Nearly 100 years ago, when my father was a teenager, he worked with his father building boats for the loggers working in the mill pond on Lake Sawyer. When payday came around, the loggers were a little short on cash so they offered my grandpa a portion of the lake in payment. Grandpa replied, “I don’t want no part of this blankety-blank swamp.” referring to “The Boot” portion of the lake. In 2013 my husband and I acquired the property for our new home, right where Grandpa left it.
We enlisted the help of well-known Craftsman home designer Will Thomas to make our home traditional in style but to also include special spaces for each of us. An art studio for me with a patio and flower gardens just outside the French doors and wall of windows. An area above the garage for my husband, big enough for a pool table and office. We imagined the art studio would eventually become our bedroom when we were too advanced in age to climb the stairs to our lake view master suite.
Things we especially love about this place:
Our kitchen and bathroom radiant heat floor for bare feet
Morning coffee on the lakeside patio watching eagles, osprey, ducks, and geese.
Sitting on our dock watching our dog swim in the lake.
Kayaking from our dock all the way to the other end of the lake.
Cherries, grapes, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and Asian pears.
Our flowers! Especially the peonies and hydrangeas passed down from past generations.
Our privacy bamboo. Our lawn, that expands to our great neighbors.
Our greenhouse and fenced vegetable garden.
Our solar panels. The automatic generator that comes on instantly when needed.
We planned to grow VERY old in this great house. But time changes us all and we now feel the need to spend more of our time left closer to our children. And so, Mill Pond Cottage will become the home for a new family with new hopes, dreams and memories of their own.
