Meet the Locals: Claudia from Vermont

In the snowy woods just outside of Stowe, Claudia Stauber has built a series of cozy log cabins all by herself.

Photographs by Tara Rice

The Local

Claudia Stauber was sitting on the floor of her log cabin meditating one morning when an idea suddenly popped into her mind. She was alone when it happened, surrounded only by her animals, the walls of her home, and outside, several feet of winter snow. “The idea was to build more log cabins and to build them myself,” she said. “I was so stunned by the thought that I said, ‘What?’ out loud.”

Claudia is originally from Bavaria, the southeast corner of Germany that’s home to soaring alps, thick forests, sprawling lakes, quaint villages, and historic castles. But she says that when she first arrived in the Washington D.C. area in 1992, her first thought was, “I’ll never leave this place again — I’m home.”

Claudia lived in D.C. for 11 years, engrossed in what she calls the “rat race.” Then, after separating from her then-husband, she started thinking about Vermont.

“We didn’t have real winters in D.C., but I had heard that in Vermont they had log cabins in the woods where people sometimes get snowed in for days. To me that seemed like nirvana,” she said. Claudia loves winter, so she bought a cabin sight unseen and headed north — where winter can last much of the year.

Her Home

When Claudia arrived at her new home, just outside the ski town of Stowe, she found out that the rural cabin she had purchased was structurally sound but “a nightmare” on the inside. She had never remodeled a home before, but was determined to try. “At the time, I didn’t have the money to pay anybody. So I went to the hardware store and said, ‘I need to build a wall, what do I do first?’ At first, they dismissed me and told me to hire someone. But when I convinced them I was doing it myself, they told me the basics. Then, I’d return the next day and say, ‘Okay, what’s the next step?’ And in that way, I basically learned every day as I went.”

It was after Claudia remodeled her original cabin that she got the idea to build several more. She ordered locally sourced lumber, doors, and windows, with the intent to have help this time, but ultimately found herself in the same DIY situation. “I had hired two people to help me build the second cabin, but on the day we were supposed to start, nobody showed up,” she said. “I had $40,000 of lumber just lying in front of my foundation and I thought, ‘Well, no one is going to help me. So I’d better start stacking those logs.’”

Remarkably, Claudia managed to construct the entire cabin by herself, one log at a time. “I believe that anybody can build a log cabin if they’re tenacious,” she said. “You get really strong really quickly.” After she finished the first log cabin, she built two more. None of them, she said, had anything like a predetermined floor plan. “I learned that if I don’t make a plan for the cabin, it all turns out great,” she said, “because I’m just going with the flow. When I lived in D.C., we built a house that was planned out to a T, and even in a house like that, you live in it for a month and say, ‘I wish I’d done that a little differently.’”

Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some occasional hiccups. “I don’t mind making mistakes,” she said. “In one of my cabins, I rebuilt the staircase three times because I kept testing it and not really liking it.” On another occasion, she discovered that the upcycled double doors she’d installed in her own cabin were unpleasantly drafty during the Vermont winter.

“At first, after I installed the door, I was saying, ‘That door is terrible; it’s really drafty.’ But then I decided to just build glass walls all around it, so now I have a sunroom.” In the summer, Claudia sometimes sleeps in that room with the windows open while the breeze and sound of croaking frogs drift inside.

Claudia now rents three of the four pet-friendly cabins [dogs are not only allowed, but encouraged] on her property, and lives in the fourth. There’s the tucked-away one-bedroom couples-only “karma cabin,” which some guests have claimed “saved their marriage,” according to Claudia. Then there’s the “party cabin,” with its large living room, wide porch, and outside fire pit. Then there’s the most “polished cabin,” in which Claudia used a tree trunk from her property to fashion a banister. “I try to incorporate as many things from nature as I can, because I love to live in the woods, so I try to make my cabins feel the same way — like the woods,” she said.

Her Neighborhood

Claudia’s house may feel remote, but it only takes her seven or eight minutes by car to get to town for her morning coffee run. “Stowe is a super cute little tourist town,” she said, with restaurants, gift shops, and antique stores galore — plus gyms and yoga studios for rainy days. The Ben and Jerry’s factory is only minutes away, too. But what Claudia’s neighborhood really has in spades? Breweries. “There are more breweries than grocery stores,” she said. “It’s amazing how much alcohol is being produced, considering that the entire state has less than 700,000 people [626,299, to be exact]. There are seven or eight breweries within a 20-minute drive from my house.”

Apart from town, Stowe is packed with outdoor activities for every season. Claudia’s house is next to a Vermont Association of Snow Travelers (VAST) trail, a snowmobile route that stretches from Massachusetts to Canada and is excellent for snowshoeing in the winter. There are also great ski slopes nearby. In the summer, visitors can kayak on nearby lakes, bike on mountain trails, and go for long hikes in the woods.

Many of Claudia’s guests use their time in her cottages to explore all that the charming resort town has to offer. But her favorite guests are the ones who shirk their itineraries completely, forget the sights, and simply stay in and around their cabin, sitting in the sun, eating fruit and vegetables from the garden, or relaxing inside while the snow falls.

“Most of my customers are from Boston, New York, or Connecticut. They’re used to lots of noise, lots going on every day, just busy, busy, busy,” she said. “Some of them come here with these packed itineraries, and then a week later, at the end of their trip, say, ‘We never left; we just laid in the hammock all day and went out to dinner.’ I love that.”

Claudia’s Vermont Picks

The VAST trail: “This trail goes all the way from Massachusetts to Canada, and it’s groomed regularly, but no one is ever on it, so I use it for cross country skiing. You can travel for hours and see absolutely no-one.”

Lost Nation Brewing: “This place is really close to my house — only about 2.5 miles, and all the food is locally sourced. In the summer it has really nice outdoor seating. But the best part is that it’s on the ‘rail trail,’ which is an old railroad track that’s been turned into a bike path. So people can go for a bike ride and then stop for lunch or dinner or a beer.”

Doc Ponds Restaurant and Bar: “This restaurant has sort of a low-key, pub vibe, but it’s run by the best chef in the state of Vermont. The food is just exceptional.”

Weisner Woods: “This is a great place to walk dogs or go snowshoeing in the winter. This place is just so nice after a snowfall.”

Moss Glenn Falls: “This place is only a mile and a half from my house. You can go into the river and wade around, or drop into little dipping pools where you can swim around a bit. Even on a hot and sunny day, if it’s 90 degrees everywhere else, it’s a perfect 75 degrees at the falls.”

About the author: Breena Kerr is a Maui-based freelance writer and journalist whose work appears in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Washington Post, CNN, and BBC, among others.

About the photographer: Tara Rice is a Brooklyn-based photographer focusing on projects related to education, gender equality, community service, and environmental conservation.