One Sunday afternoon in 1999 our son Brook took Nancy and I to a secluded timbered ridge that overlooked a peaceful valley known as High Valley. He showed us five undeveloped acres that were for sale hidden and nestled among huge granite boulders on a forested ridge. The minute we hiked out on it and stood looking over High Valley we fell in love. We decided to rally the entire family (four generations) to work together building a small cabin hideaway. For the next five years we all worked on our days off and vacations to construct a cabin with care and imagination. Every stick of wood and bag of cement used to pour the foundation was hauled up the steep narrow secluded road in the back of our old pick up. It was truly a labor of love. Many things in the cabin were built with personal meaning and family heritage. Nearly everything has a story to tell. When it was finished we decided to call it “Menuchah“; a Hebrew word taken from Isaiah 32:18 meaning a peaceful habitation and a quiet resting place.
Menuchah has seen our family through a lot of wonderful times as well as seasons of really hard times. It has been a place that we have met as a family to celebrate and times we have come alone for solitude and contemplation. Other times it has been a place to grieve and heal. Because of its location it is without the modern conveniences of electricity which requires certain skills to pump water into the gravity flow water tank nested in the boulders above and lighting gas lights after the sun goes down. Menuchah is reminiscent of many wilderness cabins that once could be found throughout the rugged Idaho Mountains.
Last weekend after a day of re-staining the outside of all the buildings we gathered as a family and made another decision. We decided to make Menuchah available for rent starting next May or June (after the snow melts off of the ridge) for folks who wish to spend time using it the way we have always used it; not so much as a recreational cabin, but as a place of peace and rest.
Menuchah can comfortably sleep up to six people. It is located about an hour and fifteen minutes north of Boise about fifteen minutes from Smiths Ferry. Details will be posted on the Timber Butte Blog after the first of the year for anyone who might be interested in using it for a two to seven day getaway.
The small kitchen was decorated after Nancy’s Irish heritage. The ceiling paper was brought back from a trip we took on our 35thanniversary. I spent the better part of one winter building cabinets to match the antique sideboard sink we found in a junkyard. It is also home to Esther, a wonderful ‘Home Comfort’ wood cook stove.
The upstairs sleeping loft is a cozy spot on a cold fall night.
A small sleeping cabin can sleep two adults and a child.
The south side of the cabin has a wonderful view of High valley and the distant Packer John Mountains from the screen porch or the sitting deck.
The campfire cooking pit and wood burning hot tub are nestled in granite boulders on the west side of the cabin.
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