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1 Jul

This Is Wonder Valley

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It’s 15 acres, total. 3 original Jackrabbit Homestead cabins. Two are connected by a private road; the third is a few minutes away, tucked against the side of a craggy, boulder-strewn mountain. There’s a creaky, desert-worn porch on the front of the biggest of the cabins; the view from there  is vast, almost disorienting in scope. The desert spills out from its steps, unfolding toward the Shadow Mountains, an endless carpet of tamarisk and creosote and cholla and sand and rock.

 

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The east entrance to Joshua Tree National Park is just shy of 15 minutes away. That’s why we started looking there. We wanted to be close to the park. But we soon fell in love with Wonder Valley – the vast expanse of the Mojave that extends north and east of the park – with its sweeping, open landscape and its odd, scattered collection of tiny cabins. “The Park” still has its claim on our affections, but Wonder Valley became the place that we wanted to become part of.

It’s going to be a lot of work. We bought the properties for the purpose of a project (well, projects, plural), but also because we just to be there. But being there – and developing our projects there – means making things habitable, and your average Jackrabbit Homestead is some distance from habitable. The largest cabin, which we think of as the ‘main cabin,’ is in very good shape – it has water and electricity and air conditioning (!) and a nice little kitchen and an actual bedroom, but it still needs painting (inside and out), carpets torn out, windows replaced, etc, etc, etc.

 

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And the other two cabins? Much, much more work than that. We want to preserve the heritage of the cabins, so we’re not looking to overhaul them, but still. They’re going to be big jobs.

But it’s going to be worth it. So worth it. Both for the sake of the projects we’re developing, and for the sake of us. Our spirits. This is the place that we want to make our own.

 

 

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This is Wonder Valley.

(The story about the search for property and some of the why behind the search for property out there in the wilds of the Mojave are here [Part I] and here [Part II].)