Leelanau Vacation Rentals & Glen Arbor Outdoor give more than they promise

by Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

A busy Monday morning breaks at Leelanau Vacation Rentals & Glen Arbor Outdoor. All the parking spots out front are covered with yards of shredded bark as the Outdoor crews haul loads to groom the woods around the 15 condo associations at The Homestead served by LVR & GAO. Inside it’s Rental Heaven: Central Dispatch, with phones jangling as hopeful vacationers call to reserve a summer week in paradise at one of the 120 properties supervised by Linda Ihme and her capable crews. Linda started Leelanau Vacation Rentals in 1996. (The same year as the Glen Arbor Sun, when Linda took the whole back page for her advertisement, to Jacob’s astonishment!) Since then the business has grown from just 2 properties to 120 all over the area: The Homestead, Glen Lake, Lake Michigan, Lime Lake, Lake Leelanau, Little Traverse Lake, Northport, Leland, Sutton’s Bay; Linda rents all over the county. “When there were only two units,” Linda laughs, “I made the reservations, checked people in, and cleaned the rooms after them. My kids weren’t allowed to go out in the boat until both condos were cleaned! Now it’s more complicated.” Linda took over her husband’s business, Glen Arbor Outdoor, when Bob passed away suddenly 6 months later. Linda had 20 properties to manage by then and Bob was serving 7 of the associations at The Homestead. Both businesses have grown steadily since ‘96. Bob Ihme, Jr. took over GA Outdoor in 1997 at the age of 22. Now he heads up the crew of Ed & Butch Priest, Dave Baxter, Jesse Rollo, (and Brandon Demoulpied in summer, at Christmas, and whenever there’s a snow day from school). Bob’s boys do landscaping, move furniture, pick up garbage, and do interior maintenance with the help of Ed “Mr. Fixit,” who hangs pictures, fixes toilets, installs dishwashers, and “can fix anything except for electric toilet paper.” Linda’s crew at Leelanau Vacation Rentals includes Ranae Ihme, Karen Clark, Mort Erway, Janet Schneider, Kay Nye, Janet Aylsworth, and Paulette Ritchie, with an additional 20 housekeepers every summer. “The two businesses are really one,” Linda says,. “We share the same office space and have our Christmas parties together.”
Leelanau Vacation Rentals rents, maintains, and cleans all of 120 units. “We help decorate, we do the shopping, we basically act as local owners when the real owners aren’t here,” LInda reports. “We are full-time year-round. When people get themselves locked out at midnight, we’re there. We get calls 24 hours a day, and we respond to them all.”
Now potential renters can browse the website, www.leelanau.com/vacation, to see pictures, rates, descriptions, and virtual tours of some of the properties. “We try to give people a realistic view of what they’re getting,” Linda says, “not exaggerated photos, so people aren’t surprised when they arrive.” It’s the dedication and reliability of the staff that makes it all work. “We are so lucky that every one of our employees is great,” Linda nods. “And we have fun. At lunch time in winter things are a bit slower around here, so Janet, Ranae, Karen, and I, and now Mort, all knit together. Mort’s wife couldn’t believe it when he brought her a knit scarf for Christmas. Mort made his mom a shawl. And we’ll take care of our customers just like we take care of our own!”