Rejuvenation Projects Blog

What luck! I won an eBay auction for a Cushman Trackster located in Burley, Idaho. John had some vacation time scheduled in early May so we could go pick it up. By adding an extra day to the trip we got to see the inside of the 1930s Valley Creek Ranger Station in Stanley, Idaho. That’s the prototype for Blizzard Gulch “Ranger Station”.

Four years ago, when all we knew was that we wanted a well-built saddle-notched log house, we went to Challis, Idaho to meet Jeff Pedersen the logsmith. Along the way we took pictures of log houses. Idaho is rich with them. The old ranger station in Stanley, sitting right beside the road with a big parking area, was a convenient stop so we snapped a couple pictures of one side of it and took off again.

Later, when one floor plan after another fizzled, I looked at those two pictures of the museum and found inspiration. Having no idea what the interior might be like, I just used my imagination to fit the rooms in … and it worked. Later we received some pictures of the building from Gretchen Roman, the wife of Trent Roman who formalized our plans, and discovered that where we had attached an addition shaped like a fire lookout, the original building had a high gabled porch, which I assume was the family’s front door.

Gretchen Roman’s picture of the gabled porch. This door leads into the residential part of the ranger station. We completely missed this the first time we were there.

Although the museum was not yet open for the season, Laurii Gadwa of the Sawtooth Interpretive & Historical Society kindly agreed to let us in. Snow had fallen in the area the previous night and the building was unheated. Everyone was layered up for the cold. John and I were excited and anxious to see if our interpretation of the old ranger station had any basis in fact. As it turned out, not much.

Laurii Gadwa shows us around. Shes articulate and well accustomed to answering questions. Here she is showing us the little cupboard that once housed the ironing board. The wainscot is a brown-painted fiberboard embossed to resemble small subway tiles.

Inside the ranger station, no logs are visible. All the walls appear to be finished with cement plaster or to have been replaced with drywall. I guess in those days “the log look” didn’t have the value that it has now. Having flat walls certainly is more practical for installing cabinetry, wiring, trim, and so on. Having seen this, I still wouldn’t cover up any more of our log walls than necessary.

At the museum, the first room you enter is the ranger’s office, by way of a side door. That side door became our front door. This little map cupboard is so clever that we had to find a place to build a similar one. An unintentional nod to our lookout-shaped dining room hangs at left.

In a house like ours, granite countertops are simply inappropriate. Even laminates offer few acceptable patterns. This board countertop, made from one plank, settled the question for us. We’ll cut boards from a beetle-killed Ponderosa pine that had to come down. We’d already been planning for a sink with a Hudee ring or rim like this one. Notice the official, and highly collectible, USFS china on the table at left.

Throughout the museum, ceilings are low, no more than 7 and a half feet. The rooms are small, and the overall footprint of the museum is less than ours.

A peek into the bathroom. I wonder if it’s the result of a later remodeling. That looks like a 1950s light fixture. How about that cast iron vent pipe dressed up in what appears to be a plastic tablecloth?

Throughout the house, fine cabinet and trim work speaks of an excellent craftsman. In the more formal parts of the house a cherry-like varnish has been used. Elsewhere the trim is painted but is still of top quality.

As with most local museums, this one is filled with local artifacts, none of which we paid any attention to. That built-in storage unit sure is nice, though.

We didn’t expect to find such elaborate trim work in the old ranger station. Our trim will be much simpler than this.

As we get less enthused about doing earthen plaster on all the interior walls at Blizzard Gulch, the question came up: how else should we finish the block column of the chimney chase? We thought of local creek rocks, or flagstone like the hearth, or brick veneer like the chimney outside. Though we didn’t care much for the shiny brick fireplace at the Stanley Museum, it helped with the decision to go with the brick veneer in spite of the expense.

The little brick fireplace with its fine mantel.

Heading upstairs. Think you could get away with stairs this steep now?

Sloped chimney chase in an upstairs bedroom.

Upstairs door trim is much simpler than that downstairs. Our whole house will have this type of simple trim. I was leaning toward five-panel doors but I really like this unassuming single-panel door.

Here’s one exception to the finished-wall interior. This is a little unfinished space in the gable of the residential entry.

In the little gable space we found out a little about the plastering on the sloped stairway ceiling. If you look closely in the middle of the picture you may see metal lath over wood lath. It almost looks like they started with wood lath but that perhaps it didn’t adequately hold the plaster on the underneath side. And then maybe they applied metal lath for a better grip.

The ranger’s station’s wrap-around porch, which covers one full side and wraps around to cover the ranger’s office entrance, was one of its most endearing features. In our version, car siding with the V groove showing clads the underside along the slope. At the Valley View Ranger Station, a flat ceiling was built, with an attic space above. It never occurred to us to do that.

I don’t know how many of these access panels were included. In this enclosed section off the kitchen, as well as in the rest of the wrap-around porch, lovely beaded board was used as a finish surface.

If you get a chance to visit Stanley, Idaho, perhaps to float the Salmon River, go after Memorial Day, during the tourist season. You will have no issues with whether any of the restaurants are open and you will have many options in lodging. In early May we were exceedingly fortunate to find the Bridge Street Grill open the evening we stayed there (we had succulent fish and chips), and they served a hearty breakfast the next morning as a special kindness to us and a few workmen who were in town. Our room for the night was a small log cabin at one of the Triangle C Ranch’s cabins.

You will also be able to see more of the museum than I have shown here. There are a number of interesting outbuildings, including a double-walled icehouse that was originally insulated with sawdust.

And you will be gladly welcomed if you should decide to pay your dues and join the Sawtooth Interpretive and Historical Society. We did!

Postscript:

Getting the Cushman Trackster strapped down for the trip from Burley, Idaho to home. This was Reddy Pickup’s first big trip in years.

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