January 14–18, 2027 — Thursday to Monday, over the MLK weekend. Eight hosts, one lakehouse, and three full working days of building the thing instead of planning to build the thing.
It’s called a Residency because you make work here. You arrive with something you’ve been meaning to launch. You leave with it launched-ready — filmed, priced, scheduled and written.
This list is the product. Everything below it — the lake, the food, the hot tub — is the setting the work happens in. Most of these weeks have that ordering backwards.
And then, underneath all of that: your lodging, every meal, and the activities. Included, and deliberately listed last.
I want them to feel like they got a lot done — like almost everything — by the time they leave.
— Anna VanAgtmael, on what the week is for
You arrive Thursday afternoon and leave Monday morning. In between are three full working days — Friday, Saturday, Sunday — with two teaching blocks each, and camera time and one-to-ones running alongside every afternoon.
Monday 18 January is MLK Day. Saturday and Sunday are the weekend. So if hosting is still the thing you do alongside a job — which for most people it is — the only workdays you spend are Thursday and Friday.
That is not a coincidence. It is why the week sits where it does on the calendar.
Day oneThu 14 Jan · arrivals
Arrive between 3 and 5pm — Cherry Capital airport is ten minutes away. Dinner at six, welcome and introductions, and we schedule everyone’s video recordings. The evening ends on the founder’s video conversation, so you sleep on it before the cameras come out.
Day twoFri 15 Jan
Stacy, 9–11am: How to fill your retreat, and what it costs. Then two hours outside — hiking or snowshoeing — before lunch. Anna, 2–4pm: itineraries and teams. From four until dinner, founder’s and brand video recordings run alongside one-to-one coaching.
Day threeSat 16 Jan
Stacy, 9–11am: how do I know it’s working? Measurement and iterating. Recordings and one-to-ones until lunch — where Abbey talks through the food, and how to hire someone like her. Anna, 2–4pm: budget and profits. More camera time, dinner, then yoga nidra to land the mindset work the budget session always kicks up.
Day fourSun 17 Jan
Stacy, 9–11am: implementing your plan. Anna, 11am–1pm: plan Bs and liability — the session nobody enjoys and everybody needs. Final recordings and one-to-ones after lunch, then a cocktail or mocktail hour that runs as an ask-us-anything.
Day fiveMon 18 Jan · departures
Breakfast and goodbyes, departures from nine. You leave with the work done rather than a folder of notes to action later.
This is the working schedule from Anna’s planning document. Session titles are final; exact times may shift a little before January.
Not extras — two of the deliverables depend on them. You are not cooking, and you are not photographing yourself against a wall at home.
A Michigan maker — welder, jeweller and personal chef — who has cooked Anna’s retreats from Michigan to Banff for years. She checks everyone’s allergies and preferences before you arrive and builds the menu around them.
At Saturday lunch she does a session of her own: what the food actually costs, and how to hire someone like her for your own retreat.
Elise runs Mod Bettie Portraits in Grand Rapids — an empowerment portrait studio going since 2014, and she was named a Remarkable Woman of West Michigan in 2023. She has been the resident photographer on Anna’s retreats for years.
She shoots your headshot and captures the founder’s and brand videos across the week. If being photographed is the part you dread, she is the specific reason it turns out to be fine.
One price, everything included — the teaching, the filming, the photography, the one-to-ones, the year of Workshop, your room, every meal and the activities. The only thing that changes the number is where you sleep.
Shared room, two beds
$5,000
2 seats
Private room, twin bed
$6,000
2 seats
Private room, queen bed
$6,500
3 seats
Private room, king bed
$7,000
1 seat
Travel to Traverse City isn’t included. Everything from the moment you arrive is. Payments are non-refundable — we strongly recommend travel insurance. If we cancel the Residency, you are refunded in full. Full terms.
Questions before you book? Tell us about your retreat and we’ll come back to you.
Seven lakefront houses ten minutes from Traverse City’s airport and fifteen from downtown. We take two for guests and one for faculty. In January the lake is frozen, the fireplaces are lit, and there is nowhere else to be — which is exactly why the work gets done.
Photographs courtesy of Lakemore Resort.
