Michigan Arts Camp to Demolish Lodge Formerly Named for Jeffrey Epstein

A Michigan summer arts camp and boarding school plans to demolish a lodge that once bore Jeffrey Epstein's name. The Interlochen Center for the Arts said its board of trustees approved the demolition this week. The structure, previously called the Jeffrey E Epstein Scholarship Lodge, had its name removed after Epstein's 2008 conviction.

Epstein attended the camp as a teenager in 1967 and donated more than $400,000 to the school between 1990 and 2003, including $200,000 toward the lodge's construction.

Epstein visited the campus periodically and stayed in the lodge now slated for removal. At least two of his accusers have said they met him at Interlochen in the 1990s. The school said it has invited those individuals to speak with an independent investigator as part of an external review.

Internal records reviews, including one conducted after Epstein's 2019 arrest, found no reports of misconduct involving him at the institution. Epstein died by suicide in federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.

"The lodge has, over time, come to carry associations that are not reflective of who we are as an institution or the values we strive to uphold," the school said in a statement. " Epstein also directed that tuition for at least one student be paid from his donations and once arranged for violinist Itzhak Perlman to travel to the school on his private jet, according to correspondence released by the Justice Department.