What holds a cabin together?
Most of us would point to the walls, the roof, the windows, or perhaps the stone fireplace. Those are the parts we admire. They are what make a cabin feel warm, welcoming, and memorable.
But ask a builder, and you may receive a different answer.
Behind every finished wall is an unseen structural system: thousands of nails, screws, joist hangers, steel straps, beams, brackets, and anchors working together to hold the cabin in place.
Most cabin owners never notice them. No one compliments them, photographs them, or points them out to visitors. Yet when mountain winds howl, heavy snow settles on the roof, or the ground freezes, these hidden components do what they were designed to do. They hold everything together. Remove them, and even the most beautiful cabin would not stand for long.
Pinehaven was built the same way.
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What Really Holds Pinehaven Together?
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When people think about Pinehaven, they picture towering pines, family cabins, lifelong friendships, summer picnics, and breathtaking mountain views. They benefit from roads, water service, wildfire-mitigation efforts, community gatherings, and other improvements that generations of Pinehaven volunteers helped advocate for, support, and sustain.
What is easy to miss is the volunteer framework that gradually developed behind Pinehaven’s growth and stability.
Pinehaven was initially guided by its founders and developers, but as the community grew, cabin owners increasingly took responsibility for shaping its future. On Sunday, August 9, 1987, a group of Pinehaven property owners gathered at 3:00 p.m. in the conference room of the Cuchara Inn for an organizational meeting. During that meeting, they voted to form a Pinehaven property owners association and appointed committees to prepare bylaws, nominate officers, and develop a budget.
Two weeks later, the newly organized association elected its first officers and executive board and considered its governing documents and budget. Together, these meetings marked Pinehaven’s transition into a self-governing community led by its own property owners.(1)
Since that time and for many decades, volunteer board members, officers, committee leaders, and countless others have faithfully provided the structure that helped Pinehaven thrive. They devoted evenings to meetings after long workdays. They studied budgets, planned projects, solved problems, navigated disagreements, and responded to emergencies. They also invested countless unpaid hours helping maintain Pinehaven’s roads, services, shared spaces, and essential infrastructure, whether by doing the work themselves, hiring others, organizing volunteers, or pressing public agencies to act.
Like the hidden structural system inside a well-built cabin, much of their work remained out of sight, but its strength was experienced by everyone who called Pinehaven home.
Yet generation after generation of cabin owners has benefited from their faithful service. Through seasons of growth, change, challenge, and opportunity, these volunteers helped provide the strength, stability, and continuity that allowed Pinehaven to flourish.
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Mining Gold from Old Minutes
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I am a self-admitted history nerd, and studying Pinehaven’s past has become one of my favorite pursuits since Rhonda and I purchased our cabin in early 2021. Since then, we have searched county records, traced the stories of Pinehaven’s founders, and interviewed longtime residents about the community’s earliest years. Put another way, we have spent an unreasonable amount of time getting excited about faded minutes, old deeds, and documents that cause most people’s eyes to glaze over.
By then, we had spent three years researching and writing about Pinehaven’s founders and uncovering much of the community’s documented history. But one question kept nagging at us: How many cabin owners had quietly given years of service to Pinehaven without their contributions ever becoming part of its recorded story?
After we shared that concern with Tom Thompson, then president of the Pinehaven Property Owners Association, he graciously opened the Association’s historical records to us. We scanned, digitized, and reviewed more than 500 pages of board minutes, annual membership meeting minutes, and related documents. For a history nerd, being handed 500 pages of old meeting minutes is basically Christmas morning. Tom became an invaluable collaborator, and this project would not have happened without his support and leadership.
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Making Sure Their Names Are Not Lost
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Our first goal was to bring these historical records into the modern age by digitizing them in a searchable PDF format. That made it possible to search decades of meeting minutes by topic, phrase, or name instead of hunting through hundreds of pages one at a time.
Using those records, we then compiled a historical record of Pinehaven’s volunteer leadership that can continue to grow as new information is discovered. The document lists, in alphabetical order, the men and women who served as officers, board members, committee leaders, and other key volunteers, based on the Association’s surviving records.
To strengthen its accuracy, the document has also been reviewed by other Pinehaven leaders. It will remain a living record, with the most current version permanently available through “Journal 103: Pinehaven’s Unsung Heroes” in the table of contents at www.CabinInThePines.org.
