The campground idea, and the neighbors who talked me out of it
An early concept sketch of the two cabins that replaced the campground idea. Artist's rendering, subject to final completion.
Every good vision has an embarrassing first draft, and I would like to introduce you to mine. In the beginning, I was going to build a campground.
Not a bad campground, mind you. In my head it was a tasteful one, with park-model cabins lined up on a pretty piece of riverfront, a clever little business plan, and me at the center of it feeling very shrewd. I took that idea to the Page County planning process the way you take a science project to a fair, expecting a ribbon.
The community had thoughts.
I will spare the specifics and keep the dignity of everyone involved, my own included. But the neighbors made their feelings known, clearly and in writing, and the short version is that a row of park-model units was not the future they wanted next door, and once I actually listened, it was not the future I wanted either. It just took hearing it out loud from the people who live here.
This is the part where the story could have gone badly. I could have dug in, argued that I had every right, and spent two years fighting to build something nobody wanted. Plenty of developers choose that path. I have watched it work out for exactly none of them.
Instead I did something that felt like losing at the time and looks like the best decision I made out here in hindsight. I put the campground idea down. I sat with what the neighbors actually said, and underneath the objection was a better question: what does this specific piece of river deserve.
The answer that came back was not more. It was less, done far better. Two crafted cabins instead of a dozen units. Space and privacy instead of density. A place that adds something quiet to the valley instead of crowding it. Everything this project is now was born out of a public no.
So I owe the neighbors a real thank you, and this is me putting it in writing. They did not just protect their own view. They talked me out of a mediocre idea and into a good one, and they will have to look at the result for a long time, so I intend to make it worth looking at.
The vision that survived that room is truly something special. It would not exist if I had gotten my way.
- The original plan, a riverfront campground of park-model cabins, met the county process and did not survive it.
Trading the campground for two crafted cabins, and testing what the ground could support.
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