After 37 years of welcoming in visitors to The Guest House motel, Julie and Joe Wiater officially handed over the keys of the 16-room building to the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
The motel is located on the corner of Ashmun Street and Marquette Avenue.
Sault Tribe president, Austin Lowes, was present when the keys changed hands.
"We have been interested in it for about three months, maybe a little bit longer. We are trying to expand housing services for the Sault Tribe and we are trying to use housing services to earn revenue. We are going to try to keep it as a status-quo. It's mostly medical professionals that live out of town that stay there. There are some construction workers staying. I imagine you might have some Locks workers there. We are going to operate it as fair-market housing for medical professionals and other professionals in the area including tribal members," Lowes explained.
Julie Wiater cannot express enough the appreciation of the community and visitors supporting them over the years. She tells SooLeader the story of The Guest House.
"Joe and I bought the Lawson Motel in January of 1988 at the ages of 24 and 22 and being newlyweds of three months. It was that 'go big or go home' moment in our lives, to be our own boss and own a business was part of the American dream. We moved up from the downriver area of Metro Detroit. We had a five-year plan and $5,000. The first 12 years we did it all - and I mean all. Some of our best memories were from those early struggles that built character and relationships with each other and the support people in your lives. We brought our three children home to that property so it was their first home and that makes it a little sentimental. I think it was around 2009 or 2010 when we renamed the property The Guest House and changed the model of business to accommodate the need for interim housing in our community. We still always had some nightly rentals but we wanted to provided visitors that were here for an extended time, but less than a year an option for a home away from home," Wiater said.
However, selling the businesses does not mean retiring off into the sunset.
"This sale does not mean retirement for us. Joe will remain a servant of the community in his deputy sheriff job and I've committed to build our new Keller Williams Realty office that Leah (Jackson) and I started last year. The sale of this property will allow us more time for travel and making memories with our family with, now, four grandchildren," Wiater explained.
The property wasn't going to be sold to just anyone.
"It wasn’t so important that we sell to the tribe, but we did want to make sure that the buyer would continue to meet the communities needs and we think the tribe will do that. Sault Ste. Marie has been very good to us and we close this chapter hoping that our work has served our community, our visitors and that we are remembered as good ambassadors," Wiater concluded.
"Joe and Julie have done a really good job and have found really good tenants so we are not going to ask anybody to leave. It's been fully occupied for a long time," Lowes said.
The Sault Tribe recently purchased the Seven Sea's motel downtown on Portage Avenue (above Sugar Daddy Bakery) in 2024, Lowes said, and continue to renovate that for tenants, mainly Soo Locks workers.
"That building has been neglected for a while. We took the bird boxes off it. We power-washed it. We are going to paint it in the Spring and put a mural on the side of it. We want to be good partners with the city. We all have to live in this community and we should all be good neighbors with each other," Lowes continued.
