The Cabin

By Jay Bryant

I made history one cold March dark last week by becoming the first person to survive a night spent in The Cabin.

This ranks right up there with my being the only person in history to have walked out of a supermarket having bought just two items, a jicama root and a box of Fudgesicles. You should try a one-off like that yourself. It will give you an ego boost. In the August,1974 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine, I laid claim to having named a war, the Yom Kippur War to be exact, and in the 51 years since, no one has ever challenged my assertion.

But I digress. This article isn’t about Fudgesicles, jicama or the Yom Kippur War. It’s about The Cabin, the cabin pictured above. You could get an ego boost by renting The Cabin. It’s a whoop.

The structure was built way back in the 1800’s, at which time it was in the middle of a tobacco field. Bui when the Federal Tobacco Allotment Program came into being in 1938, as part of the New Deal, things changed in the tobacco farming business. It had nothing to do with the health risks of smoking. Under this program, tobacco farmers agreed to cut their production in return for Federal price supports, and whoever owned the acreage where The Cabin sat decided to quit planting that field – it wasn’t as productive as other fields they had. Got it?

So the forest made its revenge against the intrepid pioneers who had cleared the land in the days of King George, and by 2002, when Greg Bohlen bought his first ten acres on Union Grove Church Road, the whole area was dense woods again.

The cabin today with exterior kitchen

Greg Bohlen with Peter and Robert Husar in front of the old tobacco shed.

Greg’s kids liked to explore these woods, and one day they found The Cabin. The daub and wattle building had been used as a shed for flue-curing tobacco back in the day, but it was nothing short of ramshackle when the Bohlen boys re-discovered it. A few years later, by which time Greg had bought up the whole freaking zip code (well, not quite, but many acres of it) he cut the timber and began the soil regeneration process that would make it perfect for growing grapes, which are way better for you than tobacco. He could have demolished the useless old shed – grapes don’t need to be flue-cured – but he didn’t. That’s Greg for you..

A few years later, he hired Peter and Robert Husar, a local father and son carpenter team with a resume that includes the restoration of ancient European churches and who had already restored a fallen down building on the Union Grove Wedding grounds, which is now used as a bridal prep suite. Their new task was to refurbish the old tobacco shed and make it habitable for overnight use. Which I am living proof that it indeed is. But they had to do the job in as authentic a way as possible consistent with making it legal to rent out through Airbnb. Greg’s orders, and their specialty.

All materials still in place and usable were re-used, and all the added lumber was either scrounged up period pieces or un-milled natural items they carved into accoutrements like the banisters. This was no ordinary scrounging; the Husars searched far and wide to find the very best authentic materials, even driving hundreds of miles into Kentucky in search of just the right lumber. In addition, the whole job was done without resorting to power tools. These guys are serious about their art.

The Husar-designed rustic front door

The result is a unique and in its way charming property, pondside adjacent to Vineyard C. The pond, newly named Cabin Pond, is one of the prettiest on the whole farm, with cattails and other water plants flourishing and attracting waterbirds including herons, cranes and wild geese. In addition, you will soon be able to look across the pond and see the caves where Union Grove brandy will be aging in fine casks.

The Cabin is definitely rustic, but staying there is not exactly roughing it, as the place has a nice shower and a flush toilet, a heat pump, electric lights and a big screen TV. It is thus quite different from the hunting camp my father maintained back in Maine, where he and his buddies had nothing but a small wood stove and a kerosene lantern for modern conveniences. It must be said, however, that by the time they turned into their sleeping bags for the night, they were well-fortified internally against the cold of November, deer season.

The Cabin has a nice living room, comfortably furnished, the aforementioned bathroom and a rustic but solid flight of stairs, leading to a loft featuring a four-poster queen bed, in which I had no difficulty snoozing through the night.

You may have noticed I didn’t mention a kitchen. There’s a reason for that. There is no room in the small building for a kitchen. But that didn’t stop Greg from providing his tenants with a fine cooking, food storage and dishwashing facility. It’s outside, on a small patio overlooking the pond. There is a propane grille, a sink and a small refrigerator, all in gleaming stainless steel, of which there is none inside the house. (The handle on the shower door is chrome. All the other fixtures are wrought iron or bronze. Old-fashioned stuff.)

I brought a steak and a potato wrapped in tinfoil with me, along with some diet Pepsi, Gatorade Zero and a serving of homemade broccoli, jicama and onion salad, a specialty of mine. No Fudgesicles, though, because there’s no freezer; I had to make do with some cookies for dessert. For breakfast, I had a bagel and a banana – the latter I have every day on doctor’s orders. I toasted the bagel just right on the grill. Indeed, the only problem I had with my culinary efforts was that I overestimated how long it would take the potato to bake and wound up with the skin too hard to eat, which is how I prefer to eat a baked potato. The spud’s insides were perfect, however, especially after I spooned some sour cream in there from a small Tupperware container. The steak was done precisely - rare-medium-rare - like all steaks should be.

Anyway, you can follow in my footsteps and stay at The Cabin yourself, or at any of the 5 more modern rental units available at Union Grove Farm, which range from 2 to 8 beds. Or just take a day trip and get a guided tour of our vineyards, meet the farmers, sheep, dogs and worms, and learn about the amazing regenerative farming things Greg and his team are doing. I highly recommend it.