Meet the family behind Moonsail Vacations

Meet the Schmitz family

Welcome, traveler. We’re Pam and Chris Schmitz, the family behind Moonsail Vacations. We don’t run a management company and we don’t have a front desk. We keep a small handful of Door County homes we love, and we look after every stay ourselves.

It started in 2016. We had two little boys, Isaac and Eli, and as a stay-at-home mom I was looking for something of my own to build. We’d always loved Door County, and from our home in De Pere it was close enough to make a go of it, so that December we bought our first rental, the Sister Bay Chalet, and had it ready for the 2017 summer season.

We honestly didn’t know what to expect. But hosting families turned out to be the part I loved most: imagining what a guest would need, then making sure it was already there when they walked in. We grew from one home to several over the years, and that hands-on care never changed.

The homes we tend ourselves

Today we focus on a small handful of homes on the Door Peninsula:

• Harbor House in Baileys Harbor: a renovated century home with nautical bones, four doors from the brewery and steps from the water.
• Leap of Faith Retreat in Fish Creek: our largest, a light-filled mid-century home on a private acre, wheelchair-accessible, with room to spread out.
• Parkside Retreat in Fish Creek: a newer build with a back gate onto the Peninsula State Park trails.

Each one is different: a downtown stroll or a quiet wooded setting, room for ten or a cozy few. Helping you choose the right one (and plan the trip around it) is the part of this I still love most.

Why we do it this way

Somewhere along the way we stopped visiting Door County and started living it: not just the dreamy summers, but the quiet weeks with two feet of snow and not another soul on the trail. We love it all. These days home base is back in De Pere, but we’re up here every summer we can be, still exploring, still finding new favorites to share with you.

It’s also let us give back. For all its beauty, Door County has a real shortage of affordable housing, and the poverty that comes with it is easy to miss. So each year we give 10% of our profits to the community to help chip away at it. It won’t solve the problem on its own, but it’s a start, and we hope to do more.

Now that you know a little about us, let us get to know you by hosting your next trip north. We’ll make it a good one.

~ Pam & Chris