Lisa Hlavinka | The Gazette

LAFAYETTE TWP. — Once the welcome spot for merry children and energetic teenagers, the sea-foam green ticket gates to the former Chippewa Lake Amusement Park are now posted with orange and black “No Trespassing” signs.

For the first time in decades, remnants of the old amusement park are beginning to peek through the brush as developers from Chippewa Partners LLC begin to clear the area to construct what will become Chippewa Landing — a massive resort that will include a hotel, spa, five-star restaurant, theater and Biltmore-style manor house.

On Tuesday afternoon, two longtime friends and local residents stood at the gates, snapping photos and recalling memories they had of the park, which opened in 1875 and closed more than 100 years later.

Land is being cleared for Chippewa Landing, a resort that will include a hotel, spa, five-star restaurant, theater and Biltmore-style manor house. Chippewa Partners LLC is developing the former Chippewa Lake Amusement Park property in Lafayette Township. (Shirley Ware | Staff Photographer)

“I miss the old place,” said Barb Hatten, a lifelong resident of Rittman. “I was hoping to bring my kids and grandkids here, too.”

Recently, the development partners received preliminary site approval and preliminary subdivision approval from the Medina County Planning Commission, Lafayette Township Zoning Commission and Lafayette Township trustees.

A wellness center run by Akron General Partners and a 500-student culinary institute also will be a part of the final plan.

The company will finish clearing trees on the property by the end of the month and will begin to clear out the roller coaster remnants next summer, said Gary Sills, a Chippewa Landing partner.

The economy has made things a little more difficult for developers, but Chippewa Landing is still expected to thrive, Sills said.

“Getting financial commitments is more difficult than it was expected to be, or was expected to be at the end of the year (2008),” he said. “Obviously, the economy has slowed our schedule, but we’ll be OK.”

Behind the dilapidated entrance gates, a rickety wooden roller coaster now towers over the fence where it was hidden for years behind overgrowth. A wiry ring that used to be a Ferris wheel can now be seen a short distance behind the roller coaster.

For Hatten’s friend, Linda Csatlos, the Ferris wheel holds a special Fourth of July memory from the 1950s, when she was about 8 years old. She and her father watched fireworks from the top of the wheel as they ate ice cream that day, she recalled.

“I remember being with my dad and we were on the Ferris wheel,” she said. “And it stopped at the top while the fireworks went off.”

Hatten and Csatlos said good memories bring them mixed feelings of seeing the place uncovered for the first time in decades. On one hand they are glad to see the land be of use to the community and commended the fact that tax revenue from the park would go to Cloverleaf Local Schools.

On the other, they said it is sad to finally let the amusement park era go.

Karen Fowls, grew up in Medina and moved to nearby Bungalow Bay Boulevard in 1990, said she also felt a touch of nostalgia as she was walking her dog near the rusty entrance gates of the old park.

Her sister used to work the wooden roller coaster, she said. When they were teenagers, they at-tended dances in the ballroom, as their parents had done before them in days when big-timers like Jimmy Dean performed at the park.

“I know my mother-in-law remembered big bands playing here back in the 1940s,” she said.

Fowls is glad the area will be cleared because she thought children might hurt themselves exploring the property, but worries whether Chippewa Landing will take away from the rural feeling in Chippewa Lake.

“I think it’s a good thing to do because there has been a lot of vandalism-like fires, and it’s dangerous,” she said. “But we moved here to enjoy the lake and don’t want it to be overcrowded.”

A member of the Chippewa Lake Water Ski Show Team, she said she hopes the club still will be allowed to perform on the lake for the Fourth of July and Labor Day as it has for several years.

In addition to an electric boat that will take tourists on rides on Chippewa Lake, Chippewa Landing also will have 86 boat houses and 10 pool houses.

Walking nearby, Roger Dills, of Westfield Township, said he, too, wonders how Chippewa Landing will change the area. Like many people, he recalls that his father’s employer rented the park for the entire day to host company picnics.

After chatting with Hatten and Csatlos, he told them, “We were probably in the park at the same time back then and didn’t even know it.”

Although the park holds many memories for Dills, he said he is glad someone is finally building it up again.

“I hate change, but I like that there will be closure for the park,” he said.

Contact Lisa Hlavinka at (330) 721-4048 or lhlavinka@ohio.net.