The siting of The Cabin was initiated by a series of quasi ‘hunting’ expeditions into the Caroline wild….

The first may have been in the autumn: cool breezes and trees dropping leaves. There was a moderate degree of bushwhacking that we weren't thoroughly prepared for, mostly through brambles and wild crabapple trees. Possible sites were identified more as atmospheric categories: near a stream, in the valley, on a gentle hillside.

It must have been one of the coldest days of winter, when the second search for a proper site began. Crossing through forests and hillsides, snowbanks and drifts, streams not quite frozen, and the remnants of tall marsh-plants stripped bare by the wind, we thought we found the perfect site: a south-facing hillside in a pine forest, just off the road. But the ground seemed a bit wet. Perhaps it would be drier later in the season? Perhaps the logistical hats were starting to prevail as in ease of access?

(Thankfully) it wasn't drier. Once we could see beneath the crust of ice, we found the hillside was a labyrinth of rivulets, riddled with tiny ground-springs. And still backed up against that road….

It must have been the hottest, most humid day of the summer when the clearing of the path began through the mangled growth that draped the access to the majestic site that rose above the Caroline wild. Hacking away at the undergrowth, with innumerable water breaks to stave off near-collapse in the torpid atmosphere, HANNAH both discovered and constructed the site of The Cabin.

It is difficult now to imagine what the site was like before the beautiful beast made it its home.

— Andrea Simitch [Cabin Patron and Chair of the Department of Architecture at Cornell AAP]