Our vacation paradise, twice
In the summer of 2000, we had been boating at Geist Lake for a couple of years in our 20-foot Bryant bowrider. We loved boating and the water. The neighbors who had gotten us into boating in the first place had a place near Bloomington at Lake Monroe, in a development called the Pointe.
Lake Monroe is a large reservoir built in the early 1960s, about 15 miles south of Bloomington, in a beautiful part of the state. The Pointe is a group of condominium complexes built around an 18-hole golf course near the dam at the west end of the lake. It’s named for an arrowhead-shaped point of land that sticks out into the water. I’m not much of a golfer, but it is beautiful there. We took a trip down to see what it was like and loved it. We looked at condos in several of the neighborhoods, and each had its own character and amenities.
Lake Monroe is about 20 miles long. The Pointe is at the left end, across from the dam.
Map of the Pointe.
The fountain at the clubhouse.
Harbour Pointe #7
We ended up buying an upper-level condo in one of the buildings right on the point, in a neighborhood called Harbour Pointe. It had three bedrooms, three baths, a single-car garage, and a full water view of the lake. On top of that, it came with a deeded boat slip a few hundred feet down a wooded path. For the next fifteen years, it was our family’s vacation paradise.
Overhead view of the Pointe and the Harbour Pointe boat docks. Harbour Pointe #7 is right on the point; Harbour Pointe #53 is up the hill near the tennis court.
Harbour Pointe #7 is the upper unit on the left.
The full water view of Lake Monroe.
The condo came fully furnished and decorated, so we didn’t need to buy furniture or supplies of any kind. The decorating was a bit much. Everything, and I mean everything right down to the silverware, had shells on it. And it was pink: the walls, the trim, all pink. It was professionally and tastefully done, but it was a lot. About the only change we made in fifteen years was painting the walls gray and the trim white. We also inherited a supply of shell napkins and paper plates that we never used up. I might still have some of them somewhere.
The pink interior of Harbour Pointe #7, shells and all, with that beautiful full water view of Lake Monroe.
Relaxing in Harbour Pointe #7, around 2002.
Audrey was a newborn when we moved in, so the first job was putting netting across all the deck rails and the stair rail so she couldn’t fall. Then we launched the boat and quickly found out that Lake Monroe, beautiful as it is, is so much bigger than Geist that the 20-footer was a little small for it. Still, we enjoyed the lake and the boat very much for those first two summers.
Dad and Audrey at Lake Monroe.
The family in the Bryant at our dock on Lake Monroe.
We got down there as often as we could. What I loved most was that as soon as you pulled into the Pointe, you felt like you were on vacation. I had been working very hard for a long time, and I needed a vacation every weekend. I also insisted that we leave the condo every weekend the way we found it, with everything cleaned up and put away before we left. Kathy and the kids didn’t love that rule, but it meant every arrival felt like walking into a fresh vacation home.
Harbour Pointe is hilly and beautiful.
Lindsey at the pool in 2002. It looks almost the same today.
The Cobalt years
In the summer of 2002 we decided to upgrade to a new boat. I let the kids help pick, and we chose a 2002 Cobalt 240. When we brought it home it looked huge next to the old Bryant, but on Lake Monroe the Cobalt was in its element.
The new Cobalt arrives at Harbour Pointe. Coincidentally, it’s parked right in front of Harbour Pointe #53 in this photo.
The new Cobalt next to the Bryant.
The new Cobalt in the boat slip.
We had countless parties with friends and family and pulled multiple tubes and skiers at once. Our friends Jenny and Brad loved Harbour Pointe so much that they bought a condo there and eventually the boat slip right next to ours. That made it even more fun for the kids. For many years, our summers were spent at the condo on Lake Monroe.
The Cobalt could easily pull multiple tubes at once.
We wore out those tubes on the lake.
Who is that young guy at the wheel of the boat?
Drew and Alex on the wave runner in front of the boat docks.
The kids on Fossil Beach at Lake Monroe. They’re all adults now.
Letting it go
Around 2010 to 2012, Kathy’s muscular dystrophy reached the point where she couldn’t walk on the uneven ground at the Pointe. She could no longer manage the path down to the boat, and the stairs down to the dock got harder and harder. For a couple of years we borrowed a golf cart and drove her to the top of the stairs, but eventually even that wasn’t possible. At the same time, the kids were getting older and busier with other activities, so our trips to the condo got fewer and fewer.
Around 2012, Kathy told me she couldn’t go down there anymore and probably wouldn’t again. That was hard for me, because I loved it and had always pictured retiring at Harbour Pointe. But all good things come to an end, and at the end of the 2015 season we sold the condo. As if to rub it in, our last weekend before turning it over to the new owners was one of the prettiest weekends we ever had on the boat.
So that ended our time at the Pointe. Or did it?
