Caretaker's cabin

Caretaker's cabin
Originally uploaded by umlud

Recently, the landscape architecture firm Johnson Hill did a site analysis of Saginaw Forest, in which they did a history of Saginaw Forest and the caretaker's cottage. What follows is taken from that report.

When the land [that would become Saginaw Forest] was deeded [to the Department of Forestry - later to become the School of Natural Resources and Environment], an old barn stood on the southeastern corner of the property [, near Liberty Road]. In 1914, the frame of this structure was sold to a neighboring farmer. In 1915, it was decided that some sort of shelter was needed for tools, work crews, and classes, so the stone cabin (existing on the site today) was built. Unfortunately, the need of a caretaker's residence was not foreseen. Initial plans for the building were drawn by Professor Beverly Robinson of the Department of Architecture. A separate storage building was built in 1947 and this building still exists today. Today the original stone cabin is the caretaker residence, occupied by an SNRE graduate student.

As the current SNRE graduate student living in the cabin, I can tell you that although rather small, the caretaker's cabin is comfortable, with (most) of the modern amenities. Unfortunately, it looks to the north, so gets very little light, even on a good day. Furthermore, the windows are rather small, so little light actually gets in, even on a sunny day, except maybe during sunrise and sunset.

However, thanks to the invention of electrical lighting (and the subsequent invention of the compact fluorescent light "bulb"), one can illuminate the inside of the cottage with not too much difficulty.

Situated as it is -- with trees on two sides of the building -- the cottage seems to stay cool. However, I have yet to see how it is during the warm and muggy summer days yet to come.