Second Chances

If Mercury could speak…

He’d say, "My life was spent mainly as a rather large target for BB guns in eastern Colorado. Getting to my new home has given me a new lease on life. I've heard they've even made a movie about Freddy Mercury…"

I've been friends with Dan and Susie Rieple for a couple of decades and always admired Dan's craftsmanship in his extraordinary wood furniture creations. Eight years ago they rescued and renovated a vintage camper and named her Lucille. I guess it's addictive because they've since rehabilitated Al Jareau, then Freddy, then an Event Trailer ('Cheers m'Dears'), which is designed to serve drinks, espresso and food. It has an amazing wall of wood inside with a condiments shelf trimmed in barbed wire and a live-edge bar.

There's also a 1949 Spartan Royal Mansion used as an Air BnB in Colorado, and a 1946 Spartan Manor, which is now an off-the-grid Air BnB. Each one is detailed in museum-quality woodwork and fun fabrics. Each one has a story.

"Dan really loves to put new life back into things, so the campers are usually pretty crappy," says his wife, Susie. "We give them a second chance." Read on for more of the story.

Summer's coming. One day soon I'm doing a road trip in a Second Chance Camper!

The Story of Second Chance Campers

“The first camper we renovated happened in 2016 when we were in search of a pick-up truck,” says Susie. “We were on the government surplus website and saw a camper. It wasn’t too far away from us in La Junta, Colorado, so we bought it sight unseen for $300. This camper was a Mobile Scout made in Texas. She was built to be a mobile field office for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We called her Lucille.

Shortly after Lucille, we received a phone call from a gentleman who’d heard we restored campers and wanted to get rid of one from a property he had just acquired. It was a 1970s Al Jo, longer than Lucille, and had a bathroom, shower and a fridge in that tasteful avocado green. AlJo was called Al Jareau, and looked pretty classy by the end of the do-over. We even added a jaunty orange streak to the outside.

After Al Jareau, we went on to a search-and-rescue mission. We drove out to eastern Colorado stopping at every farm or ranch house that had a trailer in the yard. We nearly gave up, but at the very end of the day we found two! One was a 1959 Mercury made in California and the other an unknown called a Rover, made in Florida.

The Mercury became Freddy, and was much more work than we first thought. The flooring was completely rotted and the framing left much to be desired. In the end we kept the outer aluminum skin because it was part of the story. Freddy had been sitting alone in a field since 1963 and had been used as a BB gun target, a hail shelter and home for multiple rodents, who lived mostly in the oven.

The Rover we redid from bottom up; it became Cheers m’Dears, an event trailer.

During the course of these renovations, we discovered a Spartan Royal Mansion for sale in Saratoga, Wyoming. Its ‘sister’ camper, a Spartan Manor, became available a year later. Both were still owned by the same original owner in Lander, Wyoming, and had been used as fishing camps for over seventy years. Incredibly, both trailers were 99% original and in very good condition, even though built in ‘49 and ‘46, after the end of World War II. We took out every panel, re-stained them and fixed any leakages.

Lucille and Freddy have gone to live at the May Insect Museum in Colorado. The Golden Eagle Campground has been there since the ‘50s and the owners wanted a sense of that era in the place. They are now Air BnB ‘unique stays’.”

Pioneer Publisher

Back in the ‘60s, Gibbs wanted to make books but he didn’t want to live in New York City. When they first set up shop in the barn in Layton, they only had access to the upper level since the main floor was still housing cows and chickens….

I first met Gibbs Smith outside the auditorium of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming in 1993. I introduced myself and handed him my first book, Old Masters of the West. He looked at the black-and-white cover image I’d taken of cowboy poet Wally McCrae then flipped through the photo documentary essays on old-school master craftspeople I’d interviewed around the Rocky Mountain West: a boot maker, a leather worker, a cowboy hat maker, a woodworker, a horsehair braider, a spur maker, a native beadworker. I’d even a found a stagecoach builder in the Four Corners area of Colorado. Gibbs handed me his card and thus started my 30-year, twelve-books-and-counting relationship with Gibbs Smith, Publisher.

