LUTSEN — Jerry and Jeanne Proulx celebrated their honeymoon in 1963 at Historic Lutsen Lodge, returning over the years for their 25th anniversary or to eat at the restaurant when they were visiting the North Shore.

The North Oaks couple was visiting Grand Marais when they heard about an early morning fire on Tuesday that destroyed the resort, so they drove down and surveyed what remained on the North Shore of Lake Superior: two stone fireplaces amid a pile of smoldering debris.

“Memories, good memories,” Jeanne said when asked what Lutsen Lodge meant to the couple. “We love the North Shore. We loved this place and the oldness of it.”

Scott Harrison and Nancy Burns of Duluth owned the resort from 1988 to 2018. The couple received “innumerable calls” from people sharing similar memories of the resort on Tuesday, Harrison said. There’s also been an outpouring of stories on social media by couples who had their wedding there and by families who took annual vacations there.

After all, up to 70 weddings were held at Lutsen Lodge every year.

“It certainly has helped,” Harrison said of people sharing memories.

Harrison visited the site earlier in the day to see the damage. Doing so was “traumatic,” he said.

“For us, it’s heavy-duty heartbreak,” Harrison said.

By late afternoon, steam and smoke still rose from the rubble, but just one firefighter remained on-site, monitoring sprinklers — fed by water pumped from Lake Superior — and occasionally blasting hot spots with a hose.

Nan Bradley and Deb Niemisto, of Lutsen, and co-owners of the nearby Lockport Marketplace, stood near what used to be the pool building but is now a pile of twisted steel joists and charred foam insulation.

“Totally devastating,” Niemisto said. “Just unimaginable.”

The two heard about the fire just after they opened their shop for the day.

“It brings tears to the eyes real fast. It really does,” Bradley said. “It’s such a beautiful place.”

And after a fire last summer destroyed Papa Charlie’s Tavern at the nearby Lutsen Mountains ski resort, there’s now a growing “hole” in the tourism-dependent community, Bradley said.

“We’re hurting for restaurants,” Bradley said.

If there was a special occasion, whether that be a wedding, anniversary, holiday dinner or the Fireman’s Ball, it was held at Lutsen Lodge, Niemesto said.

“Everybody that knows us that live in the Cities were calling us on the phone today. … (Lutsen Lodge) matters that much, I think, to Minnesota. I really do,” Bradley said.

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