Self-Reliance

If you are lucky enough to spend the night in Scott and Tess Van Wagner’s 1,500 square-foot, solar-powered log cabin hideaway in the Colorado Rockies near Telluride, you might wake up to the enchanting melodies of mountain bluebirds, courting just outside the upstairs guest bedroom. If you then venture out onto the stylish, cantilevered Truman Porch—named after the brassy 33rd President who commissioned a similar, though much grander, porch to be built on the south portico of the White House […]

To hear Carole Brannon tell it, you’d think her life had become a fairytale. With a contagious smile that beams with pride, she begins her story 11 years ago, when she and her husband, Glenn, first set eyes on their remote 3.8 acre parcel of wooded Colorado hillside, just a hoot and holler downstream from the point where Larimer County abandons all attempts to maintain the road from October to April, and five miles upstream from the last utility pole. […]