A stargazing Good Samaritan tourist sounds the alarm on Le Bear’s fire

Photo by Angela Doster DeWitt

By Jacob Wheeler

Sun editor

Kari Beitler, a Detroit area native who lives in Cleveland and studies plant science at Cuyahoga Community College, traveled north on a road trip with her parents on Thursday, May 13, to witness and photograph the Aurora Borealis. Photography is a passion for Kari, who describes herself on her Instagram account “kari_d_away” as a “rust belt explorer, a mitten native, and a Mother Nature protector and advocate.”

They planned to stay one night in Glen Arbor then travel northeast to Mackinaw City—where Kari thought the northern lights would be strongest—but decided at the last minute to visit Mackinaw first and stay Saturday night in Glen Arbor, where they booked a room at the M22 Inn.

Kari and her father Gary planned to rise at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, May 15, to walk the beach of Sleeping Bear Bay and capture the stars through the lens of her new Nikon camera. But they missed their initial alarm and didn’t leave their room until 3. They parked at the north end of Manitou Boulevard where it meets Lake Michigan, and Kari experimented with the settings on her camera to snap panoramic views of the star-lit sky. She had never taken night shots before.

At about 3:40 a.m., Gary glanced east in the direction of Le Bear Resort—a fractionally-owned luxury residential club with 14 private residencies—and blurted, “What is that?”

Kari saw the orange and red glow down the beach and replied, “It must be a bonfire.” They had seen one earlier the previous evening along Sleeping Bear Bay. Kari took a closer look and recognized that the fire was high off the ground. It wasn’t a bonfire.

“Let’s take a walk,” she said. Within a few steps, Kari saw that a large building was on fire, and she started to run toward the blaze, inadvertently dropping her camera and phone on the beach. Gary, nearly 70, continued to walk.

The fire sent flames 15 feet high on the east side of the resort, but Le Bear Resort is long enough that one could stand on Lake Street, on the west side of the complex, and not see the blaze. One couldn’t smell the fire either, observed Kari, because the wind was carrying smoke north over Lake Michigan.

She ran back toward her dad and yelled at him to call 911. “There’s a fire on the third floor,” she frantically told the emergency dispatcher. But no alarms had gone off. Dispatch called back Gary’s phone a couple times to confirm this wasn’t a false alarm. 

In the meantime, Kari began knocking on doors at the resort and yelling that the building was on fire. By the time the Glen Lake Fire Department arrived within minutes of the initial call, Kari had pounded her fist on nearly every single door and shone her flashlight in windows, and all occupants had left Le Bear. The evacuees included a family with two daughters staying directly underneath the fire.

By this time the smoke hung over the entire resort, which had opened for the season the day before and was approximately 80% full on the night of the fire.

 “My little lungs hurt from coughing all night,” she wrote, “but [I] managed to bang and scream until everyone was awake and safe.”

With firemen on the scene, Kari snapped a few photos from the Lake Street boat ramp dock, but she left the scene when her asthma began to kick in. She and Gary walked west again toward their car, found her camera and phone on the beach, and returned to their hotel. Exhausted, they hadn’t taken a single photo of the northern lights.

Her mom Janet was awake and waiting for them when they returned. “I had a weird feeling something was going to happen,” she told them. Reeking of smoke and wired by what they had experienced, Kari and Gary each showered and didn’t get to sleep until close to 6 a.m. After checking out of the hotel on Sunday mid-morning, they stopped to caffeinate their bodies at the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company before driving south again.

“I love Glen Arbor,” said Kari. “I can’t wait to get back here.”

Restaurant Blu still closed

Nobody was hurt in the fire, but Le Bear suffered substantial damage. Nine different crews from around the region came to help put out the blaze and worked until 10:30 a.m. They included firefighters from Cedar Area Fire and Rescue, Leland, Grand Traverse Metro, Traverse City Fire Department, Almira, Long Lake, Leland, the Grand Traverse Band and Green Lake.

Blu, the restaurant attached to the resort, was not affected by fire or water damage, but co-owner and chef Randy Chamberlain announced on Facebook later on May 15 that he would be closed indefinitely until utilities are restored. [He hopes to reopen in early June.]

“This comes obviously at the worst possible time,” wrote Chamberlain. 

“[Friday] night we just had our busiest day since reopening in April. The optimism of the pandemic waning, our staff was building with some fabulous people who have been through so much. … We all feel broken but we’ll be back.” 

Chamberlain thanked the emergency crews from Glen Lake Fire Department and five other departments and heralded their efforts to contain and save the building. Other restaurants in Glen Arbor stepped up to help, too.

“Thanks to Tim and his staff at Art’s Tavern for lending us cold storage space and all the other restaurants and friends in our town that have reached out to offer help.”