Gull Lake summer cottage
— the screen door, the dock, the long evening.
Not only on a wall.
Gull Lake summer cottage, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“Gull Lake in July. Nine thousand acres of warm-water lake in the Brainerd Lakes country, three hours north of the Twin Cities. Cabins line the shore, some built in the 1920s and some built last year, and the same families return the same week each summer. The water is loon-haunted and walleye-haunted, and it holds a long line of evening light across the bay until almost ten o'clock.
The place, in three passes.
Gull Lake covers about 9,400 acres across Cass and Crow Wing counties, with the towns of East Gull Lake, Lakeshore, and Nisswa along its eastern and southern shore. The lake is the centerpiece of the Brainerd Lakes Area, a resort country opened to the railroad in the 1880s and to the automobile vacationer in the 1920s. Madden's, Cragun's, and Grand View Lodge are among the historic resorts still operating. Maximum depth is about 80 feet. Public access is at the dam on the lake's south end.
Summer on Gull runs from Memorial Day to the leaf turn in late September, with the cottage week peaking from the Fourth of July through Labor Day. Mornings are coffee on the dock and loon calls across the bay; afternoons are the pontoon, the lily-pad coves on the north end, and the bait shop at Nisswa. The lake produces strong walleye and muskie; the Minnesota DNR has been stocking muskellunge here since the 1970s. Evening light holds past 9:30 in mid-July, and the screen doors stay open.
The lake sits about 130 miles north of Minneapolis along Highway 371. Public access points include the south dam, Government Point, and small park accesses along Lakeshore. Cottage rentals book a year ahead through the resort circuit; private cabin rentals run through VRBO and a handful of local agencies. Nisswa, on the east side, is the town for groceries, the Saturday turtle races, and a few good bakeries. Brainerd, ten miles south, has the hospital and the chain stores. Gull Dam Brewing in Nisswa is the local pour.
