, conventioneers, and even the rock band KISS at one time slept under the roof of the Caberfae Motor Lodge west of Cadillac. The roof, and the rest of the motel, has since been demolished after a developer’s plans to refurbish the outdated facility into an assisted living center proved too costly.
Most people referred to the place as Bill Oliver’s even though in its last decade of business, it was known by a variety of names as it changed hands, among them Best Value and Rodeway Inn.
A group of men who also were on the board of the directors of the then non-profit Caberfae Ski Area in the early 1960s teamed up to build the motel, recalled Bob Jones. Jones served as the executive director of the Cadillac Area Chamber of Commerce from 1965 to 1991.
According to a document found in the motel’s archives, the Caberfae Motor Lodge opened in 1962. In addition to the 66 rooms, there also was a conference center, bowling alley, 50,000 gallon swimming pool, two tennis courts, restaurant and lounge. It also was conveniently located next to the Cadillac Country Club, where guests were entitled to golfing privileges.
Jones recalled that at the time Caberfae Lodge was built, it had few competitors. At the time, McGuire’s Resort was still growing. Besides McGuire’s, tourists had a choice of either small, boxy cabins, or the Sun and Snow Motel. Another Cadillac West resort, The Sands, went up shortly after the lodge, Jones said.
“A lot of people thought the word ‘Caberfae’ was synonymous with Cadillac,” Jones said.
Craig Weidner’s father, August “Auggie” Weidner was one of the original investors. August Weidner passed away in 2007 at age 92.
Craig Weidner said he has few memories of the place, but recalled his father always was interested in sports and the chamber, and worked to actively promote Cadillac. August Weidner also had indoor tennis courts constructed in Cadillac, Craig said. Today the massive building is the home of the State Highway Department’s sign shop.
George Corliss is currently doing marketing development and fundraising for Christian radio station Strong Tower Radio, but said he began working part time as a dishwasher at age 11 or 12, and held various jobs until he was 20. Those jobs included maintenance, cleaning the pool, and working the 24-lane bowling alley. His father was night bookkeeper for about six years, while his mother handled the salad bar from the kitchen.
Corliss remembered the restaurant had a chef named Clyde Rogers, a portly man who was about 5 feet tall.
“Boy, he could cook,” Corliss said, recalling Rogers’ prime rib and steaks.
Corliss himself worked in the steak pit, where customers could watch their steaks cook over an open fire.
Later in life, Corliss managed the Caberfae Lanes bowling alley, and moved on to manage the alley just down the street at The Pines, also.
Caberfae Lanes shared a Northern Michigan tournament with other lanes in Sault Ste. Marie, Traverse City and Alpena. For about 20 years, thousands of bowlers from all over Michigan came to Cadillac to compete. The lanes were busy from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“It was cranking all the time,” Corliss said.
Ron Benninger, 65, was bar manager and maintenance man from 1973 to 1980.
He said the rooms were virtually sold out five out of seven days of the week. Most nights one could catch live entertainment, such as rock, jazz, or an easy listening outfit called the “Just Us Trio.”
“It was the top of the line in its day,” Benninger said.
For the two decades from 1980 to 2000, Bill Oliver was president of the operation, and the facility was named after him, although the building itself was owned by someone else. Three brothers and a gentleman from Detroit News were the actual owners, according to Oliver’s son, Terry Oliver.
Terry and his stepmother, Donna Oliver, managed the motel for those 20 years, and also ran a catering operation.
In the early 1990s, half of the bowling lanes were removed, and the remaining space turned into a conference center.
Diners would make the trip up from Grand Rapids just to fill their plates with shrimp, lasagna, baked chicken, king crab and more from the smorgasbord that flourished under his father, Oliver said.
“He said he was going to convert it into the talk of Northern Michigan, and he did,” Oliver said.
On President’s Day weekend the motor lodge would team up with Caberfae Ski Area and McGuire’s Resort to host a crowd of state legislators from Lansing. The lawmakers and their families would receive complimentary lodging and meals on Sunday. On Monday, they would be guided on a snowmobile “safari” through the bare trees and silent pines of the snowy Manistee National Forest.
Oliver said he was saddened to see the building go.
“It was landmark,” he said.
The motel’s conference center, the former Caberfae Lanes, is being renovated and will be utilized as an event center, according to Project Manager Rich Cushman. He said he and the new owner, his father, Richard Cushman, are still in the planning stages of putting in a restaurant and possibly a brew pub. Plans for converting the motel into an assisted living center were scrapped due to exorbitant costs related to bringing the aging building up to code. They still are weighing their options for placing a new motel and/or assisted living center on the site as well.