I recently came upon a large coffee table book that illustrated, with beautiful glossy photos, “cabins” around the West. But these were new and large homes that happened to be made of wood. Real cabins don’t have cathedral ceilings or swimming pools or hot tubs. Real cabins fit into the landscape, are almost hidden by the pine trees and bushes that grown up around them, and don’t stick out like a sore thumb.
Few places in Colorado have such a concentration of old cabin as the area around Estes Park. The cabins are a relic of tourist days, starting from the 1920s and ‘30s, when the automobile brought tourists in huge numbers to Rocky Mountain National Park and the surrounding areas, including Estes Park (and Allenspark/Meeker Park) on the east and Grand Lake on the west side.
Places such as Aspen or Telluride, as lovely as they are, don’t have many cabins. Because they were started as mining towns, the typical house is Victorian. A well tended Victorian house, gaudily painted in green, purple and orange, is a thing of beauty, but it does not blend into the landscape.
Grand Lake attracted wealthy people, many from Denver, who wanted their own summer places and built huge, multi-storied cabins. But the ones around Estes stayed small, serving tourists who arrived for two weeks, maybe a month, with fishing poles, walking shoes, piles of books. These city folks had a yearning for mountain living at simple levels: cooking their own meals (preferably trout just pulled from the creek), playing card games at night, singing around the campfire.
My search for a cabin was a sentimental journey to re-create childhood summers spent at a family cabin in Wisconsin, built in 1948, with a knotty pine interior, a fireplace made of local river rocks, and sitting above a spring-fed crystal blue lake. When I first saw my cabin in Meeker Park, with its knotty pine walls and fireplace made of granite rocks, I knew I found what I wanted, although I still miss the lake. My Colorado cabin, built in 1939, is even older than the Wisconsin cabin and sits on old tree stumps. For someone who loves trees, I couldn’t have a better foundation.
What’s the attraction of cabins? Each one is different. No one, as far as I know, has ever platted a subdivision of cabins. They uniquely reflect the owner or at least the first owner’s design choice. Made of local materials, stones and trees from the forests, they blend into the landscape. Walking through the woods and spotting a cabin tucked against the side of a rocky face or almost hidden among a stand of ponderosas doesn’t feel like a break from nature but an embellishment, as if one of the ponderosas had a red trim, just to add a little color to the forest.
Because a lot of the old cabins are uninsulated, it’s a thin membrane that separates you from the natural world. Not only the winds enter freely, but in summer I can hear the rain thrumming on the roof. Because it’s so small, I’m never more than 6 feet away from a window and views of the trees and mountains. There’s no place in the cabin where I can get away from what’s going on outside, even if I wanted to.
Hugging the front of my cabin is a large ponderosa, from which chickarees (gray squirrels) pause in their climb up the tree to glare at me inside at my computer. I smile back, happy to be so close to the wild world.
I know the "Cabin Fever" book you are are talking about. I came across it when staying at a B&B and was also disappointed that it contained photos of luxurious homes and lodges . . . not my idea of a cabin at all. Cabins hold a unique allure because they are small, rustic, slightly uncomfortable, and basic. I'm building one overlooking the pond on our property this year. I'm calling it my "cabin of no-intent" because it is where I will go to "do nothing" on purpose.
Posted by: Laurel | February 11, 2012 at 02:53 PM
Wonderful photos. I have also seen this book and laughed at the size and luxury of the so-called cabins. Your cabin needed you as much you needed her--I remember tingling, yes--tingling when we entered your cabin for the first time--and the feeling, "This is it!" There is so much to love about your cabin and the location, I can't think of anyone who would appreciate and love it more. I hope someday you can see Carol's family cabin at the base of Mt Whitney--another tiny, real cabin in an amazing landscape.
Posted by: shoney | February 12, 2012 at 08:15 AM
Laurel, I love the idea of cabin of no intent. That's perfect.
Posted by: Kathy Kaiser | February 26, 2012 at 06:05 PM