Tahoe Cabin – Base Camp
Popular Stories
Photo by 
For years, the property sat vacant, with a for sale sign luring a few curious buyers each year. When Turner asked a realtor friend about the cabin, he said it had insurmountable problems. But a year later, Turner and Bushey called the selling agent to see the house.
“He spent a solid 30 minutes on the phone with us, discouraging us from even going to look,” says Turner. “After he told us every problem the place had, he asked if we still wanted to see it. We said, ‘Yes. It sounds perfect.’”
The couple’s initial offer was denied and out of the blue, another buyer stepped in with an offer. Turner and Bushey were devastated and Turner wrote an emotional letter to the owner conveying their already deep seeded love for the property. But it was too late, he'd accepted the other offer.
Their only hope was that the buyer would disappear—like, literally, vanish. And he did. He paid his deposit and then never followed through with the other formalities. In January of 2013, the cabin was theirs.
Bushey and Turner have spent the last year cleaning, painting, refinishing floors and turning the cabin into their own piece of paradise. As a blacksmith, Bushey has built certain things that would otherwise be difficult or extremely expensive to come by. “Blacksmiths tend to have a penchant for things that last and that's how this profession and passion of his really affects our home,” says Turner. “When steel is an option, he doesn't make due with plastic, so things work well, feel solid, and look good.”
According to Turner, the house leans in one direction, but she says it’s not falling over anytime soon. At first, cleanliness was the biggest issue. The couple deep cleaned for two weeks. “Lots and lots of mouse poop,” says Turner. The walls were covered in really rough plywood and portions were covered in burlap glued on in the 60s.
Join Our Newsletter
They kept a few furnishings that have been in place for decades: the wood stove, the cook stove, the old-school sink, the Model T wheel that hangs above the hearth… the story goes that a drunk carpenter crashed it in the river when building the house.
“I love that everything is a bit of a process, from getting changed in the detached bathroom/dressing room to bringing in groceries from the car. I love the cold river air and morning mist, the privacy, being able to swim the moment I get too hot. I love our sole cedar tree amid a forest of pines and firs, the wildlife—though I don't love the mountain lion that Jesse recently saw). I love that I need to remember my headlamp if I'm going to be returning after dark, but I also love when I forget it and the moon is bright. I love the old trails that no one knows about. I love that it kind of feels like camp, albeit a camp for learning how to carry heavy things. I even like the sound of the hundreds upon hundreds of people who drunkenly raft the Truckee everyday during the summer—it's really just the sound of people having fun.”
Want more Base Camp? Check out:
