We build things.
Including a place to land.

Hillside has been Lake Madison's gathering place for decades. The current chapter began in 2024, when Luke Fortney and his son Ben took the keys from Jeff and Debbie Luther — the family who had reimagined the property starting in 2015 (and built everything you'll recognize on the patio: the Steakhouse, the BluCabana, the BluMana party boat, the marina).

Luke isn't a hospitality guy by training. He runs Empire Building Construction in Sioux Falls — the company his dad Ercell founded in 1983, that Luke worked his way up through (summer crews → mechanic → project supervisor → operations manager → VP), and bought outright in 2019. Empire has put up schools, performance centers, townhomes, and commercial steel across four states.

That matters for a resort more than it sounds. A builder-owner walks every dock and knows whether it's level. Reads a leaking cabin roof in five seconds. Doesn't accept "that's how it's always been" as an answer for a kitchen vent. The first thing Luke and Ben did when they bought the place was a punch-list walk — every cabin, every roof, every line of plumbing. The hidden infrastructure of a resort that guests never see is the thing that breaks a weekend. We don't let it break.

Ben runs day-to-day. He's the one you'll meet at the marina, the one who actually built the fleet booking system. Teasha Torpy handles operations and events. The kitchen team and front of house include staff who have been here through multiple ownerships — they know what works.

We didn't reinvent Hillside when we bought it. We inherited a going concern from the Luthers and Mageos that we genuinely admire. Our job is to keep the docks tight, the kitchen running, the cabins clean, and the music playing. And to make sure the weekend you spend here is the one you'll talk about.