This week I paid a visit to the vintage red barn and assorted outbuildings that house the company. The suburbs of Salt Lake City and Ogden have grown up around the old farm, but the historic buildings remain: a Victorian farmhouse, a couple of very old log cabins, and a long, low red barn, circa 1916. The first thing you see when you arrive is a pasture with sheep who come running if they think you have food. A black and white cat serves as greeter on the porch. The door to the editorial staff’s offices is festooned with stickers and surrounded by a door frame with wildlife tracks. Quirky placards bear messages like “No where in particular” and the name Chateau Fiasco. All this belies the seriousness with which those inside take their calling: to make beautiful, interesting, informative books. (They really are making the world a better place.)

Back in the ‘60s, Gibbs wanted to make books but he didn’t want to live in New York City. With the encouragement of Alfred A. Knopf, Sr., in 1969 he went west and founded a publishing company, first in Santa Barbara then ultimately back home to Utah with his wife, Catherine. (When they first set up shop in the barn in Layton, they only had access to the upper level since the main floor was still housing cows and chickens.)

Gibbs was a visionary who liked to drive around the West discovering places and people. He’d attend a lecture somewhere or read an article in a local paper then approach the speaker or author and ask if they wanted to write a book. He stumbled across the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada early on and was the first to publish the words of those range-riding philosophers. He once came for dinner at my home and, after a meal highlighting my husband’s honey, asked if we wanted to collaborate on ‘a honey cookbook with beekeeping lore’, including recipes, how to’s and vintage photos. The ideas seemed to come to him fully formed.

A talented amateur painter, Gibbs made a study of the best independent bookstores around the country and painted his top picks, which ultimately became Books & Mortar; A Celebration of the Local Bookstore. “The book business is a calling more than a business,” he told an interviewer from Publisher’s Weekly in 2014, a few years before his death. I realize how lucky I am to have worked with the same editors and staff for three decades, and to publish with people who remain passionate and optimistic about books, despite the vagaries and challenges of the book industry. Gibbs may be gone but his legacy endures, in the countless titles published, and in a dedicated team that still create books in a red barn in Utah.

Cabin Dreams

We all were fire-building experts and every few days small lengths of wood cut specially for those tiny stoves would be delivered to our front porches in a cart pulled by a pony….

Image by @audreyhallphoto from American Rustic

I fell hard for cabins when I was young, first as a kid at camp (the swooping of the bats through the eaves once the lights were turned off, the view of the Tetons from the front porch) and then over three summers at a historic old-time guest ranch in a remote valley on the edge of the Greater Yellowstone region. 

My cabin was tiny, just big enough for a single metal bedstead, a four-drawer dresser, a tiny desk and chair, a little clothes rod, hooks and shelf for a closet, and a wood-burning stove. (For decoration there was a horseshoe over the door a bottle-cap opener mounted on the wall.) But for three months it was all mine. During the day it could get overheated but even in summer, it was cold at night when I went to sleep and still in the morning, when wranglers had to drag themselves out of bed 4:30 to gather horses before breakfast. We all were fire-building experts and every few days small lengths of wood cut specially for those tiny stoves would be delivered to our front porches in a cart pulled by a pony. I’d fall asleep hearing owls, of course, and coyotes. I’d often be woken up at night from the bump of a deer bedding down on the other side of the wall. Six days a week I’d wake before dawn and feel my way along the mown paths through the cottonwood grove to the bathhouse by the light of the night sky.

I’ve lived in other cabins (including a tented cabin and a log home referred to as a cabin that was definitely too grand to be a cabin). But nothing will match the experience of those summers spent living in that tiny space, having everything you need within arm’s reach, and feeling so close to the nature outside the door. That’s why I love writing about cabins, and that’s why it was so fun to be a recent guest on The Cabincast, a podcast celebrating cabin life and a cabin-living ethos best described as ‘the simpler the better’. 

Over two episodes, photographer Audrey Hall and I talked with hosts Kristin Lenz and Erik Torgeson about cabin living, our personal histories in the West, the creation of Cabin Style and our other five books, the role of the open range in our national lore, and, of course, our perfect cabin days.

