Door County Lives Up to Its Nickname as the Midwest’s Cape Cod

Dallas venture capitalist Ed Mello has fond memories of idyllic summers spent on Cape Cod in his native Massachusetts and more recent memories of oppressive summers at home in North Texas. In the midst of last summer’s lockdowns, Mr. Mello, 63, and his wife, Nancy Mello, a 61-year-old financial adviser, began longing for a northern getaway.

They found what they were looking for on a bluff above the Lake Michigan inlet of Green Bay, on Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula. Known as Door County, the narrow peninsula, dotted with forests and farmland, has sandy beaches, hilly terrain and four distinct seasons. Locals looking for a shorthand explanation to explain its appeal to outsiders call it the Cape Cod of the Midwest.

“That moniker fits,” says Mr. Mello. In June 2020, the Mellos made a $1.5 million offer on a fully furnished, 4,000-square-foot, three-bedroom home built in 2005. They closed in July and went on to enjoy the rest of their Wisconsin summer, viewing Green Bay sunsets from nearly every room while listening to wind blow through the birch trees on their 1.1-acre lot.

Mr. Mello says the new vacation home is used year round, especially as an escape from sizzling summers.

The Mellos are part of a new wave of buyers who are helping to transform Door County from a rustic outpost catering to primary homeowners from Wisconsin and Illinois into an upmarket, second-home destination with a national profile.