Idyllic Idylease
Published 8:48 pm Sunday, July 30, 2017
This large screened-in porch might be the most often used room of Idylease.
It’s not hard to imagine the Big Lake Community of Old Settlement as a resort community in the early 1900s. Some of the clapboard houses with screened-in porches have not been altered much, except to tack on extra room. Quaint, rambling structures and a few new ones are situated on the 40,000-acre Calcasieu Lake Estuary, known as Big Lake.
This is where people, who could, got away from the city to beat the heat and fish. They still do. Some home owners live here year round.
“It’s usually about 10 degrees cooler here than it is in Lake Charles,” said Chad Theilen.
Going through an old desk that had been in his family for years, Chad Theilen, owner of one of the Old Settlement “camps” found a photo that makes the roaring ‘20s on Big Lake even easier to visualize.
Thielen found the photo above when he cleaned out a drawer in a desk that had been in the family for generations.
Note the fabric wing of the plane.
“I don’t know that anyone else has ever seen it,” he said.
It is an aerial shot of Old Settlement, taken from a bi-plane with canvas-covered wings. Theilen thinks the photo was taken before The Great Hurricane of 1918 because it shows a pre-hurricane version of some of Old Settlement’s piers, including where the Borealis Rex docked.
The Borealis Rex was a paddlewheel steamer that operated between Lake Charles and Cameron from 1905 to 1930.
“On certain days, usually Sundays, the Rex would bring an orchestra and stop at certain places, such as Feagan Wharf in Big Lake, where people were waiting to come aboard and socialize,” according to the online article, Maritime Monday: The Borealis Rex, by Annette Berksan.
Theilan points out where The Rex docked and other landmarks in the photo, the Nellie Lutcher Stark house, the T.T. Summers house, and his grandfather Rudolph William Krause’s house. Another structure looks like one of the hotels Theilen has always heard was there.
Chad Thielen said this porch is where all the action is. It certainly has enough seating to accommodate a large family gathering. One of the rocking chairs belonged to J.A. Bel. Another belonged to Rudolph E. Krause.
“I spoke to Charles Noland who can remember listening to the sounds of piano playing as he tried to fall asleep,” Theilen said, “probably from this hotel.”
The Noble house had a sleeping porch, like a lot of these houses, which were built before air conditioning.
“Charles remembered how he wanted to go,” Theilen said, “but he wasn’t old enough. From what I hear, this place was just one big rolling party from house to house.”
According to the Lake Charles Centennial Celebration, 1867-1967, edited by Donald J. Millet, Old Settlement had two dance halls, one at the end of the pier where the Borealis Rex boarded, a hotel and a restaurant.
The Theilen camp was built in 1898 for the Wall family, according to Theilen. Chad and Jan Morgan’s place is one of the oldest. Theilen’s grandparents, Rudolph Edward (February 5, 1899-July 20, 1985 and Della Goos Bel Krause (June 3, 1905-May 17, 1975) purchased the camp in the early 1900s and enlarged it in 1925. It now sleeps 18.
The indoor dining area.
The name Della figures prominently in this family history. Theilen’s mother was Della Bel “Dudie” Krause Theilen (July 11, 1930-August 7, 1992). Theilen’s father is Dr. Jack Thielen. The Krause, Goos, Moss and Bel families were Lake Charles pioneers. Thielen’s mother began the local arts council and was an active community volunteer. Chad Thielen heads The Bel Group.
Theilen said John Albert Bel II was responsible for building the road coming in from Black Bayou to Old Settlement.
“It was a toll road,” he said. “The story is, if you’d promise to play bridge with him – he loved to pay bridge – you wouldn’t have to pay the toll.
Della liked gin rummy. Her husband, Rudolph, always lost to her and if he would have paid all the pennies owed, he would have owed her a million, or at least that is how the story goes, Theilen said.
Della Krause named the camp Idylease. The cypress and heart pine house on Spanish Point has withstood The Great Hurricane of 1918, a severe unnamed hurricane in 1895, Hurricane Audrey, 1957 and Hurricane Rita, 2005. The pier of the Idylease was the only to survive Hurricane Rita, which dumped 40 tons of debris into and onto the property.
Theilen credits wharf builder Dennis Benoit with the durability of the wharf construction.
After Tropical Storm Cindy, the fishing wharf at the end of the 650-foot pier was damaged. It is currently under repair. Thielen found an old permit. The original plan was to build a 1,200 foot pier, an expensive proposition for any era.
It’s easy to see the degree to which Theilen might have loved the outdoors as a child when he talks about fishing. He said some of his memories of summers at Idylease include the fun of crabbing all day long or disappearing all day in his own sail or fishing boat when he was as young as eight.
“It was a different time back then,” he reminds.
Thielen’s most vivid memory of summers in Old Settlement was ice delivery day when the big blocks of ice were delivered by truck.
Thielen said the entire family, for generations, has spent quality time together at Idylease.
“It’s funny how it can take years after a death for the bedroom name to change,” Thielen said. “For instance, the bedroom my wife Jan and I use was my grandmother’s. It didn’t really start to be called Chad and Jan’s room until 30 years after Te’s death.”
The old granite coffee drip pot sits on a shelf in the kitchen. Coffee is served from a Keurig today. From drip pot generation to Keurig generation, time at Idylease continues to connect family and help them recall and preserve memories for the next generation.