Sister Bay Automotive Heads East

(From right) Chris Church is building a new auto-maintenance and repair shop east of Sister Bay after working for 30 years for his parents, Candie and Ken. They recently announced that they’ve sold the building along North Bay Shore Drive. Photo by Craig Sterrett.

Ken Church is retiring, selling property that’s been home to auto businesses since 1919

Need gasoline or a car repair on the far-north side of Sister Bay? You’ll have to drive several blocks or a few miles because the site of a longtime garage and service station is changing hands.

On Facebook in September, Ken and Candie Church made a bittersweet announcement about Sister Bay Automotive.

“After 39 years of operating the business, Candie and I have sold the property and have decided to retire,” Ken said of a property that automotive businesses have used since 1919.

Sister Bay Automotive, however, will continue to operate. Their son, Chris, already has the slab poured for a new repair shop on his property a few miles east on Hill Road. Chris has worked for his parents for 30 years, with time out for technical school and internships as a mechanic. When his building is complete, the Churches will take on the big task of moving the equipment, lifts and parts to the new shop.

Candie has operated the office and met with customers for more than three decades. She’s always added her graceful touch, whether visiting with customers or adding beauty to the building with her impeccably planted and maintained flower boxes out front. She’s going to miss the customers, vendors and visitors.

“This was my social life,” Candie said. 

That saddens her, but she’s glad Ken can stop working: Thirty-nine years of standing on concrete in a garage and wrestling with awkward objects took a toll.

“After two back surgeries, the body just can’t take it anymore,” Ken said. “I’ve got tendinitis in the elbows; my shoulders are hurting; my knees are sore.”

Around March 2020, Ken Church started to spread the word that he’d like to sell the property. He’d always told Lars Johnson, who owns cottages along the shore behind the garage, that he would have the “first crack at it” if he decided to sell. Johnson showed interest last year, but the pandemic created uncertainty. Then, as Church went to list the property with a realtor this year, Johnson called, and they made a deal. Johnson did not reply by deadline to questions about his plans for the property.

At age 12, Church started pumping gas during the summers for his grandparents at the same site – a Ford dealership called Sister Bay Motors. The signs out front changed through the years, from Standard to Texaco to Union 76 gasoline (Church has Marathon fuel now), and the building changed, too.

Church’s grandparents bought the Ford dealership from longtime owner Leonard Swenson in 1957 and rebuilt the structure after a fire in 1963. In 1970, at age 18, Church hitchhiked from Chicago to Sister Bay to work at his grandparents’ business, according to a detailed history at sisterbayautomotive.com. He worked for various shops and businesses during the early 1970s, then returned to work in the building again – at that time, for Jeff Lundh, who had an auto parts and sales business there. Church bought out Lundh’s business in 1982 and 1983.

In 1985, Church bought the building from Arvid Strom, who had a gas station and car wash there for a couple of years during the mid-1970s. He and Candie also purchased the house directly across Highway 42 from their business in the 1980s.

Chris Church has received a conditional-use permit to operate his two-bay automotive business at the home he makes with his wife, Melanie; and two daughters, ages 16 and 20. He said the contractor is waiting on supplies before the bulk of the construction can get going, but the business could open as soon as November.

He will not continue to sell gasoline, but his parents said they think he’ll have plenty of customers.