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A Friendly Update: We’ve Moved!

Cabin in the Pines has a new home! We’re excited to share that the blog has officially moved to a new, dedicated website—designed to make it even easier to explore the history, stories, and resources of the Pinehaven Cabin Community in Cuchara, Colorado.

While the content on this site will remain available, all new posts, updates, revisions, and future additions will now be published exclusively on our new website.

We warmly invite you to visit us at www.cabininthepines.org and continue the journey with us there.

Thank you for being part of the Cabin in the Pines community—we look forward to welcoming you to our new home.

Thanks and Invitation to Participate

Our love for the Pinehaven community led to a desire to better understand its general history.  Three years ago, we began a deep dive into the 500-year history of the land that is now Pinehaven. Now we invite you join us on this journey.

Journal 1: Why We Created This Blog

When singing about his discovery of the Rocky Mountains, John Denver claimed to have "come home to a place he had never been before".(1) That’s how we felt when we stumbled upon Cuchara, Colorado. While traveling west on Highway 160, we saw a scenic highway sign pointing south called Highway of Legends (Highway 12). We turned around and decided to explore the unknown. 

Journal 2: Flags Over the Forest

What if you stood in the Cuchara Valley centuries ago? The air would still smell of pine, but no cabins or roads would break the silence. You’d see Ute hunters on horseback, Spanish explorers pushing north, or maybe hear the distant clink of miners' tools. It all depends on which flag was flying that decade. If the mountains could talk, they’d tell stories no textbook ever could.

Journal 3: Cuchara Camps, Catalyst for Growth

You step off a dusty wagon, the scent of pine and woodsmoke thick in the air. Around you, canvas tents flap gently along the Cuchara River, children chasing each other on narrow trails, and George Mayes waves from the porch of a rustic lodge, offering a hand and a promise: “You’ll sleep better here than you have in years.”

Journal 4: From Battlefield to Backwoods: Homesteader John L. Powell

The wind tugged at John Powell’s coat as he surveyed the land just north of Cuchara. It wasn’t much, just forest, rock, and possibility. But to a Civil War veteran with nothing but grit and a government promise, it looked like the future. 

Journal 5: John Vories and the Beginnings of Pinehaven

John Vories had big dreams.(1) He envisioned turning the rugged land into a peaceful resort, but lacked the funds to bring it to life. However, he began planning and working with what little he had. His first project? Designing a cabin area on a scenic hill overlooking what was then just a dirt road, now known as Highway 12. 

Journal 6: Steve Pierotti: Architect of Pinehaven

In the 1940s, amid the rugged peaks and whispering pines of the Cuchara Valley, a bold dream began to take root, and right at its center stood Steve Pierotti. A son of Huerfano County and a trusted friend of John C. Vories, Pierotti possessed a boundless energy and a vision that reached far beyond the valley floor. He could see what Pinehaven might one day become, and he had the grit to make it happen.

 

Journal 7: Lower Slopes Development and Filing #1

By the early 1950s, John C. Vories had decided to move on from Huerfano County. He offered to sell the resort land he had begun developing to his longtime friend, Steve Pierotti, for $3,700. Pierotti would become the most influential person to shape Pinehaven’s future.

Journal 8: Mid-Mountain Development and Filing #2

By the 1970s, Steve Pierotti was ready to take Pinehaven to the next level. With the success of Filing #1 behind him, he began planning Filing #2, a brand-new phase of development that would stretch across Roads 405, 406, 407, and extending portion of Road 401.(1) 

Journal 9: Country Road Take Me Home

How did a wilderness mountainside with narrow trails for roads evolve into a thriving cabin community?  This is the remarkable story of Pinehaven’s transformation from an untamed wilderness to a modern mountain cabin community. But it all started with a dirt road we now call Highway 12. 

Journal 10: From Lanterns to Lighbulbs

Long before porch lights flickered in Pinehaven, the cabins nestled on Raspberry Mountain were truly off the grid. Off-grid and deep in the forest, night falls like a velvet curtain. Life gets so dark you can’t see your own hand in front of your face, only feel the wilderness breathing around you. And then, at last, Pinehaven saw the light—literally.

Journal 40: Ravaged and Restored; The Logging History of Raspberry Mountain

Imagine this, you step out of your cabin one crisp morning, coffee in hand, expecting the familiar scent of pine and the soft whisper of wind through the trees. But instead of towering evergreens, your eyes meet a sea of stumps. Piles of sawdust lie where shadows once fell, and the forest’s green canopy has been replaced by open sky. Hard to imagine, but that nightmare nearly came true. 

Journal 45: Let Us Help You Tell Your Cabin’s Story

We invite you to be part of preserving Pinehaven’s story. By taking just a few minutes to complete a short online survey you can share the history of your cabin, how it was built, who has cherished it, and the memories it holds. Your story will become part of the Cabin in the Pines blog, ensuring that Pinehaven’s legacy is remembered through the voices of those who call it home.

Journal 46: Pinehaven Historic Timeline

Curious about the centuries of history beneath Pinehaven’s tall pines? Step into a journey that stretches back more than 500 years through explorers, settlers, and cabin builders to the very land where Pinehaven stands today. Explore our evolving historic timeline, continually enriched as fresh research and new stories come to light. The timeline is interactive and allow you to move it left or right and zoom in and out as you wish. 

Journal 48: Onboarding Your New Cabin

Buying a cabin in Pinehaven is more than just a real estate transaction, it’s stepping into a lifestyle shaped by mountains, seasons, and a close-knit community. From the rush of fresh snow in winter to the quiet rustle of aspen leaves in summer, your cabin will be both a retreat and a responsibility. But before you can fully relax into mountain living, there are a few important steps to take that will help you settle in smoothly, protect your investment, and connect with the community. What follows is a practical checklist of eight essential things, drawn from the experiences of longtime owners, that will help you navigate those first days and weeks after closing so your cabin truly becomes a home. 

Journal 49: Inside Pinehaven’s HOA

If If you’ve ever scratched your head wondering exactly what our HOA does, you’re not alone. Homeowners’ associations can sometimes feel like a maze of rules and processes, but at their core they exist to protect property values, preserve community character, and make sure shared resources are cared for fairly. Pinehaven’s HOA is no different.

Journal 50: How the Great Depression Changed Cuchara

Did anything good really come out of the Great Depression? If so, how did those hard years leave a lasting mark on Cuchara and shape the beginnings of Pinehaven?

Journal 51: The Mouache Story and the Cuchara Valley

What if the land beneath your cabin or favorite hiking trail still echoed with the footsteps of the Mouache Ute, the first people to call the Spanish Peaks home? This journal invites you into their world, tracing their migrations and history, uncovering their deep ties to southern Colorado, and revealing five ways their legacy continues to shape life in the Cuchara Valley today.

Journal 52: Buckskin Charley on Leadership

In recent decades, Americans have turned to history itself for leadership lessons, seeing in presidents, generals, and statesmen not just stories but practical guides for today’s challenges. Sapiah, Buckskin Charley, chief of the Ute people, embodied that same timeless wisdom, leading his people through upheaval in the high valleys around Cuchara in ways that still speak to us now.