These Unique Calif. Cabins Becoming a Thing of the Past

(TNS) – In 1947, Paul Hugo’s great-uncle built a small, 20-by-30-foot cabin in El Dorado National Forest near Lake Tahoe. It was his first time constructing a home, with only the help of his similarly experienced siblings, so by the following year, the little house had collapsed. But that didn’t deter him. He had purchased a permit for a still relatively young U.S. Forest Service program designed to allow more Americans access to the outdoors. He wanted to build something that would last for generations of his family to enjoy.

The 700-square-foot cabin he built the following year, in 1948, had no insulation. Curtains separated the rooms, and the sink emptied straight outside. There was only an outhouse. The small vacation home became one of the just over 6,000 Forest Service cabins established in California, most before 1950. The program would cease to add new permits in the 1970s, making them a rare commodity.

The second home was a cherished getaway for the family, shared by Hugo, his mother and his four siblings, who had no plans ever to sell the property. But in August 2021, the Caldor Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in California history, burned 175 of these cabins in its march up and over the Sierra Nevada crest, from Placerville to the Tahoe Basin. Hugo’s beloved family cabin didn’t survive the flames.

The Caldor Fire caused the largest loss of these types of historic properties since the program’s inception. Their numbers had already begun to dwindle in recent years, but as fires devastated more of the state’s landscape, the quaint Forest Service cabins became more endangered. California has lost more than 440 cabins — a devastating blow to the state where more cabins were built than any other. California’s Forest Service cabins make up 40 percent of the inventory in the nationwide program.

For Hugo, building the cabin a third time may be the hardest iteration yet, as rebuilding them is no simple task. Three years after the fire, he’s still in the middle of a costly, multiyear effort, jumping through plenty of bureaucratic hoops along the way, to rebuild his second home — a process that will likely take five or six years. For many of his neighbors, rebuilding was too daunting. They’re turning in their coveted permits one by one, meaning many of the few remaining home lots could disappear forever.

A priceless permit

These novel vacation homes were always supposed to be limited in number. In 1915, Congress established the program allowing for recreational residences on National Forest land, hoping to facilitate more ways for American families to enjoy nature. At the time, interested parties could pay somewhere between $10 and $25 for a permit (about $311-$777 by today’s standards), then lasting 30 years, which would allow them to build a cabin up to 1,400 square feet in California.

The program spread across more than 90 U.S. National Forests, totaling nearly 20,000 cabins at its height. Many owners constructed their rustic cabins by hand, erecting them without electricity, plumbing or insulation. The homes are largely grouped into “tracts,” which later would band together to install modern conveniences like water. Most are only accessible during the summer months, with snow limiting visitors in the winter.

Low permit fees came under scrutiny in 1955, when Congress pushed for the cabins to be assessed according to market value. Even with modest accommodations, this made fees balloon, causing an uproar among owners and making the cabins cost-prohibitive for some. The issue was debated and changed frequently, until 2016, when a new tier system was finally established.

Each cabin now belongs to one of 11 tiers, with yearly fees ranging from $650 to $5,650. In addition, owners must obtain a special use permit every 20 years, as well as pay state and local taxes.

In 1976, the Forest Service stopped issuing new permits, capping the number of cabins in the program. Now totaling around 14,000 cabins nationally, only 3% typically get new ownership each year, making these coveted properties hard to come by on the real estate market, according to National Forest Homeowners, an organization that represents the cabin owners.

Part of what makes these cabins unique is their low price tag. Most cabins sell for about half of what a typical home would sell for in that area, but that’s due to the very big catch of not owning the land. Plus, the permit renewal isn’t guaranteed — the Forest Service could revoke it at any time, though that’s uncommon.

The other big downside? Since the buyer won’t own the land, there are almost no traditional financing options. So, it may be half the price, but the buyer has to have all that cash on hand. And many may be turned off by another strict rule: no vacation rentals. Full-time residency is also not allowed — buyers must have a full-time residence elsewhere when purchasing.

