The Little House

The Little House at Lake Lotawana with the big house in the background.

My backyard “playhouse” had a “trap door.” To reach it you went through the bathroom at the very back of the house, up three steps to the bathtub. Beyond the tub was a trapdoor that opened up so you could drop down into the boat that was stored below.

This wasn’t any ordinary playhouse. When I was about 10 years old, I ended up living in the Little House to make a separate bedroom available for guests in the big house. Since there were four bunk beds it was easy to have a couple of friends over to spend the night. I enjoyed the independence and having a place where I could keep my treasures—especially the snakes I liked to collect.

My father was very organized. He was a list man. He was continually making lists. Every morning before he went to work, he would post a list of chores for me to do on the refrigerator in the big house where I had breakfast. The rule was “Complete the list before any play time.” The list included keeping the Little House neat and clean, cutting the grass, weeding certain areas, washing the boat, and of course, watering the petunias.

A number of miracles surround the Little House, but the biggest one is that it was built at all. Lake Lotawana, where the property is located, is named for an Indian princess who was murdered on her wedding night by a jealous lover. The name means sparkling water. An auspicious start! The dam to form the lake was built in 1928, but because of the drought, the lake did not fill until the spring of 1935.

In 1930, my parents bought a lot in what was to become Union Cove. The lot was designated as H-12 and was fairly steep and heavily wooded. Their idea was to have a combination workshop/boathouse built over the planned lake in front of their property, then later build a house on the hill.

These plans were destroyed when the depression hit, their bank folded, and they ended up with six cents on the dollar. Thus, in 1931, with a new baby and very limited funds, they decided to turn the workshop plans into a home they would build themselves. They started construction of what turned out to be a totally unique house on the lake. It was unique in so many ways. The first being the house was not built on the lot itself, but rather over the water in front of the lot. 

And amazingly they completed the house without spending one dollar on outside labor. Even the plumbing and electrical work was theirs. When the project was started the lake water was still more than a mile away so they poured the foundation where the lake would eventually be and started work. Their plans had to be exact because, if the house were too low it would flood when the lake filled and, if it were too high, there wouldn't be enough water for the boat storage they planned underneath.

 My grandfather was a distributor of structural glazed tile, which was usually used in gymnasiums and public bathrooms, so they were able to buy this product at a very good price. This house may be the only one in the world with outside walls of glazed tile.

The workshop turned home was primarily one big room with four bunk beds (1) on the east wall. There were drawers under the lower bunks ─the upper bunks were reached by ladder. Each bunk had a reading light. These were 12-volt lights taken from the interior of cars my parents found in the junkyard. Because there was no electricity near the lot at that time, my father rigged up a 12-volt generator from a junkyard car and originally all the lights in the house were 12-volts.

The floor was a beautiful random oak planking. They bought the knotty pine boards for the interior walls from a lumberyard near the railroad tracks for practically nothing because they had been damaged by sparks from the steam engines. Countless hours were spent planing and sanding these boards and, when finished, the wood grain and luster of the boards were beautiful.

The magnificent stone fireplace was built from rock quarried right on the site and the mantle was hand hewn from one of their oak trees.

Dad made the beautifully curved andirons from old railroad ties. There was a hammered iron bar that hung over the fire and also swung out into the room with a cauldron hung from it so you could cook by the heat of the fire yet easily swing the cauldron out into the room to check the food.

The window at the end of the room was made with exquisite art glass as were the hanging light fixtures. The window that graced the front door was my father’s beautiful stained-glass sailboat.

The closet was unique because from the room it looked like a dressing table with a mirror, but it swung open to reveal a spacious hanging area. There was a fairly conventional bathroom except that the tub was three steps up to another level and beyond the tub they installed a trapdoor that opened up so you could drop down into the boat that was stored below. This boat slip was accessed from the outside by paneled wood garage doors. The lakeside of the house had a catwalk with bumpers for tying at least two boats.

The roof was one large, flat deck with a stunning railing around it. There was a stone pedestal with a flat top every 12 feet. This is where my parents would put pots of petunias and my job was to haul watering buckets from the lake every day to water the flowers. I carried the buckets of water up 20 feet of stairway and each watering took six trips. I grew to hate petunias!

Because the land sloped, they built a yard that was flat and retained the uphill side of the yard by building a dry-stone wall. By this I mean they did not use any mortar and every stone had to be hand fit. The wall was a work of beauty and craftsmanship.

We all spent summer weekends in the little house until my father became successful enough to build another house on the hillside. When they moved into that house the little house became my room.

Footnotes:

(1) Two beds were at the normal level with drawers underneath them and two were above, accessible by ladder. On the wall at the head of each bunk was a hand-drawn map of the lake, our cove or something else to do with Lake Lotawana. These were wonderful drawings that a friend of my parents had given them.