NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Park and Recreation Structures

AMONG BUILDINGS which have come to be regarded as on occasion justified within our present conception of a natural park, the cabin alone has the favorable advantage of long familiarity to us in woodland and meadow. So accustomed are we to survivals of frontier cabins dotting the countryside that we have grown to look upon them as almost indigenous to a natural setting. Of all park structures, those cabins which echo the pioneer theme in their outward appearance, whether constructed of logs, shakes, or native stone, tend to jar us least with any feeling that they are unwelcome. The fact that park cabins are usually erected in colonies or groups (frontier cabins as a rule were not) destroys somewhat the feeling of almost complete fitness that is produced by a single primitive cabin. The further fact that the true cost of such structures is usually much higher than their purpose or the prospective income from them would justify often imposes upon the designer the necessity of availing himself of cheaper and more easily handled materials than those employed by the pioneer, and of using these the best way he can. Hence cabin groups must always be something of a dissonance, in parks, acceptable only when their obtrusiveness is minimized insofar as possible.

If the cabin on publicly owned lands is to justify itself it is essential that it at least pay its own way during its lifetime, and that charges for its use bear a logical relationship to its true cost. Any evaluation of that cost which fails to assign a reasonable value to materials acquired on the site or to all labor involved, however compensated, would be faulty.

Often overlooked, but certainly the primary objective in providing cabins in public parks, should be adjustment in cost and rental of facilities to the income range of the using public. There ought to be just as sincere an effort to furnish habitable vacation shelter to the patron of very limited means as there seems now to exist an enthusiasm to supply the more ample facilities which the higher income brackets can afford and demand.

At the lack of spread in cabin facilities and rentals observable in many parks, just criticism can be leveled. It would seem to be not only better park planning, but better business planning, to offer accommodations in a wide price range bearing some logical ratio to the wide income range represented by park patrons. It might be pointed out as an abuse of democratic principles if the benefits of park areas are withdrawn from availability to the many to the selfish enjoyment of the few. An abundant provision of cabins such as only the few can afford and a blind, or callous, disregard of the budget limits of the vast majority are not social arithmetic.

LET US EXPLORE the range of cabin accommodations that parks might well offer in order to extend availability.

The simplest type of cabin, the "Student" or "Tourist" class (to initiate the figure of the passenger liner), must seek to bring the required minimum of space need in shelter within a most rigid limitation of cost, which must relate definitely and logically to the very limited rent the humble park user can afford to pay. This problem will tax the ingenuity of the ablest designer desirous of producing a nice balance between traditioned charm and reasoned practicability.

Of necessity such a cabin must be a very modest affair, affording merely the most compact sleeping and living space. Required economy will compel the omission of toilet and bathing facilities from this simplest type of cabin. Naturally, concentrating the toilet and bathing facilities will reduce the cost of a cabin group, as compared with that of other cabin groups in which toilet and bathing facilities are integral with every cabin. If provision is made for preparing meals in these cabins, the kitchen must be truly of kitchenette proportions—merely compact cabinet, closet, or small shallow alcove. A possible alternative to the modest kitchenette allowable is an outdoor campstove, preferably with sheltering roof. If strategically treated, the campstove may be a multiple unit, and the kitchen shelter thus made to serve several cabins. Desirable as a fireplace may be, it is scarcely within the economy of the simplest of cabins unless climate makes such a feature an absolute necessity.

Such is the prospectus for recreation or vacation cabins within the budget range of the many and, it should be borne in mind, available to them only for brief periods and by dint of most careful economy on the part of the family unit.

A narrowing field of potential users results when greater spaciousness and added facilities, naturally accompanied by mounting costs and proportionately higher rental charges, are offered in "Second Class" cabins (to continue the figure of the liner). Cabins of this type might contain a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a living room to serve also as a sleeping room at night. The kitchenette will tend to be something more than the simpler cabin type permits. A fireplace is an allowable feature, since the larger cabin will probably have a longer season of use. If a nearby central recreation building is not provided as a gathering place, the cabin is forced to a greater self-sufficiency. Toilet and bath facilities, although naturally desirable features, are not usually possible in this class of cabin because of the cost involved.

Of cabins of the next group, which might be termed "First Class" cabins, distinguishing features are toilet and bath facilities, along with perhaps added spaciousness and more privacy in sleeping quarters. Arbitrary pronouncement of limitations in space and facilities for these cabins is considered beyond the province of this general discussion. When examples of the "First Class" cabin give hint of elaboration to the point of becoming "Cabins de Luxe" or "Royal Suites", their appropriateness within natural parks will be challenged by many and defended by but few. It is certain that pretentious cabins are only justifiable if their vacancy ratio is negligible and if they are rented to produce an income consistent with their initial cost and maintenance expense.

It is not argued that the several "classes" of cabins must rub elbows in the park area as a condition of serving equitably the patrons from different social or financial strata. On the contrary, this is something to be rigidly avoided in lay-out. There is less emphasis on social differences and therefore less dissatisfaction for all concerned if cabins of each type are discreetly grouped somewhat to themselves.

Along with providing a range of rentals, variety in the number of persons to be accommodated in the several cabins of a group should be given consideration. The American family group averages somewhere between four and five persons. It would, therefore, appear reasonable to plan perhaps a majority of cabins to sleep four people. There will be some demand for cabins accommodating two, and a sprinkling of six-cot cabins would not be amiss.

While many cabins built as a single room are large enough to sleep four or six persons, it is very desirable to provide a certain privacy by means of partitions, or curtains on poles, around one or more of the bed locations. Furthermore, potential tenants are not always a family group, and failure to provide some measure of privacy results in a narrowing of the tenant field.

