Indoor Lodging Use Approved For Lake Geneva

Visitors to the City of Lake Geneva may soon be able to stay overnight at the Dungeons & Dragons-themed museum.

Members of the Lake Geneva City Council unanimously approved a conditional use permit, March 28, to allow the second floor of the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, 723 Williams St., to operate as a commercial indoor lodging facility.

The plan commission members unanimously approved the permit, March 21.

The second floor of the museum is set to be operated as a short-term rental facility and will include two bedrooms and an in-suite kitchen with two assigned parking spaces available for guests. 

Attorney Timothy Brovold, representing the owners of the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, said guests will be welcome to visit the museum and participant in any games that may be held at the museum. 

“The purpose would be to allow guests to stay upstairs, then come downstairs and view the Dungeons & Dragons museum and allow them to stay and check out the museum and do game playing,” Brovold said. “There is a big push for that and people who want to do that.”

City council members unanimously approved, June 28, 2021, to rezone the property from general business district to central business district to allow the museum to be established.

The council members also unanimously approved, June 28, 2021, to allow a commercial apartment to be established on the second floor of the building to serve as a residential space for the curator of the museum.

Brovold said the curator is no longer residing at the facility, which is part of the reason the museum owners decided to use the space as a short-term rental facility.

“It’s already set up really for this purpose with the two bedrooms,” Brovold said. “They put in the parking lot last year, also along those lines, and made all the parking space requirements.”

Jackie Mich, associate planner for Vanderwalle & Associates, Inc., said the museum owners have met all the requirements for the second level of the building to be operated as a short-term rental facility. 

“This is basically a change of use going from a commercial apartment to a commercial lodging land use on the second floor,” Mich said. “We have two parking spaces provided onsite, which would be sufficient for the commercial indoor lodging. Because this business is zoned central business, there is additional parking requirements for the hobby shop museum. From a zoning standpoint, they are covered in terms of parking.”

The Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, which opened in July 2021, features books, artifacts, games and memorabilia related to Dungeons & Dragons.

The Geneva Lake Museum, 255 Mill St. in Lake Geneva, is in the process of establishing a Dungeons & Dragons-themed exhibit entitled, “A Legacy of Imagination. The Creation of a Culture.”

Lake Geneva often is referred to as the “birth place of Dungeons & Dragons.”

Co-founder Gary Gygax developed the idea for the fantasy role playing game at his former home at 330 Center St., which in recent years has also been rented out for overnight stays and game days.