Sioux Center business plans fire, changes

SIOUX CENTER—A planned fire Saturday, April 10, stoked a few anxious but mostly excited feelings for one Sioux Center couple.

“It’s on to a different season of our lives,” said Nancy Bonnema. “We made this decision last fall. We’re excited for this change.”

Nancy and her husband, Mark, alongside family and friends watched Saturday morning as the Sioux Center Fire Department used their four-unit building that once served as a motel for their business, Country Home and Campground, as practice before razing the building completely. The fire department also razed the former office building and an old corn crib on their property at 3741 Highway 75, a half mile north of Sioux Center.

Country Home and Campground has been a staple in the Sioux Center community since Marion and Art Zevenbergen built the facilities in 1960, originally calling it Country Home Motel and Campground. They owned it until 1998 when the Bonnemas took over.

“We had two little boys at the time; our second was just 8 months old,” Nancy said. “We were looking to expand our family and I wanted to be more at home.”

Her sister, Lou Ann Zevenbergen, presented an idea.

“My sisters in-laws are the ones who built this place and my sister and her husband owned the former Colonial Motel in town,” Nancy said. “I worked for my sister and brother-in-law at the motel in the summer through high school. She said it was a great job to have while raising kids and maybe we should think about buying her in-laws’ place.”

“Being that Nancy helped at the Colonial, we weren’t going into this blind. She had some experience and with us rapidly outgrowing our first house and with the cost of day care too, we were trying to find something to help Nancy be at home,” Mark said. “This felt like a perfect opportunity.”

The grounds had the four motel rooms, two cottages and the A-frame home along with the family’s home in 1998.

Phasing out parts of the business on the property began a couple years ago after they closed one of the cottages.

“We love the location,” Mark said. “It’s always been our goal that maybe someday we could just live out here and not have all the other stuff. So, as the buildings have aged, they got to the point where we had to decide what to do — fix them, replace or is it time to phase that part out? So we took that first step, closing that first cottage after it had some damage.”

They officially closed the motel portion of the business last fall, changing the business’s name to Country Home and Campground.

“The building was in need of repairs too and after COVID-19 we decided it was time to make some changes again, so we decided that after Thanksgiving we would have our last motel tenants in the strip unit,” Nancy said. “It has come to a new time, a different way of operation for us.”

They still offer 10 full hookup campsites year round along with an A-frame house and one cottage for longer-term rentals.

“We’re excited to move on to this next stage of our life,” Mark said. “We’re very thankful for the support from the community throughout this whole process.”

“The growth of the community has really helped us through the years,” Nancy said, noting their clientele has been primarily those in construction or needing temporarily short-term places to stay for training through local business such as Interstates or Smithfield Foods-Sioux Center. One existing tenant is connected to AgriVision, the John Deere dealership under construction across the highway from the property. “Putting five children through Christian eduction would not have been possible without the motel income. It’s been such a blessing. This place has truly provided for our family.”

The next steps for the razed buildings is to plant grass.

“It’ll just be more lawn mowing for me, which is fine,” Nancy said. “I always say my lawn mowing time is my God time, just me and God together. It’s been an outlet for me while raising our five children. I’m excited for that this summer.”