Cabin Karma
A Burntside retreat links its owners with a lakeside legacy
By Margaret A. Haapoja
Photo by ColdSnap Photography
They soon heard about a log cabin nestled into a level lot on a sheltered bay that sounded like a perfect fit. But when they sent a letter of inquiry to the property’s owner, Walter Jarvi, care of Dead River, Burntside Lake, Ely, the letter was returned as undeliverable. The next year, Jack and Sue walked into an Ely real estate agent’s office and explained what they were looking for. They were shocked to discover Jarvi’s property had come on the market just 10 days earlier. They bought it on the spot.
From that moment on, Walter Jarvi became an important figure in the lives of the Cornwell family.
In the years that followed, the Cornwells spent summers in the cozy log cabin that Jarvi had built from trees he harvested long ago on the property. They became good friends with the man who had immigrated to the area from Finland in 1919, and learned that Jarvi originally bought the land in 1944 for $500. He told them that he could have purchased another 70 acres across the river for $1,000 back then if he’d had the money. That land is now state and federal forest.
A Legendary Garden
Walter Jarvi wasn’t the only one who left his mark on the original cabin, and on the Cornwells. Walter’s wife, Martha, was a dedicated gardener, and Sue felt compelled to continue her tradition of displaying planters along the lakeshore. “Everybody talked about Martha’s flowers,” Sue says. “She helped build the log cabin with her husband, and she loved flowers, and that was in the days before people had many flowers.”
Photo by ColdSnap Photography
The Cornwells have learned that vacation-home gardening presents special challenges. To address these, they are incorporating more drought-resistant and native plants into their landscape. Along the beach, a bed filled with bee balm, rudbeckia, gaillardia, Joe Pye weed, and swamp milkweed attract dozens of monarch butterflies. Sue adds moisture gel to her containers to extend the time between waterings, and also depends on thoughtful neighbors to water when necessary.
Making It Their Own
Throughout the years, the Cornwells gradually modernized the cabin to fit their needs, while keeping its original knotty pine paneling and tiny sauna. Eventually the family, which now includes two sons-in-law and three grandchildren, outgrew the little log getaway. In 1998, Jack drew up plans and hired local contractor Paul Mackie to build a small cottage next door. Interior designer Ellen Cashman, owner of Bare Bones Studio in Ely, was also involved from the beginning. She helped the family modify the plans to get the space they needed. “Often people don’t plan their furniture when they’re planning their construction,” Cashman says. “We plotted out all of the furniture when we designed the layout.“Perhaps with the Jarvis in mind, Sue was inspired by pictures in a magazine of a Finnish-style retreat in upstate New York. She decided on a blue and lemon yellow color scheme and a light finish on the walls. Cashman characterizes the cottage’s design as a fusion of Finnish, northern Minnesota, Western Lodge, and Adirondack styles. She helped Sue and Jack select furniture that would match the aesthetic they had in mind and function well within the small scale of the house.
Sue wanted the kitchen to have a European look with glass cabinet doors and open shelves. Pickled white stain on the 10-foot pine walls and ceiling brightens the interior. Transom windows above large picture windows flood the room with light and provide a panoramic vista of the lake. “The transoms give a feeling of more space,” Cashman says. “Plus, up here there’s so much beauty in the sky that it’s nice to get a ground-to-sky view.” A shelf separates the two sets of windows in the living room and bedrooms. “In cottages like this, it was traditional in the 1930s to put shelves above doors and windows as extra storage space for books, puzzles, and games,” she says.
Braided wool rugs from Sandy’s Rugs in St. Paul add warmth to the light maple laminate floors. Original work by Ely artists, including paintings by Carl Gawboy and several prints by photographer Jim Brandenburg, adorn the walls.
Looking back, the Cornwells agree that the decision they made in 1981 was one of the best of their lives. A lifetime of canoeing in Canada, the Northwest Territories, and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area has given the Cornwell family a keen appreciation for the relative isolation of their cottage. “Bird and wildlife watching couldn’t be better,” says Sue. “And now as we get older, being on Burntside is a way to enjoy the North Country without paddling and portaging.”
With each addition and alteration they’ve made, the Cornwell family has tried to honor and respect Walter and Martha Jarvi. “[The cottage] has become a generational link of sorts for us,” Sue says. “Since this is an old-fashioned kind of place, we really appreciate the people and plants that have been a part of its history.”
Margaret A. Haapoja is a Bovey, Minn. freelance writer.
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