That’s not where the rules end. The homes are meant to blend into the natural surroundings, and the Forest Service even regulates what paint colors an owner can use outside (whites and blues, for example, would likely get rejected, while greens and browns are usually OK). Owners also can’t establish a lawn, plant certain non-native plants, or put up birdhouses or clotheslines. Some homes and districts are deemed historic and may be subject to even more restrictions.

Still, to many people, owning a cabin in the woods near Lake Tahoe is a dream.

Complexities of building on government-owned land

After the Caldor Fire, some cabin owners are going to great lengths to rebuild. Tony Franks, a cabin owner in El Dorado National Forest, grew up spending summers in the cabin his grandparents and great-grandparents built together in 1948. They used what they found on the land to construct the home, Franks said, using red fir stumps and rocks as the foundation. That cabin left an imprint on six generations of his family, as Franks became a grandfather himself just a few years ago. But now, it’s gone, destroyed by the Caldor Fire.

Franks said if he lost his primary residence in Stockton today, he probably wouldn’t care much about what he’d lost. He’d move on. But his cabin had so many memories and history tied to it. He had hoped to one day pass it on to his kids. The loss has been heartbreaking. “There was a massive amount of grieving that took place,” Franks said. “… It’s really hard to describe how tough it is to lose something like that. So when it happened, we kind of, you know, we were at a loss for what to do, and we just kind of banded together.”

In the Caldor Fire’s aftermath, cabin owners began to get in touch with one another. After some “crying it out” and “hugging it out,” Franks said the Caldor Cabin Owners Recovery Project was born. That’s how he met Hugo. CCORP started reaching out to others in the burned tracts, having monthly meetings about what to do next.

The first hurdle was cleaning up the burned areas. Initially, FEMA wasn’t going to fund the debris cleanup, but after CCORP lobbied the disaster recovery agency, FEMA eventually did complete the work.

Franks said that FEMA’s work saved him a $73,000 bill. Extra expenses like debris cleanup aren’t something most of his neighbors could endure, he said. Most of his neighbors come from lower-middle-class or middle-class backgrounds and have owned the cabins for decades. He said they’re firefighters, teachers, law enforcement officers — not the Bay Area tech folk most people assume own a Tahoe summer home. Franks is a high school teacher and football coach. “These are the types of people that were drawn to this program,” Franks said, noting that anyone with more wealth is buying property on private land. “We’re a little bit of a different breed.”

He said he’s determined to rebuild — even if it’s coming all out of pocket. Franks did not have fire insurance, a common decision among owners of Forest Service cabins. An estimate from an NFH survey found that 60% of the Caldor Fire-affected homeowners did not have fire insurance. Some still have legacy insurance policies from traditional carriers, but more homeowners likely have the California FAIR plan — a state fire insurance program reserved for those who own property where they can’t obtain traditional fire insurance.

The cost of insurance is so high, the math just didn’t make sense for some people like him, Franks said. The cost of his premiums was rising, and he figured he’d just hang on to that money and invest it elsewhere. If something were to happen, he’d rebuild with that money, and that’s what he’s doing. He recently submitted preliminary plans to the Forest Service for a new 850-square-foot cabin.

Preventing them from disappearing, wildfire by wildfire

Three years after the Caldor Fire, the rebuilding process has only just begun. No one has a building permit yet, so it’s unlikely anyone would be able to start rebuilding this year — the Forest Service took almost two years to assess each lot’s rebuilding potential. Plus, costs of materials and labor have skyrocketed in recent years, and contractors are busy with rebuilding private home projects in the area, which are often more lucrative. The challenges keep piling up.

If an owner wants to rebuild, they had to submit preliminary designs to the Forest Service by July 31, 2024. If they don’t plan to rebuild, an owner is required to return their lot to its natural state (which can mean filling in or ripping out any utilities like septic tanks or water lines, costing at least a few hundred dollars and some hard work) and terminate their permit with the Forest Service. By the Forest Service’s most recent count, 61 have turned them in so far. Once a permit is terminated, there’s no path to rebuilding a home on the lot, as the Forest Service does not sell the empty lots and issue new permits. Sixty-one cabins just disappeared.

