Double JJ Resort

Story

Double JJ Resort is located in Rothbury, Michigan. It is a four-season resort which opened as the Jack and Jill Ranch in 1937. It has been the location of the Rothbury Music Festival two times, and has hosted the Electric Forest Festival annually since 2011. Double JJ has expanded to include a golf course, an indoor water park, and conference center to go along with the original ranch.HistoryIn 1914 George and Mary Stouch left their home in Central Germany and settled on 80acre of farmland in Western Michigan. The farm included a brick home built by the Kennedy family in 1894. The land also embraced a large, spring fed lake, Big Wildcat Lake.In 1930 daughter Roma was employed as an instructor at a private school for girls. She was the first to use the lake setting and surrounding woods at their father’s farm commercially. She presented a summer camping experience at Wildcat Lake to her students, hoping to get their parents approval. Roma would be the councilor and instruct 8 to 12 year olds in outdoor camping, crafts, swimming, drama, dancing, and sports, including horseback riding. Her project got parental approval, and her first year brought 23 girls to her camp. The camp was named “Cedar Shores” because of the hundreds of white cedar trees surrounding the lake. A stone wall at the corner of Water and Clay road stands today with an embedded bronze plaque marking the site of the first family business attempt.The deep depression of the early thirties cut short Roma’s efforts and the Cedar Shores experience faded into history.The beauty of the lake and ease of camping was well known in the community, and during the summer of 1933 the family invited local church congregations to send their children to the farm for a supervised, well counseled summer vacation. This was the Cedar Shores experience two years later, but with kids. To honor their young guests the family renamed the farm “The Jack and Jill Ranch.” Although the kids' ranch remained only two years (followed by a more grandiose camping experience) the name Jack and Jill Ranch was a success beyond imagination and the property was called by that name until the mid-1970s when the owners decided to change the name to the Double JJ Ranch Resort, and in 2009 to the Double JJ Resort.