In most localities some form of porch will be a serviceable feature of a cabin. In certain climates a simple terrace may serve, but in a majority of cases a roof will add greatly to usefulness. Rather generally it will be necessary to screen in the porch if its full benefits are to be enjoyed.

When a screened porch is provided, a wide opening between it and the living space is a space-saving possibility to be considered by cabin designers with a praiseworthy urge to provide the utmost for the cabin dollar. Such an opening about eight feet wide, framing sliding doors or three or four folding doors, throws together the limited space allotments of living space and porch and makes for a roominess very useful on occasion.

IT MUST BE ADMITTED that the need in some parks for cabins in considerable numbers presents some very real problems, one of which is the spacing of them. A cabin, when occupied, along with a certain ground area bordering it, is in effect privately leased, for a night, or a week, or longer, as the policy of a park may dictate. It becomes virtually private property serving an infinitesimal portion of the park-using public, and the greater the spacing between the cabins within a group, the greater the area that is withdrawn from the use of the public-at-large. For this reason the spacing of cabins dare not be determined entirely on the basis of a splendid isolation for each cabin.

Frequently observed in connection with cabin groups is a tendency to spread the effects of their presence over a needlessly large area. In groups composed of the simplest cabin types, wide spacing either compels a multiplication of toilet installations or renders the use of central facilities so difficult that the cabin occupant, particularly after dark, will often not go to the required trouble, with consequent development of unpleasant and insanitary conditions. It also compels establishment of additional water outlets one more item of cost.

Even in the case of cabin groups equipped with toilets and with running water, wide separation means added road construction to make them accessible and longer runs for electric service. After all, it seems fair to assume that, where cabins are erected in parks, their purpose is to facilitate enjoyment of the park itself and that complete seclusion during the hours when they are occupied is not the supremely important goal it is so frequently assumed to be. To repeat, spacing cabins far enough apart to satisfy fully the desire of the occupants for seclusion tends to encroach on the interests of the public-at-large by reducing its range, so to speak. On the other hand, if the spacing of cabins must so yield to the interests of the public (and perhaps to the influence of economy) that the cabin area becomes row upon row of trifling, and too often identical, cabins—with ground cover and shade traded in for a few inches of seasonally alternative dust or mud underfoot—we have simply infected the outdoors with tenement substandards and made Nature an outcast.

Another problem is the size of the cabins individually and the determining of a proper assortment of cabins of the several possible sizes. If the cabin is small and compact to a minimum, a large family or group finds it cramped. If it is made more spacious, it is in excess of the actual space needs of a family of two. Recently, at Spring Mill State Park, Indiana, some novel cabins have been developed which seem to present the solution to the practical need for accommodating from two to eight persons, without either waste of space or overcrowding. "Multiple cabin" has been suggested as a suitable designation for the type.

Successfully accomplished in these is an ingenious space arrangement of great flexibility. These cabins have four rooms, each of which is served by a separate outside entrance, is equipped with water closet and lavatory, and sleeps two persons. One group of eight, two groups of four, four groups of two, or other combinations are possible by the simple operation of locking or unlocking communicating dooms.

Equivalent in flexibility and interest to the Spring Mill multiple cabin is the development adjacent to the Bright Angel Lodge on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. In this particular setting a large building would have been incongruous. It is avoided, and the problem is solved by linking many small guest houses to the lodge proper by covered pergolas. The guest houses contain from two to sixteen bedrooms and are in effect multiple cabins, permitting the renting of rooms individually or en suite.

SOMETHING ON THE SUBJECT OF CHIMNEYS cries to be heard, but since chimneys have no separate entity in these discussions, their case must be presented and pressed by cabins, as "next friend."

In the discredited "whatnot" or "mission" period of the past, some evangelist of grim determination must have been possessed of an hypnotic ability to implant his debased preference in cabin chimneys through the length and breadth of the land. Apparently it was a lifelong fixation of this crusading apostle. Nothing else will account for the far-flung faith that developed in the supreme appropriateness of boulder masonry for this purpose. The unfortunate circumstance seems to have been further aggravated by a quaint conviction that the less structural in appearance, the less evident the bonding mortar, and the less apparent any reliance on physical laws for stability, the happier and more creditable the accomplishment.

Need it be more than pointed out that from time immemorial good stone work has always been that stone work which appeared incapable of toppling even if all mortar were to be magically removed? It is possible that there has been throughout history recurrent abandonment of this principle as something just trite and old-fashioned in masonry technique. This is mere speculation, of course, because somehow the evidence of such experimentation, other than the execrable "peanut brittle" chimney technique for log cabins, has not survived the ravages of time to our day. It is indeed to be regretted that the most recent sponsor of formless masonry drew no conclusion from this fact. Surely, if he had, his disciples would be spared over the years many chimney replacements, if not necessitated by actual collapse then eventually blasted to ruin by the trumpets of good taste. As from time to time these reconstructions must be made, it is hoped that the reconstructors will appraise the chimney survivals of the American pioneer, and if they are led to offend with globular masonry no more often than did he, a weird ghost will have been laid.

The tailpiece illustration is of a cabin which recalls the handiwork of the pioneer and the splendid timber resources which over wide areas awaited his axe. Only the sworn statement of one who is well-informed, to the effect that this cabin was built from windfalls and not cut timber, permits conservationists to show this cabin here. Almost humorous in its scale, it is far from that as a reminder of magnificent forests all but extinct. As a relic of the days when trees were trees, this cabin can inspire us to firm resolution to permit them to be so again in the long-term future. Somewhere between the scale of this log work and the spindling scale of the majority of present day log structures is the happy and satisfying medium that is too infrequently seen. The random informality of the axe-hewn log ends contributes greatly to the naive charm of this little building.

Cabin, Itasca State Park, Minnesota

• Plate III B—1 — Plate III B—36