Joe Ricketts finishes expensive Nebraska religious retreat
GRETNA, Neb. (AP) — Through a large gate, past a gatehouse and up a winding road, Joe Ricketts' multimillion-dollar religious retreat center near the Platte River is finished and awaits its first guests.
"I'm really quite pleased," Ricketts said of his finished product, which sits on more than 900 acres near Nebraska Highway 31 and Fishery Road south of Gretna.
The Omaha World-Herald reports that the completed Cloisters on the Platte, Ricketts' passion project 20 years in the making, is luxurious. Guests will park in an underground parking garage designed to look like a cliff face. They'll take shuttles up the hill to the main retreat campus, featuring lakes, forest and sprawling, well-manicured lawns.
A chapel modeled after St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Omaha and a massive main building sit beside a small lake. Visible in the distance are seven guest lodges, each designed by a different architect. And across the lake, scattered throughout a 2,500-foot trail that winds through the trees and up and down hills, are life-size sculptures marking the 14 Stations of the Cross.
Aesthetically, the campus is akin to a country club mixed with a lake resort, though its purpose is purely spiritual, said Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade and father of Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts.
Read more: https://www.theindependent.com/news/state/joe-ricketts-finishes-expensive-nebraska-religious-retreat/article_ccc40a8c-bb0b-523c-b0d9-c1778498d545.html