Last week, Lee Anne and I went to the Cabot Pueblo Museum. We got to walk around the grounds waiting for the next tour. The sign below was just a tad off-putting.
Cabot built the whole thing by himself, scrounging lots of the building materials. When he arrived at Desert Hot Springs, there were a total of 9 homesteaders. When they decided they couldn't make it in the desert, he would buy their house and salvage the timbers. He never wanted to 'waste' any wood so he never cut the length of a timber. That's how the size of a room was determined.
The 'adobe' has lasted much longer than usual because Cabot added a handful of cement to each brick.
Needless to say, Cabot employed every means to conserve water, actively reclaiming grey water which he used to water his plants. At times, he would put water on a back patio creating a desert-style swamp cooler. He also used very small windows strategically placed to draw in breezes. He claimed that it never went above 85 F. in the house even when it was 120 F. outside in the desert. I am skeptical.
It's hard to see in these pictures, but the windows are pieced together from some shards as small as 4 inches by 6 inches. I don't remember seeing lead, as in stained glass windows; I believe he used wood in between pieces of glass.
Pictures were not allowed inside the Museum. They are tiny rooms and the first bedroom he made for himself looked like a coffin with an open door. The bed was raised and it's the only section that still has a dirt floor. It's very claustrophobic. In later years, he made a sweet apartment upstairs for his second wife, but it seems he kept to his old bedroom downstairs. If she got cold upstairs, she would bang on the floor and he would stoke the fire in the fireplace near his bedroom. If she was warm enough, she would close the damper.
Cabot was not only an entrepreneur, having made his fortune many times, beginning when he was 16 years old, but he was also an accomplished painter. He sold hand painted post cards to tourists at the trading post/train station. One tourist asked him how much for the painted leather vest he was wearing and Cabot took it off his back and sold it to him for $5. He added vests to his goods for sale. He also rented out rooms at his Pueblo to artists.
Below is the fantastic view from the Cabot Pueblo Museum. It was a lovely sunny and breezy day. We could have sat on a bench for hours under one of the trees in the garden.
More from the same outing below.
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Sunday, April 7th
Above, Mom and I are donning hard hats to see the club house at the new Del Webb estates. Basically, the club house is only framed. There were pictures of what will go where, but it wasn't worth the walk through. We were told that there will be a grand opening in December. (We had hoped for cookies. There were none.)
When finished, there will be 1,029 free standing houses. There are about 5 basic models, beginning at about $400,000 with many possible upgrades. (White kitchen cabinets, instead of brown is $1,000. The landscaping package is $8,000 ...)
The club house will sport two outdoor pools, one is covered. The other one allows you to enter as if it is a beach.
Below is another upgrade -- the extra patio space. I liked the view. I think this was the higher priced model. We looked at the most expensive and the least. The most expensive was about 2200 square feet, the other 1400 square feet. I liked the smaller one better.
More view.
Outside of the sales office.
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Monday, April 8
Today is the first time this year that Palm Springs reached 100 F. I heard that on the TV weather so it must be true. I only saw up to 98 F. on my phone, but what do I know?
I did stay inside and finished the baby quilt and potholders.
Before I finished the corners on the potholders
Have a great week! Ciao!
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