Conservationist Aldo Leopold's forest service cabin available for rent

TRES PIEDRAS — On the edge of the Carson National Forest and backed by a large rock formation, the home conservationist Aldo Leopold built to live in during his time as a forest supervisor has long inspired writers and ecologists, but soon anyone will be able to stay there.

At $175 a night, Leopold’s craftsman house will be the first cabin for rent on National Forest land in New Mexico. The price point was set to try to make the cabin affordable to a wide range of visitors. Restoration of Leopold’s home began at least 35 years ago, after it fell into disrepair in the latter half of the 20th century. Cabin rentals begin in May, but can already be booked online at recreation.gov. Many of the dates for this summer have been reserved.

“It’s really important to be able to share these kind of nodes on the landscape, where you can be here and sit on this porch and think about how maybe Aldo was thinking about what he was going to write in ‘Sand County Almanac,’” said Angie Krall, district ranger for Carson National Forest’s West Zone. “It’s a very special thing to be able to experience that in place. It’s very visceral.”

There is no Wi-Fi, encouraging visitors to unplug and reflect on the history of the space.

“It’s not a (Vacation Rental By Owner). We need you to help us clean up and pack your trash and bring your own bedding and all those amenities,” she said.

Leopold is best-known for his 1949 book “A Sand County Almanac,” which helped shape contemporary forest management and the foundations of scientific wildlife management.

“He did a lot of supervision of the regional fire service, and became very concerned about erosion that was happening, and instituted programs that are actively still managing the land, restoring the land,” said Dr. Richard Rubin, volunteer steward with Friends of Mi Casita. Rubin has volunteered much time to helping the restoration effort and written about Leopold.

He’s also helped a fundraising effort through the Taos Community Foundation to help pay for major improvements like exterior painting, installing stair railings and repairing the porches.

In 1911, Leopold was already working for the Forest Service and was transferred to the Carson National Forest to become deputy forest supervisor, and later forest supervisor. The Forest Service allocated $650 for him to build a supervisor’s house. It was built in spring and summer 1912 when Leopold was courting his soon-to-be wife, Estella Bergere.

He stayed in New Mexico until 1924 and notably proposed the first national wilderness area in the Forest Service System: the Gila Wilderness Area in southern New Mexico.

The two story-cabin is built of natural materials and features broad windows. The roof has historically accurate cedar shingles — except unlike in Leopold’s time, the shingles are fire resistant. Money for the new roof came from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Inside the cabin is a basalt stone fireplace and wood floors. No pets are allowed in order to preserve the flooring.

Rubin doesn’t know if the clawfoot tub in the bathroom is original to the home, but visitors can sleep in the ground floor bedroom where Leopold rested his head over 100 years ago. There are three more bedrooms upstairs, each with ample natural light. In the 1930s, the house’s roof was raised so the upper floor could be turned into a bunk for members of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Groups of up to eight guests will be able to book a visit.

There are eight historic features listed for the property on the National Registry of Historic Places, including a ranger station adjacent to the house and an octagonal corral nearby that was used for holding feral horses. The house is listed as the Tres Piedras administrative site on the registry.

“It’s a dry place,” Rubin said. “So there’s some interesting historic features about what they did originally to capture water, like the stock pod ... the cistern. There’s a concrete cube up there, which is a water catchment for snow and ice, which then gravity feeds into the house.”

The cabin is also home to a library of books related to Leopold and conservation. In 2012, the Leopold Writing Program began using the cabin to host two writing residencies annually. Some of those one-month residencies have resulted in significant ecological books, like “Eager, The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” by Ben Goldfarb. Those residencies will continue, with a writer scheduled to stay in November.

The cabin will also continue to be used for community outreach events and kids’ educational programs. As renters pay to stay, that money will be put back into maintaining the cabin, hopefully making it possible to rent the space in all four seasons, Krall said.

Cathy Cook is a news reporter for the Albuquerque Journal. Reach her via email at ccook@abqjournal.com.