A lodge at a prestigious Michigan youth arts center that once bore the name of the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein will be demolished, officials there announced Tuesday.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Epstein donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Interlochen Center for the Arts, including funding for a cabin that was referred to as the “Jeffrey E. Epstein Scholarship Lodge.”
Interlochen renamed the building “Green Lake Lodge” in 2009, following Epstein’s first criminal conviction. Officials now say the building needs to be torn down altogether and the Interlochen Board of Trustees has approved the demolition.
“The lodge has, over time, come to carry associations that are not reflective of who we are as an institution or the values we strive to uphold,” Interlochen said in a statement. “After careful consideration, the Board determined that removing this structure in a safe and timely manner is the right step for Interlochen at this time.”
According to a document included in the Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Jeffery Epstein Scholarship Lodge was a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom, cedar log cabin on the northwest side of the campus, on Green Lake.
“The lodge is designed to be barrier free and features special amenities, including a stone fireplace and a Silcraft whirlpool tub for wheelchair restricted guests,” the document said. As of its construction in the 1990s, it was expected to generate about $15,000 annual to fund scholarships.
The center is located on 1,200 acres in Grand Traverse County. It is home to summer arts camps and what it describes as the “nation’s premier arts boarding high school.”
It’s also where Epstein allegedly met his first sex trafficking victim in 1994, when she was 14 years old, according to a lawsuit included among the trove of documents related to Epstein and released by the federal government starting in late 2025.
She and another victim allege that Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell met them at Interlochen as teens in the 1990s, then groomed them with mentorships and promises of educational and financial support that led to years of abuse.
Interlochen said it conducted two separate internal reviews related to Epstein, one in 2009, following his first conviction, and another in 2019, after he was arrested again. The center said neither review turned up any reports of misconduct at Interlochen involving Epstein.
The center said it has “fully cooperated” with the government investigations into Epstein’s crimes and noted that many of the so-called Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice were provided by Interlochen.
Interlochen cut all ties with Epstein and removed any recognition of his donations from the campus in 2009.
“The safety and well-being of our students will always be our highest priority,” Interlochen said in Tuesday’s statement. “We currently have a wide range of measures in place to provide a safe and supportive environment for all students. We routinely review our policies and procedures related to the protection of minors and campus safety and continue to evolve to ensure we remain current with effective practices.”
Epstein died in jail in New York in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking. Maxwell is incarcerated in a federal prison in Texas, serving a 20-year federal sentence for sex trafficking offenses.
mreinhart@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Interlochen to raze lodge formerly named for Jeffrey Epstein
Reporting by Max Reinhart, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
