A developer plans to construct a luxury North Shore resort with 45 standalone cabins in Two Harbors, according to an environmental review report recently made public.

The 23-acre resort would have dome and treehouse cabins on the shore of Lake Superior, ranging in size from over 500 square feet to around 1,500 square feet. Renderings show the dome cabins would have a circular floor plan and roofs while the treehouse cabins would be elevated and have a wooden-cabin design.

There’s also plans for a plaza and recreation area with ice rink at the resort, according to the report.

The resort would be located south of Two Harbors on East Stanley Road, which is between the lake and Highway 61.

The developer is John Leupke of The Harbors, LLC.

"The North Shore has always been a special place (for me)," Leupke said. He added that he's traveled to the area since he was a child, and noticed that most resorts remained unchanged and the area had few new resort options.

He's aiming for the resort to be modern and luxurious, and envisions families or couples staying there. The resort experience will also have an emphasize on privacy. For example, the domes that line the lake shore will each have their own hot tubs.

Site remediation work has already began, after The Harbors, LLC received Lake County approval in 2021 for the around half of the development, the report said.

Ten lake-front dome cabins are slated for the first phase of construction, Leupke said.

The environmental review report was published this week and precedes additional approvals needed for the next phase of the project. Work on the second phase of cabins is scheduled for next year, and a third phase is planned for 2023, he said.

The lodging market in Duluth, which is a roughly 30-minute drive from Two Harbors, has outperformed statewide occupancy figures, according to June data from STR.

Duluth reportedly saw a lodging occupancy rate of almost 75% in June, which rises above the average statewide occupancy rate of almost 68% that same month. Duluth had the highest occupancy rate that month out of the measured markets, according to the STR report.

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