Skyhaven Acres

by The Jerry & Joan Huntsman Family

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Posted on December 16, 2016 at 9:00 AM

While camping and fishing at Miller Flat Reservoir around 1971, I noticed some "For Sale" signs on the hill on the north side of the Reservoir. I started exploring and my step father, Lorin Ungerman said that his nephew, Edward Gerry, had purchased land there. Edward's mother was married to my uncle Grant and lived in Huntington.

We bought the acre that the cabin and garage are on from Mr. Seager. My brother, Ned, bought an acre to the west of my acre and then we bought, together, an acre just east of his acre, in the meadow. The next year, Mr. Seager phoned me and asked if I wanted to buy two more acres, since he needed money for a trip to Hawaii. Later, when my brother needed money to start an electrical business, he sold us his acre as well as the acre we owned together.

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In 1973, I built a garage on the lower part of our "cabin" acre from materials I acquired from tearing down a barn in Midvale. While roofing the garage, Evan Davis came by and helped.

I built the cabin (roughed it in), during a two week vacation I took during the summer of 1974. My son Michael was with me the whole time (he was 15 years old at the time). During the roofing stage, my son Steven and his wife Sharlene came and helped. They were amazed at the scaffolding I had built to stand on while roofing the south (highest off the ground) side. The 2x6s in the roof trusses were acquired when I tore down some turkey coops that were in the back lot behind my inlaws home in Huntington. Michael remembered at the time that I said I had built the cabin many times in my mind before I actually built it. I designed the cabin to dimensions that made it so I didn't need to cut the plywood. I worked it out so that I used the exact size (4'x 8') of each piece of plywood. I laid out the trusses on the lawn at my home in Sandy. They are connected using bolts. The cabin is set on telephone poles I acquired when I suggested to the power company that three poles surrounding my home is Sandy were unnecessary since I live on a lot at the end of a dead end street. The northwest corner of the cabin is ground level and the three telephone pole lengths on the south side were put in holes we dug and sunk them in the holes. The pole lengths under the cabin are sitting on cement pads. The east window is actually a door from a church that was torn down in Salt Lake that I got from my step-father Lorin Ungerman. The front door and back door of the cabin are also from a church that was torn down. The wood burning heater was given to me by my younger brother, Ned. Initially, the heater was in the garage, but when we built the cabin, we relocated the heater.

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Michael remembers an experience that happened while building the cabin. "Dad was on the top of an extension ladder that was leaning against the west end of the cabin. Michael was holding a long narrow board paralell to the ladder waiting to hand it to Dad. For some reason, the top of the board Michael was holding moved away from Dad and Dad thought the ladder was falling and he let out a gasp. It's funny to think of now, but wasn't humorus at the time it happened."

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The small log cabin near the meadow was owned by the Huntington Cleveland Water Company and was standing near Rolfson reservior. I found out that the water company was going to tear it down so I bought the log cabin, disassembled it (with the help of my sons; Steve, Tom, and Michael), and reassembled it at Skyhaven. We marked each end of each log with a numbering system so we could reassemble it correctly. Steve, with Michael's help, did the concrete block work that is the foundation of the cabin. Michael hauled large rocks from Staker creek and positioned and cemented them against the block foundation to make the cabin look like it is sitting on a stone foundation.

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In the summer of 2017 we installed a solar electric system to power, mainly, lights, and to charge our digital devices and ham radio.

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This past winter, February of 2017, I (Michael Huntsman) snowshoed in to Skyhaven Acres with my nephews, Zen & Kyle Kennedy, Zen's girlfriend, Emily, and Kyle's German Shepherd, Foxy. At 58 years old, it was a bit of a stretch for me to do. My first issue, being my first time snowshoeing to the cabin, was my faulty preparation. My pack was way too heavy (around 40 lbs), which made it extremely difficult to right myself each time I fell. Thanks to the others' patience, we made it to the public restrooms near Staker Creek, a half mile or so from the cabin. We stashed my backpack in the restroom with plans to retrieve it the next day. After starting back on our way, Zen turned around and saw headlights from two snowmobiles coming from the direction of the highway. It was the Brandon? Newby and a friend. They gave us a lift the rest of the way. We enjoyed two nights surrounded (outside) with snow from one of the snowiest winters from the recent past. On Sunday morning, we were given another lift back to the parking lot on snowmobiles (Thank you!!).