Landmark gets new owners: Couple aims to upgrade tepee at Woods Bay
<p>Jean Peretto is pictured with her daughters, Maya and Olivia, at the Woods Bay tepee that Peretto and her husband, Shawn, purchased last year.</p>
Everyone who has driven through Woods Bay likely has seen the iconic tepee building on Flathead Lake’s east shore.
Now the tepee is in line for renovation.
Last year, Shawn and Jean Peretto purchased the tepee, along with the adjacent house and garage, and have plans to upgrade all three.
Shawn Peretto, who grew up in Whitefish, remembers stopping at the tepee in the 1970s when he was a child.
Finley Point resident Randy Neumann is getting involved, too. He wants to help restore the tepee building. “I used to come here in the ’50s when my grandfather delivered milk,” he said. “I still have a picture in my mind of a restaurant.”
The building also served as a curio shop through the years, the Perettos said.
“Our dream is to refurbish it,” Jean Peretto said. The couple live in Stevensville where Shawn works as a building contractor. Their first priority is to stabilize the house and garage, but they are willing to accept help from anyone who wants to assist with the tepee building.
“We’re trying to get it livable,” Shawn said. This includes putting a new roof on the garage.
When the couple purchased the home, “Our brains went wild with all the potential possibilities,” Jean said.
The Perettos bought the property because they viewed it as “a good Western Montana value,” Shawn said.
The tepee building needs a lot of work, which was evident during a Saturday morning tour after the Perettos drove up from the Bitterroot Valley. Shawn noted that a drunk driver struck the building a few years ago.
Neumann researched the half-acre tract of land at the Lake County courthouse in Polson.
“I believe it was built as a playhouse for the kids” of Conrad and Elma Peterson in the 1940s, he said.
Later owners included Melroy and Margie Medhus and Jack Rickard. The Perettos purchased it from the estate of Patricia Ann Haugo, who died Jan. 2, 2011.
Neumann is organizing a fundraiser for restoration of the tepee. The fundraiser will be at The Raven on Sept. 22 from 2-4 p.m.
Those who would like to help can call Neumann at 273-1888 or email peretto@dishmail.net.
Soptelean is a reporter at the Bigfork Eagle.