Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Chenequa, WI

Chenequa is a small village in Waukesha County's Lake Country that wraps around an entire lake — it encompasses all of Pine Lake plus a southern portion of North Lake and the western portion of Beaver Lake.

The village takes its name from the Potawatomi word for 'pine,' for the white pines that line the lake shores.

The first European settlers around Pine Lake were a Swedish party led by Gustaf Unonius, who arrived in 1841; Swedes settled the eastern shore and Norwegians the western shore.

In the 1890s, residents and property owners on Pine Lake formed the Pine Lake Yacht Club, the organization out of which the village eventually emerged.

Many of Chenequa's lakeshore estates descend from summer mansions built in the late 1800s by Milwaukee and Chicago industrialists.

Chenequa incorporated in 1928 out of the Town of Merton after wealthy Milwaukee summer-home owners pushed to form their own village — chiefly so they could have their own police department and control residential growth.

The 2020 census counted just 526 residents in Chenequa, down from 590 in 2010, when the village had 232 households.

Chenequa has long been one of Wisconsin's wealthiest municipalities, with a per capita income as high as $124,212 in 2010 and a strictly residential character maintained by large minimum lot sizes and a ban on commercial development.

Chenequa has been named a Tree City USA every year since 1985, one of the smallest communities to hold the recognition.

University Lake School, a well-known independent school in the Lake Country area, was founded by Chenequa residents Herbert Brumder, Robert Brumder, Robert Manegold, and John M. Friend.