Memories of Lou Hallenbeck

I got this really enjoyable email from WCA member Debbie Byer and I thought I would share it with you. Her husband, Tom, is the grandson of Lou Hallenbeck. Here is Debbie's message:

"When we were first married (in 1972) we bought a tiny cabin on the stream side of Woodland Valley Rd. across from Pantherkill Rd. It had been built by Tom's grandpa Lou Hallenbeck in the 1950's and was in disrepair having been abandoned for years. At one time Lou had let a family live there when they fell on hard times. When we bought it there were four tiny rooms with nothing but old newspapers for insulation, no heat source, no water, very primitive. After we had renovated, added on and built the small barn that's still there today, we sold it and went back to school. Since then it's had at least three owners who have made other changes including adding a second floor.

A few years ago, when our kids were grown, we started coming back to Phoenicia for vacations and looked for another property in Woodland Valley. After five years a cabin came up for sale last June that just happened to be another one built by Tom's grandpa Lou in the 1950's! How weird is that? So we are now in the process of renovating another Lou Hallenbeck cabin (we often joke that he was the finest jack builder in Woodland Valley - he didn't believe in real foundations. His idea of a septic tank was to dig a large hole and line it with cement blocks. Leach field? "Don't need one."). We often wonder if we bit off more than we could chew but we try to think ahead to what it will be like when we finish it and how peaceful Woodland Valley is instead of concentrating on the rather large task.

The only thing missing this time around is Lou himself. When we did the first cabin he was alive and well and in his eighties, a fixture and living legend in the valley still running his antique lumber mill down on the curve near Simpsons (Romer Mt. Park), tending his garden and dispensing advice mixed with humor that had a bite. He'd rattle people by telling them his idol was Mussolini, wouldn't sell you any lumber if he didn't like you or was having an off day and had no problem telling you what he thought - about you or anyone else. One day a couple of pregnant girls living at the commune on Muddy Brook brought him some health food cookies they'd baked. "Threw them out the back door. They were so bad even the raccoons wouldn't eat them," he told us. He was such a charismatic guy. We still miss him.

Taped to the bottom of my computer screen is a picture by Jennifer Holz I printed from the web site a couple of weeks ago called "Rush Hour, WV Road, New Years Day." It's perfect."

- from Debbie Byer

Thanks for sending this Debbie!