Oct. 24--PEMBINE, Wis. -- Walter Ross offered this bit of advice for the new owners of the Four Seasons Club: Good luck. 

His tone was neither bitter nor facetious. The retired Chicago contractor and lawyer just knows the history of the place. 

He has lived it. 

"I've been around here 82 years," the 93-year-old said of the northeastern Wisconsin golf resort. "Nobody has made a nickel here." 

The U.S. Department of the Treasury auctioned off the place for $1.6 million to Green Bay developers Wednesday. The sale followed last summer's conviction of a pack of Cicero, Ill., crooks charged with swiping public money to help buy the playground that sits on a thickly forested island in the Menominee River. 

Proceeds from the sale will go into the Treasury Forfeiture Fund, which goes toward law enforcement efforts. 

Ross includes himself in that group of previous owners who never turned a profit on the place. His father ran it in the 1920s and '30s, and Ross himself owned and operated it from the 1950s until the mid-1970s. 

"For 25 years, I personally subsidized it," he said. "It was just a hobby." 

And a way to keep alive the great Chicago tradition of escaping to Wisconsin. 

"That used to be the thing, to belong to a North Woods club," Ross said. "It was pretty wild up here then. It really was a wilderness." 

By the time the Cicero group bought the place in the early 1990s, it was just a rundown old resort with a whispered history as a hideout for the likes of Al Capone -- something Ross insists is absolutely untrue. 

"It was pretty well shot," said resort manager Guy Donovan. "Everything you see in this building now is new." 

In August, federal prosecutors convicted the Cicero group, which included the town president, of siphoning about $12 million from the town's health insurance fund during the 1990s. Federal agents say a six-year investigation showed they put about $5 million into the resort during its refurbishing. 

They say the group had plans for a hotel and possibly even a casino. One agent noted a banquet room was wired for outlets every 18 inches -- perfect for slot machines. 

The Cicero group's dreams were never realized, but what they did accomplish is best described as a perplexingly opulent 27,000-square-foot, 1920s style "clubhouse" for the resort's nine-hole golf course. 

There are no guest rooms, but there are several bars, dining rooms, dance halls, an ice cream parlor with an old-fashioned Coke machine and a game room. Out front are thick white pillars and statues of bare-breasted women and bare-bottomed cherubs. Inside is a large fountain under a crystal-dripping chandelier. Above the main entrance is a cove that holds a polished grand piano just, apparently, for decoration. 

Some of it is elegant. Some might be described as a bit tacky, like the velvet pillows with plastic golden frogs glued to them. 

It is definitely not the kind of place one would typically build for a clientele of mosquito repellent-wearing campers or thirsty snowmobilers, but there isn't a hotel room around for miles. 

Wednesday's buyers said they expected it would go for more than what they paid, and they figure lodging must be built if the place is going to turn a profit. But they weren't ready to talk specifics Wednesday. 

"We have a warm spot in our hearts for the North Woods, and we would like to see it remain operational, but we have no definite plans right now," said Paul Hamachek. 

"We'll let the dust settle a bit," said partner Jim Chitko. 

Locals, meanwhile, have been happy to have the place to themselves since its remodeling in the mid-1990s. 

There were rumors that the people behind its renaissance were crooks, but most just snickered and counted their blessings that they had such a nice place to drink, dine and play a half-round of golf. Many figured there was something fishy about the whole deal, but it beat eating at the local Subway on a Saturday night. 

Few were surprised when the indictments were handed down. 

"There were rumors and stuff, so it wasn't a big shock," said resort manager Donovan. 

The federal contractors who swooped in to operate the joint after it was seized in January are still shaking their heads in amazement. 

"I'll tell you what, when we drove up Highway 141, I was like, 'Where are we going? What are we taking over?' " said New Jersey's Vincent Bucci. 

Then he rolled out of the dense forest and over the resort's rickety one-lane railroad bridge. 

"You cross that bridge and it's just like: Wow! . . . They didn't spare any dollars putting this place together," he said with a thick Jersey accent. "I told my wife, 'You'll never believe what's in the middle of nowhere. And nobody knows about it." " 

Local news reports in 1905 fawned over the elegance showcased at the resort's grand opening. An article in a Marinette newspaper went on and on about the oak paneling, the monster-size fireplaces, the mahogany furniture, the Dutch-style china, the silk curtains and the Japanese artwork. Most of the guests that night arrived at the resort depot on a special train from Marinette. 

The place burned to the ground 18 years later but was soon re-opened as a members-only club by Walter Ross' father, contractor John A. Ross, and some Chicago associates. 

"My father paved the streets of Chicago since 1895. Therefore, we knew everybody in Chicago from the mayor on down," said Ross. "These were the best people you could find in society." 

The names he started dropping would have hit with a thud were it not for the plush carpet in his home built upon a bluff overlooking the Four Seasons on a majestic stretch of the Menominee River. 

He talked about former guests such as Scholl, as in foot pads; Mayer, as in wieners; Brach, as in candy; DeVry as in, yes, the Institute of Technology. 

"In the 1920s, it was very fashionable to belong to a North Woods club, and this was very North Woods," he said. 

Guests typically wouldn't just pop in for a night. Their journey usually started in Chicago, where they arrived at the train stations with steamer trunks loaded for a summer of fun. 

They would chug north to nearby Pembine and take a private car to the resort about 12 miles away. 

"You'd stay for two, three, four weeks," Ross said. 

The resort had guest rooms back then. There also was a golf course, a swimming pool, a horse stable, tennis courts, and, of course, night life. 

Downstairs was the piano bar, where hooch flowed even through the thick of Prohibition. 

"We'd have a five-piece orchestra on Saturday night," said Ross. 

On the wall across from his desk is a party picture taken during the resort's heyday in the 1920s. Men are wearing straw hats and fat ties with square bottoms. A woman sports one of those tight silk caps with flaps over the ears. A sign in front of the bandstand has the resort logo, boasting that the place is "The most beautiful club in America." 

"We had fun," said Ross' wife of 71 years, Marie. "Everybody had fun." 

Ross says it was a routine for the band to return for Sunday brunch, and then accompany the departing guests to the Pembine train station Sunday afternoon. 

"They'd play on the platform until the train arrived, and the locals would come out to the platform and dance with the (club) members. This went on for years," he said, sitting behind a pile of newspaper clippings written about the resort stretching from its opening in 1905 to the recent convictions in Chicago. 

For decades, Ross has had to live with old rumors about how Four Seasons was once a playground for the mob. He says the clientele was squeaky clean. 

"I've seen everybody go through here," he said, and Al Capone wasn't among them. 

"Don't ever say anything about Al Capone coming here. He never was in our place. Ever, ever, ever," said Marie Ross. 

"We've heard it all our lives," added Ross. "It's not true. Just a rumor." 

But decades after the mob's gory glory days, the rumors of a Four Season connection to organized crime have come true. 

Ross said he was surprised to hear the Cicero owners were indicted and convicted on federal racketeering charges, but he did notice the dollars they endlessly pumped onto the little island. 

"It always amazed me how they spent money," he said. "They just spent it so fast and easy." 

But he also respected the work they did to the place. 

"I've never seen such magnificent, beautiful work," he says. "They fixed it up beautiful. It's gorgeous." 

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(c) 2002, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.