We hadn’t sold the boat slip with the condo, so I kept the boat there and got back to the lake now and then. Around 2017, we went down and looked at a less expensive condo in the building up by the pool. It didn’t have the full water view, but it was about the same size as our old one and had two big advantages: a two-car garage, and a long driveway shared with only one other condo, so there was almost unlimited parking. Parking had been the one real drawback at our Harbour Pointe condo. Guests always had to park up the hill by the pool, and people often blocked access to our space. I dawdled, didn’t make an offer, and it sold out from under me.
A couple of years later something went wrong with the boat and I had to pull it off the lake. I decided I wasn’t going to get back down there, so I sold the boat slip too. That was the end of Harbour Pointe and Lake Monroe.
Harbour Pointe #53
In the spring of 2026, with retirement coming up, I started looking at properties. I looked hard at a property in Kentucky, a cabin on a private lake with a large tract of land, but couldn’t come to terms on it. Then I thought: what about Lake Monroe and the Pointe?
The one that got away: the cabin on the lake in Kentucky.
I called Todd, the realtor who had sold us the original condo, and he agreed to show me some properties on a very cold Valentine’s Day. We looked at four condos:
- A very nice four-bedroom, four-bath condo in that same building by the pool. It turned out to be the unit next door to the one I’d passed on years earlier: same layout, and it shares that same long driveway. It needed some updating, but it had a great layout.
- One on the opposite side of the pool that needed a lot of work. It was close to a gut-and-remodel.
- A nicely updated but small duplex condo right on the golf course. It was pretty, but small, and I didn’t care much for the golf view.
- A very nice two-bedroom condo in LaSalle Woods.
We also looked at some land nearby that would have been a great spot for a cabin on the water, but it was so restricted that you couldn’t really build on it.
The entrance to Harbour Pointe.
I went home, thought it over, and made an offer on the first condo. It’s not on the water, but it’s large with a great layout, probably nicer than our first condo. It has a one-car garage (a previous owner built out the second bay as living space) and easy access to the pool and tennis court. They accepted, and we took possession in April.
Aerial view of Harbour Pointe #53. Our condo is on the left end of the building in the foreground.
The interior of Harbour Pointe #53 before it was refurbished and furnished.
It needed some updating and small repairs, but nothing major. Rick and Joe, the contractors who have worked on my house, painted the entire upper two floors in a nice beige and khaki and handled some small repairs. Joe did a great job fixing a bathroom where the wallpaper was falling down.
Rick painting the walls in Harbour Pointe #53.
Joe fixing the bathroom walls.
Furnishing it, one stair at a time
This condo wasn’t furnished. I bought the living room furniture, the master bedroom furniture, and the outdoor table and chairs new from Kittle’s. They were expensive, but nice. The rest came from Amazon or secondhand from Craigslist and Christy’s auction. It took most of the summer to collect everything. I bought a former U-Haul van, fixed it up (see the van article), and made many trips back and forth with it.
The new living room in Harbour Pointe #53. That couch is 12 feet long!
The new master bedroom in Harbour Pointe #53. It looks great.
New outdoor furniture at Harbour Pointe #53.
I found this high-end couch, chair and coffee table on Craigslist.
One challenge is that the main floor is on the second level, so everything has to go up stairs, either inside or up the deck stairs outside. I bought an electric stair-climbing dolly and used it to move most of the heavy items, including a full-size refrigerator and a large wood-and-glass curio cabinet from the auction.
The stair-climbing dolly carrying the curio cabinet.
The curio cabinet in its new home in Harbour Pointe #53.
There were a couple of mishaps. I broke the legs off a very nice buffet I had kept from the original condo. I wasn’t watching closely enough going through the front door, and both wooden legs popped off against the door frame in an instant. Stupid me. I had to glue them back on. Another time I was replacing a couple of toilets and climbing the deck stairs with the dolly when my foot got caught and I lost leverage. You have to stay in control of that thing at all times. I didn’t, and the brand-new toilet tumbled down the stairs in its box and broke. Another stupid me. Overall, though, the stair climber was a great purchase. It let an old guy move a lot of heavy stuff by himself.
The garage side of Harbour Pointe #53: the stairs where the toilet mishap happened, and the second garage bay built out as living space.
Back at the Pointe
I think it has turned out great so far. I love it down there just as much as I loved the first condo. I don’t have the full water view, but I get the same vacation feeling the minute I drive through the gate. It’s also much quieter without loud boats going by, and parking is so much easier. Nobody parks in front of your garage.
The view from the deck of Harbour Pointe #53, looking out toward the water.
I also picked up an older two-seat Club Car electric golf cart to keep at the condo for getting around the Pointe. You can read more about it in my golf cart article.
Next up is finishing the basement room with a bar. I’ve collected a lot of memorabilia for the walls and found a giant stainless industrial refrigerator and sink unit for the back wall. I’m going to build the bar and set the room up for watching ball games and playing games. It should be a great project.
The bar area, ready for build-out, with the big stainless sink and refrigerator unit.