There are a myriad of reasons not to rebuild. One is emotional — the trees an owner used to gaze at from their deck are largely gone or charred, and the surrounding area is pockmarked with burnt vegetation. For a woman who had her wedding just outside her cabin in the nearby meadow, looking out at the desolate land hurts too much. It just doesn’t feel like the same place anymore. Another common complaint is the lengthy rebuild process. Especially for older folks, five or six years is just too long to wait to enjoy the area again. Finally, there’s the financial strain. Often, paying out of pocket isn’t an option for uninsured houses.

But Hugo and Franks, with their organization, are fighting to keep cabins from disappearing from the program, in one way or another. They’ve created a partnership program, where a current owner can team up with a prospective buyer and enter an agreement to rebuild a home on the property. The new buyer would pay for the rebuild, and the current owner would sell it once the cabin is constructed, since under Forest Service rules, people can’t sell a cabin that’s not there. Doug Gann, a former NFH president who is helping with this “matchmaking process,” as he calls it, estimates the seller could at least walk away with $20,000 to $30,000 they wouldn’t get otherwise. “It feels a little bit backward I know,” Gann said.

Most importantly, ideas like matchmaking are keeping the program alive. So far, there are two established partnerships, with several still in the works. Meanwhile, the group is still trying to get the word out. “We won’t save them all. Some just don’t want to deal with this,” Gann said.

Another option would be for the Forest Service to amend its rules and allow the remaining owners to sell their surviving improvements. Even if a cabin were leveled, a septic system or a water system might be left behind, which still holds value for anyone wanting to rebuild. That’s prohibited right now — a sale must include a habitable cabin — but they’re fighting to change that, noting that each owner is still paying property taxes for the lost cabin each year.

Neither avenue to save these cabins from disappearing from the program is condoned by the Forest Service. “Anything that appears that the cabin owners are trying to sell their lots before it’s rebuilt, essentially selling the improvements, is not something we’re allowing,” said Andrew Mishler, the district ranger for the Placerville Ranger District in El Dorado National Forest, adding they have support from the federal National Forest office.

Participating in an arrangement like this could even come with risks, Mishler said. “We as an agency have the ability to say yes or no to a permit transfer, which is essentially what that would become, and if it appears in any way that that is what happened, we do reserve the right to not process that permit,” he said.

Hugo and Franks said they’re not surprised to hear the Forest Service’s response to their program, though they said the Forest Service hasn’t said this to them directly. But they wouldn’t be fighting for this if they saw another way. “We wouldn’t find ourselves in this situation if the Forest Service would provide us with a path to repopulate our cabin tracts,” Franks said. “The essence of this whole dilemma is, in the case of catastrophic loss, there’s not a path to rebuild.”

CCORP argues that if these cabins aren’t rebuilt, it will be a hit to local economies. A recent study by the NFH found that across the 24 states with cabins, owners contribute $141 million annually. Plus, the Forest Service will lose the permit fees owners usually pay every 20 years, about $33 million annually.

The economic impacts are easy to argue, but Hugo said the loss of community is what he fears most. Since many of the cabins are owned by generations of family members, he grew up alongside some of his neighbors each summer, and until the fire came, he would walk along his tract of 52 cabins and rattle off everyone’s name. “It’s not so much the loss of the cabin so much as the loss of community,” Hugo said.

And CCORP and the NFH know this isn’t the last time a wildfire will destroy swaths of cabins. The group has drafted a bill it hopes to push through Congress requiring Forest Service regulations to be updated to accommodate the modern crisis. Right now, Mishler said he’s not aware of any conversations going on at a local or National Forest Service level to create a process to address it.

CCORP’s bill could take years to get approval, but only then, there may be a path to new permits for a new generation of owners. “[These cabins are a] sanctuary,” Franks said. “We all need something that provides for us some level of respite from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.”

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