New owners of Heartland Lodge in Nebo anxious to create family traditions, memories for tourists

NEBO, Ill. — Tim Duoos used to be part of a group of 10 people who owned the Venice Island Duck Club in San Joaquin County in California.

However, when one of the founding members died about four years ago, the rest of the group decided to sell the duck club.

“Since that happened, I really missed the hunting,” Duoos said. “More important than even the hunting was the gathering of friends and family together to experience a hunt. I guess it’s about building memories and traditions.”

Duoos now has a new place to build those memories and traditions.

Duoos and his wife, Lynn, are the registered agents for Heartland Goat Properties, LLC, which bought a 622-acre property from Harpole’s Properties, LLC for $5.82 million on Sept. 17, according to property tax documents filed in Pike County.

“I look forward to being able to get the family together more often at Heartland,” Duoos said. “It’s really fun seeing all the families who are making Heartland part of their family traditions.”

Heartland Lodge is a hunting lodge and outfitter in Nebo, 12 miles south of Pittsfield. It offers hunting for whitetail deer, wild quail, turkey and pheasants. It also serves as a bed and breakfast and a site for vacations, weddings and retreats.

The resort’s accommodations include the original lodge with 11 rooms and two suites, as well as seven rooms and suites in each of the Prairie Ridge and Sunset Valley lodges. The Heavenly View and Quail Ridge cabins have four rooms each and four private luxury cabins. The lodge can accommodate more than 100 people.

More than 20,000 guests visit Heartland Lodge each year, and a press release said more than $25 million is the estimated economic impact of the lodge. Some of the more notable celebrities to spend time there are Albert Pujols, Jennifer Aniston, Mike Ditka and Ted Nugent.

Gary Harpole, 54, has owned and operated the lodge since it was created in 1995. He said he’s “not getting any younger” and was looking for a succession plan to keep the lodge in business.

“I’ve been thinking about it the last few years,” Harpole said. “I’ve kept an open mind the whole time, and I wasn’t in any hurry or any rush, just whatever happened. I just needed to make sure, because this business is such a pillar for the community, that I thought of a plan to keep it going.”

Duoos, 68, called the purchase of Heartland Lodge his “third attempt at retirement.”

He owned Lyndale Garden Center in Minneapolis from 1986 to 2000, then owned Tango Delta Financial, a finance company in California, from 2004 to 2015. Duoos moved to Sarasota, Fla., and owned Gautier Fabrication Services from 2017 until he bought The Shallows, a resort in Egg Harbor, Wisc., about 60 miles north of Green Bay, in 2023.

“I thought (the Shallows would) be a great place to escape the summer heat of Sarasota and to try out hospitality, and I really enjoyed it,” he said. “Then I found out about Heartland Lodge, and I thought, man, this is perfect. It’s a combination of hospitality as well as something I love doing, and that’s hunting. It’s perfect. What better way to ride off into the sunset than to do it at Heartland Lodge?”

Duoos said he will be spending most of his time in Nebo for now.

“Having Heartland Lodge is really more of a passion, and it’s not really work,” he said. “It’s not really a job. It’s more about just getting up there and the total experience of being at Heartland. It’s really a special place. The people who go up there are fabulous. The guests come there in a great mood. They’re there to enjoy themselves, and it’s merely our job to make sure that when they leave, they’re still smiling and they’ve got fond memories of a wonderful hunting facility.”

Harpole says he doesn’t have a plan other than to help Duoos with the transition. He’s glad to walk away knowing the lodge had its best year ever in 2023.

“This is the best time to do it,” he said.  “(Duoos has) tons of energy and a lot of excitement. I tell people it’s like a relay team coming off the Olympics, and instead of running 30 laps, I’ve run this place for 30 years,” he said. “Now I’ve handed the baton to someone else. I’d still like to be part of this team.”

Duoos said he knew he made the right purchase during a recent stay at the lodge when he had breakfast with a father-son team from New Jersey who met with another father-son team from Philadelphia.

“They were there to shoot birds, and it was their first time at the lodge,” Duoos said. “When they were leaving, they said, ‘This is going to be the start of something new for us. This is going to become our tradition. We’re going to come here every year.’ They were so excited about it, and I tell you, it really makes you feel good.”