A Tranquil R
etreat
Kulp family offers seclusion, unique setting with new property
By Valorie Brecht It’s a getaway, a retreat, a place of tranquility. Bob and Laura Kulp have made Friedenswald, a 4.5-acre property about 10 miles outside of Merrill in the heart of the Northwoods, their home. Friedenswald is German for “peaceful woods,” and the Kulps hope to inspire a calming environment for all who visit, especially travelers who stay at their newly-listed Airbnb.
“We see it as a mission, a way to connect with people,” said Laura.
“We hope to have an impact on people’s lives and be impacted by them,” said Bob.
Most people around central Wisconsin know Bob from his days as a representative for Wisconsin’s 69th Assembly District, a position he held from 2013 to 2020. He also owned his own roofing business, Kulp’s of Stratford, from 1985 to 2021. He loves designing structures in his mind and bringing those ideas to life. Friedenswald has provided the perfect opportunity to let his creativity run wild.
The secluded property on a deadend road includes the Kulps’ house, a sprawling, mostly single-story structure punctuated by two domes; a large barn with Bob’s workshop on the lower level and an open-concept living area for guests on the upper level; a silo containing a spiral staircase to access the upper level of the barn; two cozy cabins; an outdoor pavilion; and a barn for storing wood. Other
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A PLACE IN THE WOODS - Shown is Friedenswald, Bob and Laura Kulp’s home north of Merrill. The name is German for “peaceful woods” and was chosen partly because Bob and Laura both have some German ancestry.
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than the garage and a couple portions of the house, Bob built everything.
Bob first found out about the property when helping his son, Bobby, look for homes.
“Bobby was like, ‘Oh, I don’t want that.’ I expected it to be a piece of junk but that wasn’t the case,” said Bob.
He became intrigued with the property, partially due to the architecture.
“I always loved domes, because as a roofing company we did a lot of geodesic domes. Not everyone would tackle doing a dome but we felt confident in re-roofing them. For me, it was a shape that also appealed to me,” said Bob.
He randomly drove up to the house one day without even telling Laura he was going. He got excited about it and immediately called Laura.
“He asked if I remembered the dome house and said we could meet with a realtor and see it. I agreed. It was only an hour away. It seemed a little crazy and exciting at the same time,” said Laura. “Needless to say, we fell in love with the place. When Bob asked me if we should buy it, I said, ‘Yeah, I think we should.’ I have no idea why I gave him permission.”
However, it turned out to be a blessing for the Kulps in more ways than one. They bought the home just over five years ago, in the summer of 2018, with the intention of using it as a summer cabin. Initially, there were two domes — one contained a kitchen, small living area and a loft, and the other, the lower of the two domes, was a heated but uninsulated workshop.
“I thought, I can join these together so you’re not having to walk outside between the two all the time,” Bob said.
He raised the lower dome 4 feet to make it easier to connect the two domes. Twenty percent of the original dome remains. Bob completed the part of the house connecting the domes in 2019.
The garage was still detached from the house, though, so in 2020, Bob built an addition connecting the two. This addition is a large living area with lots of windows to let in natural light and take in the natural surroundings. The purpose of the addition was twofold: the convenience factor of going directly from the garage to the house, and being able to better accommodate Bob and Laura’s growing family — they have seven kids and 15 grandkids, with two more on the way.
Bob also said having Friedenswald to come and work on provided a welcome relief from the craziness that was 2020. That year also served as a pivot point, as Bob was trying to decide how he could re-engage in his business and he and Laura began to spend more time at Friedenswald. Instead of re-engaging in his business, Bob ended up selling it to pursue new ventures. By early 2021, a buyer surfaced who wished to purchase Bob’s business in Stratford, and wanted to live in the lower level of the building where Bob and Laura had lived since 1997.
“By mid-2021, we knew we would have to have a place to stay. All of a sudden, we had a house in the midst of a crazy housing market,” said Laura.
“We saw God’s hand in it — preparing a place for us before we planned to live there full time,” added Bob.
By mid-2020, Bob and Laura had transitioned to living at Friedenswald year-round. In 2021, Bob built the Airbnb barn with the loft. In the early years of his roofing and construction business, he built a barn on Highway C east of Spencer and really liked its shape, so he wanted to recreate that on his own property.
But, it wasn’t always planned to be an Airbnb. Bob had wanted his shop on the bottom level, as in the wintertime, he always has his hands in some project. However, the top level was undecided. They were thinking about using it as a studio for Laura’s various passions and artistic expressions.
“People had said to us, ‘You should do an Airbnb,’” said Laura. “Well, I’m not a minimalist, but I consider myself a minimalist wannabe, so I thought, I don’t want to fill up the barn with stuff, so maybe we could turn it into an Airbnb instead.”
That’s indeed what they did. Bob finished the rustic-themed barn in 2022. The 1,500-square-foot upper level has beds for seven people, and includes a semi-private master bedroom area with a folding wall. There is also a living space with a large sofa and TV, a kitchen and private bath. Bob estimates it took him 1,500 to 2,000 hours to complete. Much of the furniture is handmade, and every piece has a story to it.
