Expansion eyed for Sommer’s Woodhaven Trailer Home Park
The trailer park sold just 17 months after Mary Ann Sommer died
SHEBOYGAN — The new owners of the south side Sheboygan trailer park are looking to add additional mobile homes.
Maplewood Communities, the owner of Sommer’s Woodhaven Community, is proposing to add five trailer homes along South 12th Street facing Caan’s Floral. The City Plan Commission granted approval of those plans last month. Existing utilities will be expanded to serve the new trailer homes.
Longtime owner Mary Ann Sommer died at the age of 95 on December 19, 2022. Just 17 months later, the trailer park was sold to Maplewood Communities. While the company uses a UPS Store mailbox in Boca Raton, Florida as its mailing address—they are incorporated in Delaware. Very little is publicly known about the company.
Who is behind Maplewood Communities?
The owner has taken extreme measures to conceal their identity. According to the company’s LinkedIn page, they are “a premier owner-operator of manufactured housing communities across the United States, with a primary focus in the Midwest.” When they purchased Sommer’s Woodhaven Mobile Home Park last year, they were not even a registered business with the Florida Department of State.
Earlier this year, paperwork was finally filed listing Attorney Daniel Kaskel as the agent of the business. Kaskel is a partner of Sachs Sax Caplan and President of Coca Raton Synagogue. Mannie Shapiro is listed as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. WKTS News could not locate a Chief Executive Officer or owner of the company.
It should be noted, the M. Shapiro Real Estate Group is located in a suburb of Detroit. Over the past two years, their portfolio has more than doubled, and today they manage trailer park communities across 33 states, encompassing over 31,000 homes. Mickey Shapiro is the owner of the company.
The Stardusk
40 years ago this year, Sheboygan's only drive-in movie theater closed. In January 1985, the Stardusk Outdoor Theater at South 12th Street and Weeden Creek Road was listed for sale. The realtor said the site would be ripe for a subdivision in the future. Instead, Sommer purchased the theater with plans to expand Woodhaven. Three years later in 1988, over 200-acres of the Sommer land was annexed into the City of Sheboygan from the Town of Wilson.
In 1991, construction began on the $2.8 million Sunnyside Townhouses. Designed by Partners for Community Development for low-income families, it was constructed on 5-acres of the Sommer property south of the trailer home park. Meanwhile, land north of the trailer homes was sold lot by lot for the creation of the Sommer Heights and Sommer Vista subdivisions.
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The CORRECT name of the drive-in theater was STARDUSK Outdoor Theater.