Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Would You Like to Live in a Rainforest?
Anton Kestner did.
Back in 1891 he built his home deep in the rainforest on the north side of Lake Quinault.
After taking the Maple Glade Trail, we visited the old homestead.
Looks cozy to me, the low clouds like smoke from a still-burning wood stove.
In the early days he would have arrived at his home in the woods by crossing the lake and likely traveling on foot, not by this charming old truck, which now decorates the property.
“The Kestner Homestead Historic District is a complex of structures and landscape features which
provides a strong sense of the period of early settlement in the Quinault River Valley beginning in the late 19th century and continuing into the early 20th century, a theme significant in Olympic National Park history. The spatial arrangement of the building cluster in relationship to the cleared pasture areas and orchard provides important information about how these early homesteads were organized and functioned in this remote part of the country. Although the buildings and fencing is in various states of deterioration, the homestead overall exhibits a high degree of cultural landscape integrity in its location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.” National Park Service, National Historic Register
Though the homestead has long been abandoned and is now part of Olympic National Park, there are others like it in the area where people still live surrounded by woods.
I wouldn’t mind it myself, if only occasionally.
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 
Wow! The third and forth photos look like they could have come out of the book “Shepherd of the Hills”! 😀
I’m always charmed by this homestead!
I’d love to see a drone shot of that homestead! Very interesting.
It would be interesting from above. 🙂 But drones aren’t allowed in the national parks, probably for the best.
I didn’t think about that. Thanks!
It’s a beautiful location! The old truck would make a nice restoration project. 😊
Yes indeed! 🙂
I would like to visit, but not live there. :0
It’s great to visit; might be fun to spend a winter there all socked in with a fire going all night long!
A little too wet, cold and isolated for me, but nice to visit I think.
Yeah, probably so. It just looked so cozy and inviting!
I would love to live there & go off grid 😊
At least for a weekend it would be fun!
It looks very cosy but I wonder if it would feel so on a damp December night?! Too isolated for me to consider but a pretty place to visit and photograph for sure 🙂
That seems to be the concensus. 😊 Imagine living here year-round with no electricity or convenience stores! Only for the most hardy!
An interesting place to live, but I might only last a long weekend there. 😊
Best wishes, Pete.
Me too. Imagine living here before there was electricity or convenience stores. Only for the hardy pioneers!
Interesting! I visited the rainforest – and the moss was everywhere! You photos are lovely!!
Thank you! Yes, moss everywhere!
Interesting place. Lovely shots.