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has been associated continuously with the Culver Academies since before the
first students enrolled in 1893. The Bogardus family built this house in the mid
19th century and operated a farm that stretched along Aubbeenaubbee Bay on
the north shore of Lake Maxinkuckee. Henry Harrison Culver purchased the
farmland in 1884 and nine years later opened Culver Military Academy. The
Bogardus family, who had settled in the Maxinkuckee area in the 1820s (the
surrounding community was not re-named Culver until the early part of the
20th century) did not sell their house to Henry Harrison Culver. Indeed, by the
time he purchased the Bogardus farm, Culver was planning to build his own
house, which still stands on a bluff along East Shore Drive opposite the entrance
to what is now the Academies’ golf course.
A strong-willed woman, who never married, the Bogardus’s daughter lived in
the house until 1959. A year earlier, she had sold the house to long-time
chairman of the Academies’ English Department, Pat Hodgkin, and built the
modern house across the street at 1010 Academy Road. Unfortunately, Miss
Bogardus had a change of heart and refused to vacate the house until she was
ordered to do so by the Marshall County Court. She died two years later. The
Hodgkins lived in the house until the late 1970s. It was during the period that
the Hodgkins lived in the house that North Shore Lane acquired the more
colorful name by which many still know it today – “Martini Lane.”
In addition to the Hodgkins, North Shore Lane was home to other prominent
young members of the Academies’ staff and the Culver community. Between
building their careers and raising families, the nucleus of North Shore Lane
residents also maintained active social lives, and before long, North Shore
became known as “Martini Lane.” The name became so well established that
the Post Office even delivered mail addressed “Martini Lane” to residents.
The house passed from one Academy English instructor to another in the late
1970s when Bruce and Diana Holaday purchased it from Pat Hodgkin. The
Holadays made many improvements to the house during their 28 years here,
and Bruce hand built the beautiful boat that hangs from the second floor
balcony above the family room. The house’s association with the Academies
continued when it was purchased from the Holadays by Don and Tracy Fox in
2005. Don is a 1975 graduate of CMA, and he, his wife, Tracy, and their
children, Wesley, and Jody, who is enrolled in the CGA class of 2010, all return
each August for Specialty Camps.
