The Free Press, Mankato, MN - Authentic cabin more than the sum of its parts

Mon, Nov 23 2009

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Dan Melby kicks and shoves a stubborn but well measured vertical beam into place. Each piece is labeled for reassembly in Idaho.
Pat Christman / The Free Press

The cabin’s facade is littered with ax marks like these, first cut when the original cabins were built in the late 1800s. The new exterior is required to be authentic in every way, so the cut marks of modern machines must be masked using old-fashioned tools.
Pat Christman / The Free Press

This 28-by-52-foot cabin uses the wooden beams from three cabins that are themselves between 117 and 137 years old. The 44,000 pound structure is being put together in a Mankato warehouse before being de-assembled for transportation to Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. Two flatbed semis will carry 15,000 feet of lumber.
Pat Christman / The Free Press

Authentic cabin more than the sum of its parts

Three smaller buildings provide lumber for single structure

By Dan Linehan
The Free Press

These exacting standards are coming from the developers of the Gozzer Ranch in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho.

Dewayne Shults is a project architect with Montana-based Fullerton Architects. He said it was difficult to find a company that could supply the aged lumber and build the cabin.

“Everything should be weathered naturally,” Shults said. “There should not be any evidence of (modern) cuts.”

And it’s easy to tell — at least for someone who knows what to look for — the difference between an old piece of lumber and the virgin wood beneath. That’s because if you cut away just a few inches, you’re cutting away the evidence of 100 frigid winters and 100 humid summers.

The cabin’s final destination may have shocked — or perhaps just amused — the men and women who built these log cabins on the frontier.

It will be a pro shop in a golf course. There will be an even larger clubhouse as well as other, smaller structures on the green.

The romantic, rustic image of Montana may conjure up images of log cabins galore, and Shults says they’ve managed to find some.

“But our resources seem to be running out.”

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