Road Leads Back to Scotts Valley Each Year for Cleveland Browns President

Ever been to a stuga? Follow me up Lockhart Gulch to Mission Springs Conference Center, past the swimming pools and volleyball courts, up Cathedral Drive to the Holmgren stuga at the top of the hill.

“Swedish people love retreat centers. In Sweden most people live in apartments in the cities, but they’ll have a summer stuga in the country that they can retreat to,” said Kathy Holmgren as she sat in her sunlight-flooded living room. The family’s home reflects their Swedish heritage, a holiday house that they can retreat to, away from the stress of every day life and gather family around them.

And with Mike Holmgren’s career taking him all over the country during the six months of football season, the family is always eager to return to its Scotts Valley stuga.

Mike Holmgren’s career with the NFL has taken the family to San Francisco, Green Bay, Seattle and now Cleveland where he is the president of the Browns.

As a coach in the NFL, he was known as a quarterback guru, working with such successful players as Brett Favre, Matt Hasselbeck, and Steve Young, whom he also coached at Brigham Young University.

“Mike grew up in San Francisco. You know, the weather can be kind of crummy so his family came here for their summers, starting when he was just 1year-old. I don’t think he’s ever missed a summer,” Kathy said.

Kathy, whose parents lived in San Jose when she was growing up, “bought a cabin on this site in 1960 and were part of the church and I was a camper.”

Both families were members of the “Evangelical Covenant Church, which built , now 100 years old. It was started by people who came from Sweden,” said Kathy.

“There were 500 girls at camp and only two boys, so I remembered him! The big thing when you got to be a couple back then was you would walk someone around the mountain. I liked him because he was so tall. He’s six five and a half now and he was about that tall in junior high.”

“It was just a summer romance for many years,” she said, although Mike wrote Kathy a note when he was 15 referring to “the time when we get married.” She went to college in Chicago to study nursing and he went to USC on a football scholarship, “but we still got to see each other in the summer.”

“I graduated with a nursing degree but all I had ever wanted to be was a missionary. So I went to Africa for a year. He tried out for two different teams in the NFL but he didn’t make it as a player,” she said.

When she got back from her missionary trip in 1971, the couple married in Cathedral Grove at Mission Springs.

“It’s an outdoor cathedral, and weddings hadn’t really happened much there,” Kathy said.

The place was special to the couple, which is why they chose to get married there.

“Everything for the two of us happened here. This was ‘our spot.’ We reconnected every summer; it was tremendously important for us to be here. It’s the trees, the beauty of nature, and even more than that, it’s the people. We grew up around family and friends at this conference center and every year we have a family conference and people come back, always over the Fourth of July, and we reconnect,” she said.

As she petted her dog, a Havanese named Stella, Kathy said, “Scotts Valley is a great place. It’s kind of small; we’ve watched it change. Great weather. So many memories. In 1989 we were able to buy our own place just down the road. When my mother and dad lived here it was a cute little yellow cabin with a front porch. It was their little summer home,” she remembered.  

After her father died and her mother moved to an assisted living
place out of the county, her brothers took over the stuga. 

“A few years ago, Mike and I decided to buy them out. We built this home in 2009, but we kept the original foot print of the cabin and built up to add two bedrooms.”

Each summer they return to Scotts Valley and the stuga and spend their time not doing too much. 

“You know, Mike’s worked so hard all his life. We enjoy renewing our acquaintances in Scotts Valley,” Kathy said.

Though Katy will soon be closing up the house and returning to Cleveland as Mike kicks off another NFL season, their road will always lead them back to Scotts Valley and their sunny stuga on the hill.

Mike was unavailable to be interviewed because he was at the NFL lockout negotiations. View http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmPtyDkQbZs for his thoughts on the recent lockout.