Q&A with co-owners of Patoka Lake Marina and Winery
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The co-owners of Patoka Lake Marina and Winery received the Will Koch Indiana Tourism Leadership Award in October. The Indiana Destination Development Corp. presented Stephen Bartels and Heather Setser with the honor named for the late president and owner of Holiday World and Splashin’ Safari in Spencer County.
Patoka Lake Marina and Winery, which began with the marina in 1998, has expanded over the years to include floating cabins, wine cruises and the winery. The business is also spread out over two counties, with the marina located in Orange County and the winery located in Crawford County.
Bartles and Setser spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the evolution of Patoka Lake Marina and Winery and their plans for a new hotel and distillery.
Tell me about the origins of Patoka Lake Marina and Winery.
Bartels: A friend of mine bought the marina, and I just came down [from Terre Haute] to help get things started. The following year, I ended up selling all my property and becoming a partner.
We had two separate businesses. Everything off the water was me and another partner, and we merged the marina the following year. We ended up building a restaurant, a laundromat and a gas station. We already had a couple of cabins for rent. We started building more cabins and got into the lodging business.
Where did the idea of floating cabins come from?
Bartels: At the time, I was involved in real estate. I was looking at Oregon, where people were evading property taxes by putting houses on boats. Kentucky also did not charge taxes on boats. Now they do. I was looking at the concept of these floating houses, and we asked people to help us. There was a guy at another marina in Kentucky who was doing the same thing. We were in competition to see who could get the first one in the water.
We had some leftover steel from some other projects, so we made some steel hull ones, and then we started making aluminum ones. There was a company that started about a year after us down in Florida making and selling these and calling them floating cabins. We bought a couple from them. That’s where we got started in 2001.
Setser: The main thing with the floating cabins is Patoka Lake is a Corps of Engineers lake, and they do not allow any building along the shore. That was a main component to get people on the water. Even though they couldn’t be on the shoreline, they could be on the water and still have access to their vehicles and stuff. They’re not out in the middle; they just take a bridge over.
Bartels: We saw a decline in houseboats because kids need more stimulation than relaxing on a houseboat. So the floating cabin is a nice option; it’s a little cheaper than a houseboat. You can come and go. You can go into town and not feel like you’ve wasted your boat rental. A lot of people on a houseboat feel like they have to be on it the whole time.
How did the wine cruises and Patoka Lake Winery come about?
Bartels: We bought a tour boat to do different things with, and we started looking at options to do some kind of alcoholic beverages and food. I was making wine at the time, mostly for fun. We thought, let’s see if there’s a winery that’d be interested in doing it. We reached out to a couple of wineries, and they said, yeah, so we partnered with them starting in 2009.
We went from four wine cruises to 18 to 20-something now. They’re always pretty much 99.9% booked. Sometimes, there’s a seat that doesn’t get sold because of odd numbers of people. We got to know every winemaker in southern Indiana, became good friends and kept adding more.
Setser: We always use the wine cruises to promote the other area wineries. We do not put our winery on there unless something drastic happens like somebody’s sick and they can’t come. It’s always to promote these other area wineries—in about an hour and a half radius anymore—because we have Chateau de Pique [in Seymour] and Cedar Creek [in Martinsville] that come in.
We opened our winery on June 3, 2016. We opened with seven different wines; right now, we’re up to almost 30. We are well known for our wine slushies. During COVID, that kept our lights on. They became very popular because, with the label and everything, they’re legal to go out the door. Our record right now for one person is 51. They were heading to Florida, brought a cooler, packed up and went.
One thing we’ve learned with the winery and the other wineries in this area is that there’s not the competition that you see in a lot of other businesses. We could call Jim Pfeiffer [of Turtle Run Winery in Corydon] who’s a great friend of ours and we help process grapes together and go together on different things like that. Or Dan Adams down at Winzerwald Winery [in Bristow]. If we needed something or they needed something, they’d be there in a heartbeat and vice versa.
What are your plans for the hotel and distillery?
Bartels: Our goal is to open up the hotel side the first week of April. We would like to be open for the eclipse. The distillery is going to be some time right around Memorial Day. We have products. We’re currently using somebody else’s still and making and storing products there until we can get our federal license. We have our state license, and once [the federal license] comes, then we can move all production back down to us.
After 25 years in business, what are you most proud of?
Bartels: We invest everything back into our company. We have not taken anything out of here. What I’m most proud of from a customer standpoint is the huge repeat customer base that we have. For many years in a row, we were right at 78% return occupancy on houseboats and floating cabins, which is unheard of in the lodging business. Normally, people are transient; they’re one time or a couple of times.
And our staff has been with us for so long, which shows that it’s corporate, but it’s a family business. We vacation together. A lot of times we go and do things together, and we have a great time. Knowing that we have repeat customers and we’ve got our staff that have been with us for so long makes me feel good, that we’re doing something right.
Setser: I have some customers that will come to the boat show in Indianapolis and say, “I’m coming today. You’re there, right?” Because they haven’t seen us all throughout the winter and everything. And then we have employees that have been here over 20 years, and they’re family. If they need something, we’re there at the drop of a hat.
What’s been your biggest challenge?
Bartels: Employees.
Setser: I was going to say, having enough employees.
Bartels: We’re just far enough away from everything that a lot of people don’t live right here. So it’s a challenge to get somebody to have to drive 30 minutes. We pay fairly well. We always want to be average or above average when it comes to certain jobs. But it’s just tougher. Younger people don’t work like they used to. They don’t have to.
In the beginning, it was never a problem. We had kids who wanted to get out of school and come here and work in the summertime. And summers were longer then. Now, the school calendar isn’t conducive for a summer business, and kids have more options.
Setser: And the world has changed where a lot of people have learned that they can do a lot more jobs at home or remotely. We’re a hands-on company. You have to be here. At our height, we usually have about 80, 85 employees company wide. If we hit 60 this year, I’d be surprised.
What does the Will Koch Indiana Tourism Leadership Award mean to you?
Setser: I cried a lot. I was completely surprised and very humbled and not even thinking we’d be considered.
Bartels: It was a nice surprise. Our employees kept it from us, providing the information and stuff. The reputation of Holiday World and how it’s run and the friendliness of their staff and how clean it is, and that you continuously see them doing what we’re doing. We’re dumping our profits back into new investments. We’re not living high on the hog. You see that with Holiday World and Will Koch, that was his philosophy.
We know the face of our company truly isn’t us; it’s our employees. They’re the ones interacting. Especially now. I used to be in front of the customers and do every job. But it’s a lot less now.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Setser: We’re excited about the new expansion, that’s for sure.
Bartels: If anything, we want to convey to the public that we recognize the importance of meeting our customers’ expectations. We always try to exceed them. We put our money where our mouth is when it comes to our most important assets: our employees. It’s really them who make this company. I always tell them that it can be chaotic behind the scenes, but 51% of success has to be the perception that everything’s running smooth, everything’s okay.
Setser: That return rate, we want to keep that growing and building. We want people to come here with their families or friends or for a wedding or something like that and want to keep [them] coming back and relive something that was special. We want to make them feel special.