In 2017, Bob and Sheila Kaminsky were looking to move. Spending their entire lives in the hustle and bustle of Chicago, running businesses, they decided that when their kids went off to college, they would finally move out of Illinois. After checking the market for a while, Bob stumbled upon a website he had never heard of before, landandfarm.com. There he found 25 acres of land on a lake in Indiana. He would soon come to learn the fascinating story of “the big dig,” as the locals called it, and why it was still on the market.
After some digging around of his own, contacting the seller, and local excavating companies, he learned the story behind the undulating ground and unique cliff drop off down to the two large man made ponds near the lakefront. What once was a failed attempt at constructing a high rise condominium and complete housing development worth millions of dollars, just became the perfect piece of property for Bob and Sheila’s retirement. Contrary to every other lot on the lake, this piece of Earth had wide open space, was not flat like a farm field, and had double the lakefront access than it’s neighbors. In august, they closed on it and unknowingly to them at the time, Kaminsky Park was born.
There had been long talks around the Kaminsky family of a go kart track being constructed. The first idea being a long looped driveway around their 2 acre property in the Chicago land area. Of course everyone thought Bob was full of it with this idea. But when 25 acres and a long driveway from the county road to the house was necessary, a go kart track almost seemed mandatory. So naturally, construction on the kart track started long before the house.
Breaking ground in late 2017, a layout was formed by the family that encompassed an entire half of the property. For a while the layout stuck until they realized they were still going to need room for a large shop and a house. Thus the current layout was born, still incorporating the original design of turns 11,12, 1, 2 and 3. While Bob and Colin were race car drivers, they were not go karters. So when it came time to construct how wide the track should be, they looked at the county road width and thought to themselves, “that should be wide enough for a little go kart.” So 22 feet across was the agreed upon width. By the time 2018 rolled around and all the stone that Bob secured for free from a local windmill project had been laid down, they realized the worst. The track was far too narrow. 8 feet less than a typical competition karting track.
That entire summer Bob spent scooping dirt out from the sides of the track, bucket by bucket with his 5ft wide bobcat attachment, around the entire half mile track. For reference, a half mile is 2,625 ft. That would require 525 buckets of scooping out dirt, and then replacing with stone. And that only accounts for one bucket deep, where in most parts of the track Bob had to scoop out 2-3 buckets deep to grow the tracks width significantly. Ya, It took a long time. Bob was able to ensure the track was no more narrow than 28 feet and even got it up to 30 feet in some corners. The next step was to let it sit through the winter and set in place in time for paving next year.
It was not until 2020 that the track was utilized to its full extent. Hosting Kaminsky family parties, testing go karts, and even taking full sized race cars out for a slow and steady spin. It was on a particular karting test day when a local go kart manufacturer stated how he obviously presumed the property would be used to host corporate outings. While it was something Bob had given thought to, it was never the full intention of the property and the track. As the year went on, and more conversations were had, it became almost a no brainer to extract everything possible out of the unique property to become an entertainment hub for businesses and private outings.
For the next 3 years, the Kaminsky family would put in long days. Most of which turned into nights illuminated with headlights or flashlights. Working on countless projects to get the property into shape. One of the unique things about this piece of property is when you look around, you can point your finger at anything, and there is a story about a project that the Kaminsky family took upon themselves to get done. From laying straw down by hand in order to grow grass, to the trim work in every single room, the attention to detail at Kaminsky Park is what gives the property it’s intangible value that you can feel from the first time you lay eyes on it. This is no ordinary place.
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