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Bed and breakfast features original log cabins

BY: ANDREA HAHN
THE SOUTHERN

Sunday, October 30, 2005 12:44 AM CDT

MARION - Donna Williams, who moved to Southern Illinois from Colorado in August, said that if you can't learn "to appreciate the little things" in Southern Illinois, you might be out of luck.

She was stirring apple butter in a big copper pot over a fire outside a pioneer-era cabin in a wooded area of rural Williamson County.

She and her husband, Mark, live in Carterville now. When they first came here, they moved into a cabin at the Olde Squat Inn Bed and Breakfast on Liberty School Road in rural Marion. Mark said they "had a lot of stuff, and were going to be here awhile, and we had a dog." Living in an old-looking cabin with real history in a beautiful setting sure beat living in a hotel while they looked for a permanent dwelling, he said.

The couple was back at the log cabin village Saturday to help out with the fall open house. The apple butter was for themselves, mostly. But making it added to the atmosphere. And those whose appetites were whetted at the thought of homemade goodies could go into the office for pumpkin muffins and apple cider.

Jim Grisley, co-owner of the bed and breakfast, said the fall open house is a sort-of annual event. They've more or less held one every year for a few years, but they keep improving it and hoping more people will come to it.

This year, a bluegrass band set up shop on one of the cabin's front porches.

Next year, maybe they'll get a blacksmith or some such artisan, Grisley hoped out loud.

Katy Lockwood, the other owner, was in the office bustling between kitchen and fireplace. She was doing some open-hearth cooking, and enlisting the aid of anyone who wandered into the office to stir this or check that.

"We thought it would be nice to open the place up and let people see it," she said, noting that while the bed and breakfast has had guests from all over the country and several other countries besides, not everyone locally knows they are there.

"We're a collection of log cabins," he said. "They are all original pioneer cabins, dating from 1825 to 1874."

The office was once a barn in Cypress, he said. Other cabins are from Gallatin County, Golconda, Dongola and Prairie du Rocher - all from Southern Illinois, Grisley said.

"People want hot water," he said, explaining that the cabins aren't as rustic as the original inhabitants had them.

In fact, he uses modern building materials to reassemble the cabins, then uses the original wood, carefully transported by flatbed truck from where they were to where they are now, to preserve the authentic look.

The cabins cluster together near a man-made lake Grisley is building. He also maintains food plots to attract wildlife. Though some of his guests are visiting deer hunters, no hunting is allowed on the 60 acres of the bed and breakfast.

"It's nice for people to come here and see the birds," Grisley said, noting that many guests are from urban locations and don't get the opportunity to enjoy bird-song and deer sightings.

"We just try to provide an experience that is unique," Lockwood said.

For more information, call the bed and breakfast at (618) 982-2916.

andrea.hahn@thesouthern.com

618-529-5454 x15076