MANCHESTER, MI – What was once a sand and gravel mining operation in a rural part of Washtenaw County covered in farmland is now entering its second act.
Welcome to Hidden Lakes RV Resort, which opened in late June just outside the village of Manchester, about 20 miles southwest of Ann Arbor, and is celebrating a soft grand opening during the Fourth of July holiday weekend
The RV park’s 51 sites, overlooking a pair of twin lakes once dredged for sand used in concrete, have all the trappings of a summertime getaway — a clubhouse, swimming area and play structure and a soon-to-be-installed heated pool.
But what visitors might not realize is how Hidden Lakes came to be, from its mining past to its unlikely owner, an Ann Arbor-area company that’s built its name in a decidedly different industry.
“It’s a little off the charts for a concrete and highway construction company,” said Dennis Doan, chairman of Doan Companies, the firm he founded with his father and a partner in 1970.
Today, the family business is led by his son, Matt, who’s running ready-mix concrete plants across southeast Michigan.
That’s what led the company to acquire the land that is now the RV resort in the first place, Doan said.
His company took over the property off Geiske Road, five minutes from downtown Manchester, in 1999. It was then called Manchester Gravel and Concrete Products and was an active mine, Doan said.
Doan Companies was interested because of the washed sand it could dredge from the spring-fed lake on the property, which is mixed into concrete. At one point, the company set up a portable concrete plant, he said, though all operations stopped in 2005 when the quality of the raw materials being extracted became less than ideal.
Part of the mining permit required restoring the site, but Doan went through a few false starts when deciding what would come next. At one point, the company had a permitted plan for a 25-home subdivision, which ultimately sputtered amid the aftermath of the Great Recession, he said.
“We fumbled and stumbled our way along after we had sold all the equipment and cleaned up the site, trying to sell it. We were unsuccessful,” he said.
Then came the idea of an RV resort, hatched some four or five years before it would ultimately open due to delays in part caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Doan said.
His company turned to an industry peer with a background in running sites for recreational vehicles. Jackson-based Lester Brothers, an excavation and trucking company also founded in the 1970s, has also operated RV parks in Jackson County for decades, Doan said.
The partnership also let Lester Brothers and Doan share expertise in construction, while putting in utilities, paving the RV sites and completing the clubhouse in spring 2023.
The resort offers both seasonal accommodations and nightly rates and boasts Wi-Fi, picnic tables and areas for fishing, kayaking and swimming on the two lakes. The pool has received its state permit and is expected to be completed soon, Doan said, with a pickleball court also on the way.
With early positive reviews from guests, the resort is moving ahead with its next phase, the second of three planned for the park, which may eventually house around 200 sites, he said.
“We’re excited about where we go from here,” Doan said.
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