For years, people have driven by Rabbits Foot Lodge on Silent Grove Road without giving it a second thought.
But just as many probably wondered about it: Hidden back among mature trees, in a peaceful setting complete with a long, curving drive, the porches giving the house the appearance of a Southern plantation home.
At Christmas, white lights highlight the porches and their criss-cross design.
"I hope the city asks me to come back and hang the lights," said Karen Morton, who owns and lives in the lodge.
If negotiation goes the way many hope, the city of Springdale will purchase the house and 40 acres, to be integrated in the adjoining J.B. Hunt Park, Lake Springdale Park and the Razorback Greenway. Morton recently opened her home for city officials and media to explore.
"Built in 1908 of materials gathered from its 100-acre site, Rabbits Foot Lodge nestles on the hillside which rises sharply above the spring and creek for which it was named," reads the lodge's nomination form for the National Historic Register of Historic Places, approved in 1986.
"Although it is located just one mile northwest of the busy town of Springdale, the lodge and its tranquil setting have always been considered a haven by its owners. The sheer size of this log structure commands respect and this -- along with an attention to stylistic details reminiscent of the Adirondack Great Camps -- have made Rabbits Food Lodge a unique component of Arkansas' historic resources."
On close inspection, the 3,000-square-foot structure is log, with chinking and broken-joint construction, resting on a stone foundation. Oak and pine plank the floors. Original shutters and glass remain, with four-inch panes throughout the house. "When I remodeled the kitchen, I cleaned and painted around every one of those," Morton said.
The original footprint of the house includes a dining room, a living room with fireplace, a bedroom downstairs and three more upstairs. Three modern bathrooms have been added to the house, as well as a garage, laundry room and miscellaneous room, for which no one can determine the purpose, Morton explained.
"The walls aren't square, the floors are uneven and the glass curves views -- but that's all part of it," she said.
Throughout the house sit many antiques and nature-inspired decor -- most of which will stay with the house, Morton said. A pie safe, a working 1908 Victrola (with replacement needles), a treadle sewing machine, rugs, jars, even an elk named Larry hanging above the fireplace.
Margaret and Dick Lester owned the lodge from 1973 to 1984, prior to Morton and then-husband Dr. David A. Buckley. Buckley simply was driving around in the country when he saw Rabbits Foot Lodge and wanted it.
"When he saw the 'For Sale' sign, we had just moved to Fayetteville," Morton related. "I was seven months pregnant and had a little child. We moved in when the baby was 4 weeks old."
In fact, the Buckleys actually traded homes with the Lesters. "I walked in, and it was a sea of 2-inch shag carpet," Morton recalled.
A few days after moving in, David Buckley was on a float trip with friends, when a swarm of bees moved into the space between the house and garage.
"I was 28 years old. I didn't know what to do. That was my first experience with varmints," said the city girl. Come to find out, bees also had a hive in the ceiling covering the whole width of the kitchen. "On a hot day, honey would drip down," she said.
"I've had coons and squirrels in the attic. But I have beaten them all!" Morton said proudly. Now, the only thing the critters have left to raid is the cat's food dish outside, she said.
"The deer have made this their stomping ground," Morton continued. Sitting on the south-side porch of the house, she has watched 20 or 30 at a time travel through the remains of an old orchard -- planted by Buckley -- at the bend of the driveway. And the house lies on the migratory route of an 18-inch snapping turtle.
"About June 6, he'll walk slowly across the driveway," she related. "Later, he'll walk slowly back."
"I love natural history. I have a lot of skulls," Morton said, listing bears, boars and her own house cat. Many are presents. I like antique taxidermy, what I have come to call 'dead art.'"
But no ghosts haunt the house, Morton said. "I would have thought they would. But nothing spooky has ever happened -- nothing. And I would entertain the idea.
"All in all, it's been fun living here, but living in an old home is not that unusual from how other people live."
NW News on 03/13/2014