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Beacon Merger Creates Boat House of Door County

Deal keeps business local, increases brands, employment

A collegial relationship in a business-owners group evolved into a friendship and then a partnership that will help a Door County dealership expand its presence and employment.

Beacon Marine this fall merged with The Boat House, a boat sales and service company with locations in eight facilities in Florida and the Milwaukee and Lake Geneva areas. The merger will allow former Beacon owner James Matson to add boat brands, draw upon more expertise from colleagues and build a new showroom along Highway 42 south of Sister Bay, and hire at least three more sales and service employees.

Matson said three different parties approached him to buy Beacon Marine, which included a Door County sales office and 100,000-square-foot shop and a 350-boat storage facility northeast of Sister Bay and in Two Rivers-Manitowoc. He said he didn’t feel comfortable with those potential buyers, but did with Kevin Code, Boat House CEO.

Not long after completing a buyout of Sister Bay-based Cal-Marine from Cal and Sue Lundquist in 2013, Matson joined a nationwide peer group of noncompeting boat-business owners. The “20 Group” meets three times per year for up to nine days to share ideas and critique one another’s practices and strategies. Over the years, Matson found he had similar values and ideals as Code. They announced the merger in early October as Matson hosted his peer group rendezvous in Sister Bay.

“Because it’s a part of the country many of them had never visited, I think we had 100% attendance,” Matson said. “We put a bunch of people in the new Dörr Hotel in Sister Bay and hosted a conference at Pheasant Park. That was when we rolled out the merger. They were all surprised, but they always knew that Kevin and I had a good connection.”

Prior to the merger, Matson began planning for a new showroom along Highway 42 near Lampert’s Lumber.

“We’re going to have an 8,000-square-foot showroom, and boats in there year-round. That will be the public-facing piece of The Boat House of Door County,” Matson said. “The back of the business will be up on Old Stage [Road] where we do service and storage, and we will be expanding that, too. 2023 is going to be an exciting year for Boat House.”

The new showroom will place The Boat House along a stretch of highway with traffic counts up to 10,000 cars per day. The main, 100,000-square-foot storage and service facility along Old Stage Road sees scant tourist traffic.

Matson said peer group members and Code provided great input.

“I feel like my showroom is going to be flawless because I have so many people who said, ‘Here’s what you should and shouldn’t do,’” Matson said.

Beacon Marine already carried Boston Whaler, Cobalt and Grady White boat brands. With the merger, Boat House of Door County will add a top ski boat line, Ski Nautique, plus Bennington pontoons. The merger gives Boat House greater buying power, Matson said.

“This transaction is another pivotal step towards aggressively expanding our dealership’s footprint in the Midwest,” Code said, “and represents our continued dedication to helping families create lifelong memories on the water.” 

Matson said he will remain dedicated to and heavily invested in Door County. In addition to his part-ownership of The Boat House, he owns Ellison Bay property along the shore and is a one-third owner of Door County Broadband.

Matson’s brother, Customer Experience and Sales manager Mark Matson, and Service and Storage Manager Pete Kordon are the business’s chief contacts. Mark joined the firm and moved his family including four children to the county in 2014, and Kordon graduated from Gibraltar High and came home after studying economics and political science to work at Cal-Marine.

The Matsons are preparing for boat-show season under The Boat House banner, with the Chicago and Milwaukee shows in January and Green Bay in February. James Matson said the transition has been smooth, even though it rolled out on the same week a hurricane damaged Boat House facilities and employees’ homes in Florida.

“The merger’s going well,” he said. “My head is spinning a little bit. The nice thing about this is it was so easy because of the level of trust in the relationship.”

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