The Cabincast Episode #55: American Rustic, Part 1

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS82NDkzMTUucnNz/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC05ODg3MDYw?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwiZp_fcodz1AhX6IUQIHWfvBbcQieUEegQICRAL&ep=6

The Cabincast Episode #56: American Rustic, Part 2

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS82NDkzMTUucnNz/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC05OTI4NDA0?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwiZp_fcodz1AhX6IUQIHWfvBbcQieUEegQICRAI&ep=6

From American Rustic; image by @audreyhallphoto

Cowboys Do Eat Quiche

Once every five years or so I get the urge to make quiche, and making quiche always takes me back to when I worked at Hidden Valley Ranch outside Cody, Wyoming (then a dude ranch, now a private ranch with a new name). My job was with the horses, but on the cook's day off, if I wasn't on a pack trip or hauling supplies 12 miles into an elk hunting camp in the Washakie Wilderness, I would cook.

Quiche is incredibly easy (especially if you buy the crust, which you can pre-bake for 10 minutes, or not). Just pile whatever fillings you want into the crust then mix some eggs and cream (3 or 4 eggs and a cup or so of cream, or cream mixed with milk or half-and-half; you can also replace part of the cream with ricotta), and add salt, pepper, nutmeg. Pour the custard over the fillings and bake at 375 for 45 minutes or so, til it’s not jiggly in the middle.

Quiche is a great way to feed a crowd because it's easy to make multiples in almost no additional time. But because this was in the ‘80s, a few years after the book "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" became a bestseller, I always wondered if I'd get pushback when I served it. After all, the guys on our ranch staff had snuff in the back pockets of their Wranglers, and on their days off they shot and skinned rattlesnakes to make into belts.

But they ate it and they seemed to enjoy it. We even served salad with it. We just avoided using the word 'quiche' ‘til after they'd eaten it.

#quiche #summerbaking #ranchmemories #splatterware #enamelware #hiddenvalley #cody #cowgirldays #ranchkitchen #ranchcooking #duderanch #feedacrowd #heartymeals #americanrustic #newwest #realmendonteatquiche

Shou Sugi Ban

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Whether you call it Shou Sugi Ban or Yakisugo, fire-treated wood is making an appearance in rustic structures and furniture throughout the country.

Shou Sugi Ban seems to be turning up everywhere lately. Ever since I wrote about a table that appears on the cover of Rustic Modern, in the lakeside home of Montana Architect Larry Pearson, I’ve been noticing it — most recently in a Chairish blog just yesterday.

According to William Beleck, who dug into the research on behalf of Nakamoto Forestry, the practice has been mistakenly called Shou Sugi Ban in Europe and the U.S. — rather than the more correct Yakisugo — due to a linguistic fine point, the mistake resulting from differences between the Chinese and Japanese languages. Yet even Japanese firms are still promoting the wood as Shou Sugi Ban, so the jury seems to be out.

Whatever the correct term, it’s a method of wood preservation whose byproduct is beauty and serenity, as seen in many an ancient Japanese temple. In a recent story I did for Big Sky Journal, I loved everything about the home and guest house on the banks of the Wood River in Idaho. But I especially loved the builder's backstory:

"Years ago, Idaho-based builder Mat Hall read about the ancient Japanese wood-preserving technique called Shou Sugi Ban. The treatment involves charring wood to promote resistance to fire, degradation, and pests, and it results in a beautiful dark tone with unusual texture and depth. At the time, he was intrigued enough to post a photo on Facebook with the caption: “Any takers?” It never occurred to him that years later, he would be asked to construct an entire home and guesthouse using the process."

For this project, Hall created his own fire-charring setup on site, flaming wood by hand in all weathers and temperatures. After building the guest house, though, he decided there had to be a better way. For the main house he sourced the exterior wood from a well regarded purveyor specializing in the technique.

The architecture is by Janet Jarvis of The Jarvis Group, the interiors by the late Toni Breck, a talented designer who was a close friend and neighbor of the homeowners. Photography by Heidi Long. Nomenclature to be determined!

#learnbydoing #shousugiban #woodconstruction #boardformedconcrete #mountainhome #skistyle #woodriver #sunvalley #idaho #greatroom #woodtimbers #twigchandelier #concretefireplace #cabinvibes #retreat #cozy #westerndesign #cabinstyle

California Sunshine

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When I first lived in California, during grad school, it took me weeks to internalize the fact that when I needed a lemon I could simply walk outside.

Winter in California lasts about two months and consists of day upon day of sunshine and blue skies punctuated by rain storms rolling off the Pacific. These might lash the windows, flood some low-lying streets and down branches for a day or two before the glorious weather makes its reappearance. But even the short(er), dark(er) days of a California winter bring their own sunshine. In winter, the citrus trees go crazy; even small trees yield fruit by the basketful.

