Community Builders Spotlight Business

By Jill Kurowski
John and Janet Roe are the owners of Lake Country Storage which is located two miles south of Grey Eagle on County Road 2. John is a lifetime resident and Janet has been around for 20 years. The storage sheds are located at 30488 County Road 2.
The Roes do most of the work themselves, but call on family and neighbors for occasional help. John attended St. Cloud State with a degree in business, and then worked in the telecommunications industry for 30 years. Janet earned a degree in mathematics at Northeastern University in Boston and also worked in the telecommunications industry in the Kansas City area.
In 2000 the Roes both retired and decided to move back to John’s home town and live on Big Birch Lake. The idea for the storage sheds got started from looking for a place to store their own boats and they decided to purchase the property across from the Rock Tavern. The first shed was built the summer of 2001 and quickly filled up by fall. To satisfy demand John and Janet built additional sheds in 2003, 2005, and 2007. Now they store about 160 boats, RVs, and vehicles.
Many of their customers take advantage of the pickup and delivery service. The Roes will go to their customer’s home, get their boat, winterize, and store it and then in the spring they take the boat back to their dock so the boat is ready for the customer when they return for the season. John relishes this job because he can pick a nice day and enjoy a nice boat ride.
In the summer the Roes store a number of snowmobiles and fish houses. They also offer indoor or outdoor boat storage for people who don’t want to haul their boat back and forth from the Cities each weekend.
They feel the unique thing about their business is that they deal mostly with people at the lake or on vacation. That usually means their customers are happy and therefore so are the Roes and they have also made many good friends from boat storage customers. One thing that would improve their business would be to have a separate seasonal property tax classification for storage sheds and not be taxed as regular commercial buildings. This would keep property taxes on new buildings lower and create the likelihood of expansion as the Roes generally have a waiting list for their storage sheds.
This is the fifth in a series of stories that feature Grey Eagle/Burtrum Area businesses. The project is sponsored by The Community Builders Organization of Grey Eagle and Burtrum.