As you read through the names, you will undoubtedly recognize friends, neighbors, and familiar faces. Some have passed on, leaving behind a legacy of service that continues to benefit every cabin owner today. Others are still helping hold Pinehaven together, quietly investing their time and talents in the community they love.
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Add a Name. Share a Memory. Express Gratitude.
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Is someone missing from this list? If you know of an individual who served Pinehaven in a leadership role and should be recognized, please submit their name and information through this link.
If someone on the list made a difference in your family’s Pinehaven experience, would you consider taking a moment to leave a comment below? You might share a simple word of thanks, a favorite memory, a story about their service, or a brief tribute to someone who served Pinehaven and has since passed away. Each remembrance is a meaningful way to honor those whose volunteer efforts helped shape this special place.
The strongest cabins are held together by things we rarely see. The strongest communities are built much the same way.
To all the volunteers who have given your time, your wisdom, and your heart to Pinehaven, thank you. You strengthened far more than roads, budgets, and buildings. You strengthened a community.(2)
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Footnotes
Parenthetical numbers in the text (e.g., 5) correspond to the sequentially numbered citations listed below.
1. Pinehaven Property Owners Association, minutes of organizational meeting, August 9, 1987; and minutes of meeting, August 23, 1987.
2. Author’s note: In preparing this article, the author used AI-assisted tools for research support, proofreading, fact-checking, and stylistic refinement. The narrative, analysis, and historical interpretations are the author’s own, and responsibility for accuracy rests solely with the author. The blog’s research methodology statement is available at: https://cabininthepines.org/journal-81-methodology-sources-and-use-of-research-tools/
One Response
Reading through A History of Pinehaven’s Leadership feels a little visiting a Mount Rushmore of Pinehaven. Over 100 people who gave their time to Pinehaven, and every name deserves gratitude. Still, five volunteers stood out to me because of the extraordinary length, range, and consistency of their service. CLELAND “MAC” MCBURNEY may represent the clearest example of all-around service. Beginning as a founding Association member in 1987, he served as vice president, secretary-treasurer, treasurer, director, and on committees dealing with architecture, water and sewer, roads, Firewise, owner signs, and nominations. His documented service stretched across roughly three decades. Mac did not simply hold one position well; he repeatedly stepped wherever Pinehaven needed him. LEON SKAGGS stands out for remarkable endurance. A founding member who also served as president and vice president, he remained involved with the Architectural Committee for approximately twenty-five years and the Water and Sewer Committee for more than a decade. Those were not ceremonial assignments. They involved decisions affecting construction, community character, utilities, and Pinehaven’s long-term development. Few names in the record demonstrate that degree of sustained responsibility. JIM MARTEN caught my attention because of two demanding commitments carried simultaneously. He served as treasurer for nine years, safeguarding the Association’s finances, while also coordinating Pinehaven’s spruce worm control efforts from 2005 through 2022. That second role meant identifying a threat, organizing community-wide spraying, and maintaining equipment year after year. His record reflects the kind of practical, persistent service that may receive little attention until it is no longer being done. MADGE SHAW demonstrated another kind of faithfulness. Her name appears in connection with Pinehaven’s annual picnic nearly every year from 1988 through 2005, along with service as a director and on the Nominating Committee. It would be easy to dismiss picnic work as less important than budgets, roads, or utilities, but communities are held together by relationships as well as infrastructure. For nearly two decades, Madge helped create the gatherings where neighbors became friends and Pinehaven became more than a collection of cabins. CHARLES CHAUVIN stands out because his service crossed nearly every major area of community life. He served four years as president, later returned as a director, and contributed through the Nominating, Architectural, Water and Sewer, Picnic, and Firewise committees. His Firewise service alone extended across much of the period from 2013 through 2023. His record shows someone who continued serving long after completing Pinehaven’s highest elected office. These five names are not necessarily Pinehaven’s “top five” volunteers. The surviving minutes were never intended to measure devotion, record every hour worked, or identify every person who helped. Some service undoubtedly went undocumented. But based on the record that remains, McBurney, Skaggs, Marten, Shaw, and Chauvin illustrate five different forms of exceptional volunteerism: versatility, endurance, technical responsibility, community building, and lifelong commitment. Their names remind us that Pinehaven did not become a thriving community by accident. It was built and repeatedly strengthened by people willing to keep showing up.