The log house you see now is the fourth to stand on this site. It was built
by the present owners, Frank and Sara Zabriskie, in 1971 from chestnut logs
salvaged from two cabins built by the CCC boys in 1933 as part of a
conservation project at Licking Creek, a state forest about 30 miles away.
Sara's parents had rented the larger of the two cabins for many years as their
holiday camp. When the state required the camps to be removed, the Zabriskies
numbered the logs and dismantled the cabin and its smaller neighbor, although
they had no clear plans to rebuild them. At the time they lived on a farm
which is adjacent to this property, and when this became available, they
bought it - its hills, its oak and hemlock forest, its stream, its open
meadows, its sense of quiet proved irresistible. There was already a group of
houses here, in a manner of speaking - the oldest was probably log and had
collapsed into its cellar hole, and may have dated back to the early days of
settlement in this part of Pennsylvania; the second, a board-and-batten
addition (c. 1850), still stood as a ruin; and yet a third, built in the 1920s
for the parents of the next generation to take over the farm, and still
inhabited by the "children", now themselves grown too old live on
their own. After the Zabriskies bought the property, they removed the ruinous
houses and remodeled the 1920s cottage as their "Trundle House" to
be "rolled-out" for use of their guests. A vision grew in their
minds that a very comfortable new house could be built here by arranging the
Trundle House and the two salvaged log house around an interior garden or
atrium with plants, a fish pond, and a stone floor. A high
"cathedral" ceiling allows air to circulate, keeping the house cool
in the long hot summers. Their intent was to give a rustic style recalling the
pioneering days in central Pennsylvania, and to be an appropriate place to
display their interest in history and country antiques. The result was
appealing enough that their house was chosen as House of the Year by the Huntingdon
Daily News.
The blacksmith forge once stood on the site of the present Visitor's Center
for Lake Raystown. It had been in the Norris family and the Zabriskie's
purchased the tools & tool box at the sale when the lake project began.
Mr. Norris was said to be a very strong man. From the size tool, he had to be.
A year or so later the forge was dismantled and all the logs numbered, as were
all the stones of the hearth, and moved to its present site where it was
reassembled. The chinking between the lots is unusual in that there are small
chunks of wood between inserted in a 'herring-bone' style.
The other "log cabin" on the site is the first floor of a
two-story log house the Zabriskies dismantled and moved from Aitch, again
while the lake project was under way. Its construction is unusual in that the
corners are vertical 'channeled' hewn posts and the logs secured with pegs.
The 'new' floor is 1¼" oak with concrete block pillars underneath for
additional support to hold the weight of the printing presses currently in the
building. There is a 'loft' above which entered from a second story window.
The barn was restored by the Zabriskies with large windows put in the
threshing area on two levels. A second room was added to the east hay mow
behind granary with steps leading to a mezzanine above both areas. The steps
continue to another level above the entire east mow and then a few steps down
to another level which covers the threshing area and the west mow. This added
considerable storage area to the barn. This bank barn was built c. 1850 or
before.
The concrete block building on a concrete slab in the field was built as an
astronomical observatory and workshop by the Zabriskies in 1978. It housed a
30" horizontal telescope (now removed) and was also used as workshop for
Dr. Zabriskie's computer controlled telescope business.
