PENDLETON, Ore. –When the Minam River Lodge was built in 1950, livestock hauled in most of the equipment.
A sawmill was constructed on site to build the lodge and cabins, but mules provided the muscle when a 400-pound refrigerator needed to travel the mountains to its new home deep in the woods.
Now, 56 years later, as the crumbling lodge and old refrigerator are being replaced, some things have changed but many have not.
The helicopters are new. Construction manager Ben Gates, of UP Architecture in Portland, conscripted them to make 97 supply drops into the 127-acre inholding that is surrounded entirely by the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Everything from timber to glass touched down at a small airfield within sight of the main lodge. At a cost of more than $2,000 an hour to rent a helicopter, just bringing in supplies cost “six figures,” said lodge owner Barnes Ellis.
Ellis is a former reporter for The Oregonian turned investment adviser who lives in Portland. He vacationed at the property growing up and purchased the property at auction in 2011.
“There is no forgetting this place,” he said.
But it needed work. Decades of erosion had rendered the main lodge unsalvageable, and a smattering of cabins and outbuildings needed major renovation or outright replacement.
For the past five years, that work has progressed. But this spring, after the slow melted, it hit high gear. The business has been closed for all of 2016 as the main lodge was destroyed and a new one erected.
“This has grown into a major, major project. If I knew when I started how much work it would take I’m not sure I would have started,” joked Ellis. “But now we’re into it and we’re going for it.”
The plan is to build a 4,000-square-foot luxury lodge in the middle of the Eagle Cap Wilderness, where visitors can enjoy high-quality food, running water, showers, electricity and numerous amenities. Electricity is currently supplied by a combination of solar power and gas generators, though Gates said when construction is complete, solar could supply nearly all the necessary power.
The cost will be steep –roughly $500 a night to rent a large cabin — and that does not include the cost of getting there. Ellis expects he will help his customers charter a plane from Enterprise, Joseph, or La Grande, Ore., to fly into the lodge.
For the more economical traveler, Minam River Lodge will offer raised platform beds with linens, in a teepee or wall tent, for roughly $100 a night. That allows customers to make use of communal showers and a wood-fired hot tub.
Ellis imagines the lodge as a place where both types of people will meet, converse, dine together and enjoy the natural world arrayed in front of them. The Minam River can be seen from the currently-under-construction deck, water that both threatened salmon and bull trout call home. Hunters will be another main customers base since they have nearby access to elk, bear, cougar, deer and more.
Ellis envisions visitors forking over $500 a night to fly in from places such as Portland or Boston and stay for a week, while others will arrive sweaty and hungry and looking for a place to rest their head for the night.
But first they’ve got to build it.
Isaac Trout has served as an on-site construction superintendent, living and working at the site for much of the year. An avid outdoorsman, he used his bow to bag a mammoth elk within hiking distance from the property last year.
He said the opportunity to live and work in such a beautiful place has been incredible, as is building “something that will be historic.”
It hasn’t been easy. Trout and Gates have had to figure out how to erect their lodge without the use of cranes and other benefits of modern construction. Getting the main joist in place with just a few hands and an ATV took planning and ingenuity.
But that has brought another kind of benefit.
“It has forced us to plan in the way that contractors always want to do, but never have time for,” said Gates. There is no running to a hardware store for an extra box of nails or sheet of plywood. Everything had to be accounted for and planned to get rigged up for a helicopter ride and then its final place on the construction site.
Sweyn Wall, of the U.S. Forest Service recreation program, said the lodge has been good neighbors with the Forest Service. There are other inholdings within the 361,000-acre wilderness area, including a few in the upper Minam area.
The construction project is halfway complete, and crews expect it to be open next spring. It is unknown if the lodge will open year-round, but when it is operating it can house up to 30 guests and will employ 11-12 people full-time. Other contractors will see benefits from the business, including pilots and horseback outfitters who will help ferry and entertain guests.
