Inside Lake Villa’s Garage-Mahal

Some Bears fans might not be able to stomach watching the Super Bowl.

The Bears are out. The Packers are in. And they’re in because they beat the Bears in the NFC Championship game on Sunday.

It’s a nauseating triple-whammy that won’t be easily soothed.

Then again, it could simply depend on what options are available for viewing the Super Bowl.

Bears fans in one Lake Villa subdivision will likely find a way to get past their strong aversion to seeing the Packers in the Super Bowl when they arrive at the “Garage-Mahal” to watch the big game.

The “Garage-Mahal” belongs to Dan and Lisa Empen and is every man’s (and woman’s) dream garage.

“I’ve always wanted a dream garage,” Dan Empen said. “All those years right after college when I was living in an apartment and had no garage and had to park on the street, I was hoping that someday I would be able to buy a house with a garage that I could turn into something really special.

“This is what I thought of when I thought about a dream garage.”

Dan, a super-handy electrical engineer, has been working steadily for the last 10 years to make his dream garage a reality, equipping it with all kinds of creature comforts, including a 150-inch theatre-style television with Blu-ray and built-in surround sound.

“One of our neighbors gave it the name, ‘Garage-Mahal,’” Lisa Empen laughed. “They’ve watched as we’ve built it up and added to it over the years. Whenever there’s a big game coming up and our friends and neighbors see us calling on their caller ID, they get all excited because they love watching games here.”

Nearly every year since they moved into their home in 2001, the Empens have hosted a Super Bowl party for dozens of their friends and neighbors.

They supply their famous chili and everyone else brings sides or desserts to share.

Usually a crowd of at least 50 people attend, and most will never see the inside of the Empen’s house.

That is, unless you consider the garage part of the house. And that’s not a stretch, considering that it is equipped with heat, running water, a half bath with a pretty pedestal sink, food in a refrigerator and drinks housed in a full-size, fully operating Pepsi machine.

The pop machine is stocked with six different sodas and four different beers.

“When you’re in the garage, you really do feel like you’re in part of the house,” Lisa Empen said. “It doesn’t feel or look like a garage.”

In fact, an art gallery might be a better comparison.

The interior side of the garage door is covered in a beautiful landscape mural painted by Lisa’s sister. It features a small plane flying over lush green fields and is a tribute to Dan.

Dan has a pilot’s license and grew up on a sprawling Illinois farm just south of Freeport.

Meanwhile, the floors in the Empens’ three-car garage, which was built with an extra four-feet in length, are not only immaculate, covered in a special, professional-grade epoxy, but they’re also kept toasty warm by built-in radiant heating.

Dan added the heated floors, which keep the temperature of the entire garage on par with the rest of the house, shortly after he and Lisa moved in.

At that time, Dan also put in a trench drain at the foot of the garage, as well as plumbing and an interior hose, so that he could easily wash down the floors for parties.

The Empens still park their cars inside the garage, but when it’s time to party, they get backed out, the floor gets rinsed and mopped and comfy sofas and love seats that Dan put on rollers get whisked in and parked under the canned lights in the ceiling, which are on dimmers for mood lighting.

Extra chairs and side tables are also added, but they may be on the outs soon. Dan says that his next project, still just a design in his head, is to create collapsible theater seating on wheels, which can be easily rolled in and out of the 625-square-foot addition that was added to the back of the garage four years ago for more storage space.

Dan even added a second projection screen inside the addition so that his two sons – 7-year-old Cade and 5-year-old Carter – could play video games or watch kids’ movies with their friends and cousins if they weren’t interested in watching the game on the main screen.

“I just really like to design things and tinker with things. I like to work with my hands,” said Dan, whose workshop includes every tool known to man. “I’m intrigued by making things more convenient and more comfortable.”

The Empens’ garage is so comfortable that people literally sleep in it.

Thanksgiving has always been the Empens’ holiday to host for family. And with a gigantic family, the decked out garage has become a necessity.

This past November, 51 relatives ate Thanksgiving dinner in the garage. There were 17 people under the age of 8, and 26 people slept over for at least two nights.

Some of the overnight guests were housed in the garage.

“You know, people might be surprised to hear this, but I think for Dan and me, the garage really has nothing to do with our love of sports,” Lisa said. “It’s all about family. We have such a big family and we host Thanksgiving every year and we wanted to create a place where we could all eat dinner comfortably together and where we could have space for people from out of town to sleep over.

“We also have Cub Scout meetings here, and my ladies’ Bunco night is here. Dan has guys poker night here. And of course, we invite our friends over to watch a lot of games. It’s been great for all that, but the best thing about it is the way we can use it for our family.”