History of The Woods Chapel

Often, at our weddings, events and services, we are asked about the history of The Woods Chapel. Given our unique location, guests of The Woods are amazed by the beauty of our property and wonder how such a place came to exist. To mosts surprise the chapels history began over 130 years ago, right along with the budding towns around Lake Minnetonka as well as Long Lake. While we don’t know everything of about the extensive past of our property, we have learned a decent amount from the previous owner and neighbors in the community. Altogether we have gained some interesting facts about when it all started and how its come to be what it is today.

Once upon a time, long long ago, a group began meeting here, and a stone foundation and wooden meeting hall was constructed shortly thereafter. The year is 1882, many people are moving to the area and Lake Minnetonka is all the hype, this being the same year that the Lafayette Hotel and the Minnetonka Yacht club opened on the lake. It has been more difficult to find out about congregations and churches in the area of that time, but I’d say it’s safe to say it was among the first. The two closest bays of Lake Minnetonka, Stubbs and Maxwell, were the family names of the churches original members. The popularity around the lake never stopped and the congregation grew with the surrounding population from the late 1800’s and along into the 1950’s.

Along come Lynn ‘Buck’ Charlson, a self-made, self-taught and accomplished inventor, whose inventions are still used to this day. Sometime in the mid-late 1950’s Lynn purchases this growing church and the surrounding 36 acres along with it spanning all the way to the shores of Lake Minnetonka. in the 1960’s the church congregation grows beyond its original meeting hall walls, so Lynn constructed a new one, our current chapel, as well as the amphitheater, two guest/caretaker cottages, and an impressive mansion to top it all off. Unfortunately the mansion burned down towards the end of construction, bringing the progress of the near complete chapel and estate to an abrupt halt. The 36 acres was subdivided and Lynn parted ways with the expansive lake property around 1980.

Multiple organizations have used the space since.

Photograph from 1904. Quite the crowd for 116 years ago!