“A lot of the stuff here, like the kitchen island — except for those barn beams in the corner — that all came from the property here. In fact, the two drawer fronts actually have holes for drilling the maple for maple
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THE AIRBNB ATTACHMENT - This two-story barn includes a workshop, entry room and restroom on the lower level; and a complete guest suite on the upper level, with room to sleep seven. The silo serves as a connection point between the two levels, complete with a spiral staircase.
INTERIOR OF THE AIRBNB - Shown is the interior of the upstairs of the barn. The part sectioned off with a sliding barn door in the right of the picture is the bathroom. There is also a separate master bedroom area.
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syrup. The rest of the wood you see here are rejects from Meadow Valley, the guys that supply Menards. And literally, there’s about $350 worth of wood from the floor on up; that’s all it cost me because it was sitting out in piles in their woods. And it’d probably be $10,000 if you were to buy it new at Menards,” said Bob.
“What I’m saying is I’m a cheapskate and I bought a lot of inexpensive materials that I think actually turned out fairly nice,” he concluded, smiling.
Another unique touch is that the blankets, table placemats and coffee in the Airbnb are made by survivors of human trafficking. Laura supports these individuals as a consultant for Better Way Designs, a business that offers ethical shopping.
In 2021 and 2022, Bob finished the Airbnb barn and put in the spiral staircase in the silo.
The silo has its own story. It reminds Bob of the three summers he spent as a teenager tearing down and rebuilding silos with a Mennonite gentleman, which is also his heritage. He had wanted to make a pavilion in the woods with a silo roof, so he put on Facebook that he was looking for one, and a friend from his church said he had a couple of silo roofs that Bob could have for free if he tore down the silos. Bob used an old 80-foot lift that wasn’t being used for his company anymore to do that.
“So as I’m the tearing the silo down, the one silo had really good staves in it; the other was pretty much garbage, so I threw in the staves, the concrete pieces into the middle. I thought, ‘What am I gonna do with all of these good staves?’ Well, I’m gonna build a barn. It’s going to be a tall workshop in the bottom, so if you put in a standard stairway, a lot of the floor space would have been eaten up by the stairway, so I’m going to have a spiral stairway. And all of the steps came out of our woods,” he said.
Bob and Laura both said the silo with the spiral staircase was one of their favorite parts of the property, because it’s so unique. One of the projects for this coming winter is to turn that space into a library, with shelves lining the wall. The door of the silo has a story as well.
“He brought me in one day and was like, ‘OK, you have to help me decide which way we wanna swing this door for this silo.’ And I’m looking at it, and he had built sliding doors in the main part of the house, and I was like, ‘Well, why couldn’t you make a curved sliding door?’ And he looked at me like I had five eyes. And he’s like, ‘Well, that would be really hard.’ But I could tell the gears were turning,” said Laura.
Once he completed that, it was on to the next project. This year, Bob built an outdoor pavilion featuring the second silo roof. He also built his Woods Barn and the two cabins, one of which has another silo roof. Originally, Bob built a circular room with the silo roof as a playhouse for his grandkids. But when he got done, he thought he could insulate it and turn it into a cabin. It’s called “Owl’s Nest.” The other cabin is known as “Pooh’s Hideout.” Each cabin has a handmade futon with storage underneath and access to a full bath in the barn.
Although they only listed the property as an Airbnb back in July, the Kulps have had a variety of people stay in the barn or cabins already, whether for a weeklong family trip, a classmate reunion, a couple’s weekend getaway or some other trip.
“We’ve had someone pretty much every weekend for the last six weeks,” said Bob.
He and Laura have enjoyed getting to know the visitors and sharing stories with them, if they have the time.
“We appreciate the extra income from the Airbnb, but we really enjoy getting to talk to the people and interact with them,” Bob said.
Bob plans to keep developing the property and finding creative uses for items he finds on Facebook Marketplace. For example, he just bought some aircraft ground servicing equipment at an auction, almost a ton of steel, and he’s contemplating using the beams to make a giant swing set. He wants to build a playground for his grandkids, with swings and a slide, and perhaps a miniature barn. Other future projects include finishing the community fire pit area by the pavilion and developing the three acres of woods surrounding the property into a park with trails. Bob also plans to create a wooden facade along the fence line to look like an old Wisconsin logging settlement. Another future project is to put a concrete floor and heating tubes in the Woods Barn.
He is excited to see how far his creativity can take him and feels grateful to have the chance to pour his heart and soul into making a home.
“I truly enjoy every aspect of it,” said Bob.
“And I would agree, I don’t know how many days we’re just like, ‘We are so blessed,’” said Laura.
A QUAINT PARADISE - Pooh’s Hideout (left building) and Owl’s Nest (right building) are two lodging options for guests staying at Friedenswald.
THE KULPS - Bob and Laura Kulp, formerly of Stratford and now of Merrill, have had a lot of fun welcoming guests to their Airbnb.
