Lake Geneva Ice Castles 'melted beyond repair,' will not reopen this season

LAKE GENEVA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Just days after finally opening to the public, a popular area tourist attraction is closed this season for good.

Our unseasonably warm temperatures and today's heavy rain were too much for Lake Geneva's Ice Castles, forcing organizers to make a tough decision.

The last three days the castle has melted beyond repair sadly, and so a decision was made to shut down for the season.

"Every year we know that opening is gonna be a dance with mother nature and this year mother nature did not want to dance with us unfortunately," said Stanley Porubcan, Ice Castles assistant manager.

Right from the start, 2023 challenged Ice Castles' build crew. A warmer January forced the popular attraction to open two weeks late. Now, it won't even make it to a second weekend.

"When it rains it makes these divots in here, so normally this would be almost perfectly smooth along the top and this is actually almost basically snow now, it's not ice anymore," said Porubcan.

All the rain, plus more expected warm temperatures, led staff to say this season's over.

CBS 58 asked, "So all of this right here that I'm seeing, that's all, you can see through it, you weren't able to see through that yesterday?"

"Correct, yesterday no," Porubcan told CBS 58.

With hard hats on for safety, and micro spikes for traction, Ice Castles assistant manager Stanley Porubcan led us into this wet, winter wonderland where ice sculptures are literally drip, drip, dripping away.

"You can totally just see through this whole wall into where the slide used to be. This whole wall was basically out to where this is, would've been wall. That's all what's gone away, yea," said Porubcan.

The overhead isn't cheap. Ice Castles pays for the ice blocks, for staff and for the talented build crew who design all that you see. With it lasting only three days, it hasn't been a profitable year for the Lake Geneva location.

"We just had to make the call that we can't make it look how we want to make it look and we can't make it as safe as it needs to be to feel comfortable opening for people. We're mostly bummed that all the people who wanted to come see it weren't able to do that," said Porubcan.

If you bought tickets already for the upcoming weekend you can get your money back. Staff here hope for a longer season next year.