When I first lived in California, during grad school, it took me weeks to internalize the fact that when I needed a lemon I could simply walk outside. Our Berkeley rental, recently renovated but haunted — literally haunted, according to the home’s longtime plumber, a psychic who had a side gig assisting the police on especially tricky cases; (ultimately my roommates and I and our houseguests became believers, but that’s another story) — had a sole lemon tree in the backyard. The first time I was whipping up some guacamole against a dinner party deadline involving friends from Tahoe and found myself wishing for a lemon was a revelation. At first I upbraided myself for forgetting them at the store. Then I realized I didn’t need to go to the store. I tripped down the steps to the garden, then to the tree. I reached up, choosing one of the yellower orbs amidst sharp green leaves against a backdrop of blue sky. I grasped it in my hand and gently twisted.

When you cut into a lemon, its essence is released into the air. The citrusy tang meets your face in one exuberant, aromatherapeutic spritz of acidity and freshness — an instant mood lift. Citrus juice can elevate almost any dish, almost any cuisine, adding that high note to dishes that need a touch of the divine. And when you have too many lemons, limes and oranges to keep up with them by chugging juice or cranking out batches of lemon bars (both of which can be frozen), it’s time for marmalade or lemon/lime curd (both of which make great gifts and last for ages in the fridge). 

I’m far from my garden right now. It’s winter and I could do with the instant mood elevator. But I know when I return the trees will be waiting, dotted with color, promising light, no matter the weather. At this point I guess I have internalized the wonder of being able to walk outside and pick a lemon any time of the year. But I won’t ever take it for granted that even in a rainstorm, California sunshine is just a few steps away.

Writing on the Road

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I still prefer to write at home, and while on the road find nonfiction easier to do than fiction. But having a borrowed desk in a quiet room with a view over the treetops certainly helps. 

When I was running Breteche Creek Ranch, a nonprofit guest ranch in Wyoming, I got incredibly lucky. I was able to talk acclaimed writers Pam Houston and Ron Carlson into coming to the ranch three summers in a row to teach a writing workshop.

Pam was an outdoorswoman, former whitewater rafting guide and all-around Colorado ranch gal whose 1992 book Cowboys Are My Weakness had captured the collective imagination. That first summer of our guest-ranch program, it seems like every guest who stepped off the plane was holding a copy of Pam's book. Today she's the award-winning author of short stories, novels and essays, and a speaker, teacher, and worldwide traveler living in the Colorado Rockies.

Ron Carlson is considered a master of the short story, his work having appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, Harper's et al. He's also a novelist and poet, much decorated with awards and fellowships, and heads up the MFA in Writing program at U.C. Irvine. I'd lucked out in having Ron as an English teacher for two years in high school and I still consider him the best, certainly most inspiring, teacher I ever had. He entered the classroom every single day as though he couldn't wait to get there; he was incredibly funny, yet delivered any necessary criticism with unfailing kindness.

One thing that stuck with me from the writing workshops was Pam describing how she had trained herself to write anywhere; she would channel any stray bits of free time into her writing. She could write fiction in airport lounges while jet lagged between international flights on a travel-writing assignment. I am not quite there yet (I procrastinate a lot, and not just in airports), but I am working on it.

Today I'm writing about an ultra modern house in sunny LA while listening to the winter rain pour down outside an historic home in New England. Clearly that's one of the gifts of writing, and reading — to inhabit two realities at once.

Despite what they say about apple pie...

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...pumpkin bread is about as quintessentially American as it gets. 

At this time of year I have an atavistic desire to bake, and that yearning often manifests as pumpkin bread. Although there are few recipes easier, and scores of variations available just a mouse click away,  I find myself reaching for New West Cuisine; Fresh Recipes from the Rocky Mountains, a cookbook I did with photographer Audrey Hall and Chef Amy Jo Sheppard, for the time-tested version from the Log Cabin Cafe in Montana. 

A lesson in simplicity, the batter can be mixed in one bowl in about 5 minutes. It’s placed into two oiled and floured loaf pans, baked for 50 or 60 minutes and served plain, (though the Cafe serves it grilled, with Montana honey on the side). 

