When renting a vacation home or hotel room, I do expect the worst when it comes to interior design…esspecially when you make last minutes plans and you are travelling with kids and on a budget. So I was excited to find that our “home away from home” was actually a quite special, beautiful log house called the “Fin and Pin” right in the middle of Red Lodge. Build by the owner, Steve Ash himself ( with the help of his wife, his son and a skilled carpenter friend)  this house is rustic, minimal, ( meaning NO knick knack) heated by a build-in stone clad gas fire place,  there is a fully stocked kitchen, a washer and dryer and all that with enough room to sleep 6. Hah!

Steve ( btw. Steve is an investment broker for Charles Schwab and an avid fly fisher man ) told me that after he purchased the lot in 1998, they started building hands-on over the next year and half spending every weekend in his 1964 VW van parked on the lot. The ornate logs came from the East Rosebud Burn – a forest fire in the mid 90’s about 20 miles SW of Red Lodge.  Steve and company harvested, skinned and cleaned all of the logs themselves. The fun fence around the house honors his son Andrew, an avid ski racer (2 time national Jr. Olympic champion).

If you are looking for unpretentious winter fun, go to Red Lodge. Check if the “Fin and Pin” is available. And say hello to Steve from me…