Kremb de la Kremb Cabin: A History

When you pull up to our cabin, you can recognize ours as the second cabin–the one
with the red roof. Our cabin is part of a housing development from the 1920s. The elite of
Spokane used to use this area for their outings, hence the name, Tessemini Outing Club.

I refer so much online and in person to our cabin out here in Spirit Lake, Idaho. For this reason, I thought it was about time to write a short (I think it’s possible!) history about this place. Then in the coming weeks, I plan to post favorite parts of this special place of ours nestled in the panhandle of Idaho.

• We age this place with Vincent. Since he was 2 months old when we got it, the cabin for us is one year older than him. That makes this our 14th year out here at Spirit Lake.
• Kevin and I had been overseas teaching for over five years, and we still did not see a return date for the US. We did know that we no longer wanted to stay with folks during our summers home–especially now that we had a newborn infant. This cabin had only been on the market for a week. The afternoon we saw it, we were sold. We made an offer that evening.
• We do not have an official year of when it was built, but we do know it dates back as early as 1921.
• We have only stayed out here in the winter once. The cabin has not been winterized, so it’s freezing out here! The one time we did stay in the winter, we got lucky with our spirited Gigi. *wink wink*
• With beds, this place can sleep 13 and with the couch 15. We’ve had more out here with the help of air mattresses and tents!
• The cabin is kind of like a little motel. Upstairs there’s a kitchen, great room, bathroom, and screened in porch. Then there are three bedrooms below the porch that are accessed from the outdoors. A few years ago we added a bathroom down there for the people sleeping below. The first room is called the Love Shack, the second room The Family Room or Indian Room, and the third is called the bunk room. But more on those details later….
• There are two beds out on the porch. We consider this the master bedroom as those two beds are mine and Kevin’s. They’re the best beds in the cabin.
• On the main floor, there’s a kitchen with a bar that connects to the great room. In the great room there’s a river rock fireplace. We also have two beds up in the great room. This is usually where the kiddos sleep–unless grandparents are visiting. These two beds belong to them.
• Right away we found that we needed to add a washer and dryer. For awhile though we joined the locals up at the laundromat.
• It’s an open cabin. We’ve had guests from all over. Our family always comes out plus many friends made through our international adventures. In the upstairs bathroom, we have pictures on the walls depicting all the visitors…When will you come!?

This is the view of the house from the water. It’s an old little cabin.
The kids love coming here: they anticipate our arrival like the coming of Christmas.

Our first couple of years we didn’t have a dock nor a boat. Over the years, the water toys keep coming.
Our beach also fluctuates depending on the water level from the river that feeds it. There was not much snow this
winter on Mt. Spokane hence the large beach already in July.

Here’s the other side of our cabin. This is the staircase that leads to the downstairs rooms and the beach.
Before, this cabin and our neighbor’s cabin to the left were owned by one family. They first sold ours, then theirs.
We have the best beach neighbors ever, the Parsons!