Welcome to Colorado Central Magazine
The Monthly Magazine for People
who know where the heart is
In the January/February 2012 edition:
The Parlor House of Arbourville
Story and photos by Mike Rosso
Regular travelers on the east side of Monarch Pass have seen it. Just north of Maysville, the crumbling remains of a four-sided mansard roof rise like a sentinel above the guardrail on the south side of the highway. At 55 mph, that’s about all that motorists are likely to see, but closer inspection reveals an impressive piece of historic architecture that won’t likely survive any expansion plans on the part of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). Read the rest of this article
The Woes and Joys of an Experiment in the Off-Grid Life: Part I
Photo by Michael Hudson
By Magda Sokolowski
Since the day we met on a rutabaga farm more than ten years ago, my husband Michael and I have shared a dream of one day homesteading. Over the years, one variation of what this would look like gave way to another as we nurtured and fed our idea of greater self-sufficiency. Sometimes, we imagined a farm with goats from whose milk we would make cheese. The idea of a large organic garden and a seasonal vegetable market was always a favorite standby in our musings, and then sometimes, I found myself in one particular reverie that came back again and again: I had visions of myself sitting at a desk, breaking from the task of writing to look out the window of our hand-built cabin onto a large meadow with a sisterhood of peaks in the distance demanding attention. And to the left (or right) of the cabin, in a patch of piñons (or maybe they would be Douglas firs or Ponderosa), I could see Michael bear the axe down on a round of wood that would soon become our heat. Read the rest of this article
Home Sweet Home
Home Sweet Home by Padgett McFeely
Home
By John Mattingly
My father built the house where I and my two younger brothers grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado. By built I mean from basement stemwall to the kitchen cabinets. With occasional help from Harry and Gene, men my father worked with at Heath Engineering (now the Sundance Saloon on Highway 14 east of Fort Collins), my father did everything from excavation to electrical, framing to roofing, plaster to plumbing, floor covering to cabinets. We even had a fireplace. Father built the house in one spring and summer, mostly in hours after work and on weekends. Read the rest of this article
