The one thing you need to know about the guy who could end up owning Sugar Loaf Resort is that he's a package deal. Brad Lutz comes with Linda Lutz. And he'll be the first to tell you she's got the financial brains in the family.

The second thing you need to know is that the journey taken by the Lutzes avoided a lot of turns that, if taken, would have prevented them from being in a position to jump into the longstanding Sugar Loaf resort debacle, much less even knowing Leelanau County as a fine place to raise their family.

The Lutzes are now, however, firmly established Omena residents (“You can tell people we’re the orange boat on Omena Bay,” said Brad Lutz), and about to do their level best to pull Sugar Loaf out of the funk that has engulfed its ski hills and county ski enthusiasts since the resort closed in 2000.

Their story together began about 18 years ago, well after 1976 Fremont High School grad Brad Lutz (pronounced “Lootz”) had taken six years to graduate from Central Michigan University in a self-confessed, less-than-stellar collegiate career. He took a job as a sales representative for Kronos, the leading international company in computerized time clock systems. Eventually his career involved a partnership in a Kronos dealership in Australia, and eventually his visa, unlike the products he sold, was running out of time.

Lutz went to visit his sister on a trip stateside, and literally fell in love at first sight when her roommate answered his knock at their Atlanta apartment. “She opened the door, and that was it for me. I’ve been in love with her ever since,” he said.

A hemisphere-spanning relationship followed that Brad Lutz knew had to grow closer — especially in miles. He was spending $1,000 a month on telephone calls out of a $30,000 salary.

Linda Lutz, with a degree in finance from Ohio State University, had become an investment banker in New York by the time she married Brad. She must have been in love when the two pledged to make their fortune by opening a Kronos dealership in Memphis. The newlyweds lived in a one-bedroom apartment that also served as business headquarters for their just-formed Smart Solutions, Inc. Brad Lutz’s father-in-law was the business’ second employee. The year was 1990.

With Linda Lutz as chief financial officer and Brad Lutz determined to put customers first, his community second and his personal needs somewhere down the line, Smart Solutions grew into a multi-million dollar business. After 12 years of long hours, Konkos offered a buyout to dealers that the Lutzes found impossible to ignore. They sold their Memphis home with the idea of living in a home in Colorado the couple had recently purchased.

Colorado living was OK, but with no business to tie them down, the Lutzes bought a motor home with the idea of visiting the investment properties they had purchased around the United States — and of finding a place to settle down.

The couple had three daughters whom Linda was home-schooling. They needed to find a place to host the next chapter in their lives.

Their journeys took them to Texas, Florida, California, Oregon and beyond.

“We traveled the country, looked at everything, and decided Leelanau has more than any other place we had visited,” said Brad Lutz.

While a Michigander, Brad Lutz was fairly unfamiliar with Leelanau until 2004 when their motor home pulled into the Wild Cherry Resort in Suttons Bay Township. They quickly became enamored with the county.

In the fall of 2005, they bought an investment home off Cathead Bay. Then came a second home on Omena Bay. While adjusting to life in Leelanau, Brad Lutz found time to review the history of Sugar Loaf from online archives of the Leelanau Enterprise and to keep abreast of Sugar Loaf news as it was reported in Enterprise articles.

Quick to want to contribute to his community — he was runner-up as small business owner of the year in Memphis — Lutz sought to interject himself in Sugar Loaf, but with a caveat.

He wants residents to understand that even if the purchase agreement he signed with Sugar Loaf owner Kate Wickstrom is consummated — and he puts those odds at only “one-in-three, at best” — bringing the resort back to life is still a long shot.

“Many people have tried to make this successful,” he said. “I’m excited, and I wouldn’t get involved in this if I wasn’t — but I’ve seen a couple quotes in your paper in which people have said, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ That’s a pretty good way to say it.”

In one way, Lutz is little different from those who preceded him in trying to right Sugar Loaf. A snowboard enthusiast, he said, “I think many of them were good people, and they saw a ski hill and thought how much fun that would be to own.”

Regardless of the odds of success, the unlikely journey that brought the Lutz family to Leelanau County now includes a turn to Sugar Loaf.