The setting no doubt adds flavor. The Log Cabin Cafe is a an 80-year-old log cabin at the base of ridiculously vertiginous mountains; it lies one mile from the most remote entrance to Yellowstone National Park. In winter, the town of Silver Gate becomes almost completely cut off. The only way to reach it is a long, often harrowing drive through the snowy Park or ten miles by snowmobile to a parked car, (which hopefully will start; the average winter low is 5 degrees…). The cafe opens for the season on May 1st, when the mountain passes are still snowed over and wildlife is everywhere — deer, elk, bighorn sheep, bears, coyotes, eagles, even wolves. As the days lengthen, the animals move up higher into the mountains and the tourist traffic picks up, the cafe and its log cabin accommodations stay busy from dawn to dusk. 

Although the cafe is locally famous for rainbow trout dinners and breakfast pancakes (made from a secret recipe jealously guarded since 1937), it is the pumpkin bread that can be enjoyed all day long, every day. At the Log Cabin Cafe, it is served with a smile amidst vintage decor: period handmade rustic furniture, old wildlife mounts, original Fiestaware pitchers, and menus from the ‘40s offering hamburgers for a dollar. Although you may not be able to replicate the setting at home, the pumpkin bread, thankfully, is within easy reach. 

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LOG CABIN CAFE PUMPKIN BREAD

Mix together 4 beaten eggs;  3 cups sugar; 1 cup vegetable oil; 1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree. 

Sift together 3 1/2 cups flour; 2 teaspoons baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt; 1/2 teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon nutmeg; 1 teaspoon allspice; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves.

Add dry ingredients to wet, alternating with 2/3 cup water, mixing well after each addition.

Distribute in 2 oiled and floured loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes, until firm to the touch. Cool on racks for 15 minutes then remove from pans and let rest before slicing.

If you are traveling near Yellowstone, be sure to take the less traveled road through Silver Gate and Cooke City (and do yourself a favor and travel the incredibly scenic Beartooth Highway, which Charles Kuralt named The Most Beautiful Drive in America). When you do, stop in at the Log Cabin Cafe. The pumpkin bread is served warm.

Kevin Box had a dream…

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Audrey Hall Photography

Kevin Box had a dream of opening a museum, gallery, educational space and artists-in-residence program when he bought land next to the Little Garden of the Gods along the ancient Turquoise Trail south of Santa Fe. So far, he’s achieved part of that dream, and when not overseeing installations of his art around the world, he's working on the remainder. He and his wife, Jennifer, are currently the only artists in residence, but their work is available to the public in a fascinating outdoor sculpture garden. There, Box’s pioneering methods for creating origami out of metal are on full display, in running horses, cranes and more. If you time it right, you might be able to see him at work.

To learn more about Origami in the Garden, Kevin’s backstory and the design of the home and studio in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, see the new book Rustic Modern, just released this month.

Iconic Big Sur

Audrey Hall Photography

The dramatic stretch of Highway 1 sandwiched between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Pacific Ocean and running from Carmel to San Simeon is one of the most iconic and immediately recognizable landscapes in the world.  Sea lions, surfers, hairpin curves, California condors, beaches and one very beautiful bridge define a 65-mile stretch of highway known as Big Sur.

Summer is high season for adventurers driving from LA to Seattle, for day trippers heading to a surf break and a meal at the clifftop Nepenthe Restaurant, for sybarites anticipating a luxurious stay at Post Ranch Inn or Ventana, or for campers persistent enough to have snagged a coveted reservation at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. The timing was terrible, then, when in February a series of winter storms damaged the photogenic Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge, forcing the closure of 35 miles of highway. All hopes for some semblance of a summer season for Big Sur businesses were completely dashed when in May a massive landslide buried a quarter mile of Highway 1. Sections of the road may be closed for a year.

Ironically, if you can figure out how to get there (such as flying in by helicopter or navigating footpaths around the problem areas, where you can then catch a shuttle ride), this can be a good time to discover what drew Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, the Beat poets and midcentury celebrities shunning the limelight to Big Sur. Without the ceaseless traffic on Highway 1, it’s all about the ocean, the views, the wildlife, the night stars. When you go, look for Wild Bird, the iconic A-frame house that Architect Nathanial Owings of Skidmore Owings and Merrill built for his bride and which was recently renovated.

If you can’t get there, or want to wait until the road is open, read the full story on Owings' romantic proposal and Wild Bird's stunning renovation in Rustic Modern, pub. date August 8th, and available for preorder now.