The Idea

My stepdad John had an idea years ago to build a cozy and well crafted lodge on the family farm. Over the past year and some months he's dedicated a fair portion of his days to turning that idea into a reality. I've been fortunate enough to be a part of this effort, spend time with him, and (re)learn how to build a house.

John has been an influential man in my life. He's been around since I can remember, in fact I recently came across this photo of him holding me when I was only a few months old.

John has travelled the world, but Scotland is a place that he really enjoys more than others. Likely he identifies with the rugged country and no nonsense people, and it doesn't hurt that they have some excellent whiskey. I am pretty sure his ancestry traces back to Scotland, which would explain why sometimes he throws on a kilt, although Crocs are a questionable footwear choice for this occasion.

He also collects whiskey, in fact here he is very shortly after a shoulder operation with some of his collection. Per the doctor's orders he is deciding which 'medicine' to take.

While in Scotland he hiked a lot, and loved the little bothies he would come across in the countryside. Bothies are overnight huts, usually on privately owned land that is open to the public. While the name 'bothy' is of Scottish origin, bothies exist all over the British Isles and in other countries, although they are named differently and sometimes have different customs associated with their use. From these bothies an idea was borne that one day he would build something like it on the family farm. He spent his life building houses as a contractor, and for the last 40 years he, our family, and his crews built up our farm, which includes 19 structures (I know this because my own kids never fail to remind me I got this number wrong once after they counted them). The photo below is a stock image of a bothy, not unlike what he would have seen in his travels.

The photo below here is the image he showed me (and perhaps others) of what he wanted to build. I have to assume he didn't spend too long looking for a photo, as there are plenty of better ones out there. But another part of me wonders if he deliberately chose this one so only the brave would ever want to visit....he is a man who likes his privacy and solitude. As it is I'm taking a risk blogging about this whole thing, but I am hoping he likes the story of the bothy and it brings back some good memories of the journey.

John also traveled to Bermuda, and while there he visited St. Peter's Church. Besides being the oldest church in the islands at 400 years (built when the Virginia Company settled Bermuda in the 1600's) it also has beautiful red cedar wood in the interior. John had his second piece of inspiration when he saw this (or perhaps his first, I don't know which he saw first, the bothy or the church), as we have a lot of red cedar trees on our farm. The idea of combining a stone Scottish bothy exterior with a red cedar interior was firmly in his mind.

For the last 5 years or so John talked about building the bothy on an old dog pen foundation we have down by our barns. I don't recall when we built it, but as it turns out we found the below inscription in the cement, something my brother put in there when we poured the foundation. It's a bit hard to make out the year, but it looks like the late 90s.

Below is an old photo of the lot, although me and the kids are blocking it out. If you look hard you can see one of the dogs in the background. I feel guilty I can't remember which one it was, we had a lot of great dogs over the decades.

Every time we would drive by the dog lot, John would tell me something about the design that was forming in his head. He would scribble things on pieces of paper about how many of this he would need, how much of that would be necessary, and slowly the plan really came together for him. If you could find all his notes like the one below I think you'd have a pretty good idea of what would be needed to put his bothy together.

As his plan really took shape, he would look at online marketplaces to see who was selling old slate (for the roof), who had red cedar logs for sale, and even picked up an old cast iron wood stove. As his stockpile of materials started to stack up down near our barns, what seemed like a nice idea eventually turned into a real project that needed to get done.