We weren’t looking for ten acres. At first, we weren’t really looking for property at all.
About two years ago, we discovered the extensive network of mountain biking trails in this part of the mountains. We started coming back regularly to ride and explore, and somewhere along the way Jerry began casually looking at property listings in the area. Mostly, it was curiosity.
One of the properties that appeared early in our searches was ten acres of forest and meadow bordering the National Forest. It was beautiful, but completely impractical, we thought. Ten acres seemed extravagant. A pipe dream. We kept looking.
Then, in May 2026, a very affordable little cabin on about two acres came on the market. We went to see it. It was brand new but tiny, essentially two rooms with a kitchen and a combined bedroom and living area. We couldn’t quite decide whether it was right for us. Within a week, it sold.
That changed something. By June, we had gone from casually watching listings to seriously looking for a developed property we could use as our own mountain getaway. We toured two homes. Both had possibilities, but neither felt quite right.
And the ten acres kept calling us back. It had come off the market and then returned. It couldn’t be subdivided. It bordered the National Forest. Although it didn’t have a house, it had something the other properties didn’t: possibilities.
That June, we rented an Airbnb nearby for an extended family mountain weekend. We spent more time in the area, explored more of the forest and started imagining what it might be like to have a place of our own here.
In early July, we approached the ten-acre property in a completely different way, on foot from a trail in the National Forest. We hiked through ponderosa pine, piñon and juniper forest until we reached the property from the forest side. Later that month, we came back and hiked the acreage itself.
That’s when everything changed. The more we explored, the more we discovered. There was a roadside meadow and, above it, a flat building site where a manufactured home once stood. An old ATV trail wound upward through the forest, while another trail climbed the ridge directly from the building site. There was already electricity and membership in a community water cooperative.
And then there was the barn.
Its old stone walls and massive weathered timbers had survived decades of mountain weather. The structure was clearly showing its age, but it had so much character that it was impossible not to imagine what it had once been and what pieces of it might yet become.
By mid-July, ten acres no longer seemed extravagant. It seemed like an opportunity we might regret walking away from.
At some point, Jerry and I looked at each other and said essentially the same thing:
We should buy it. We’ll figure out the rest as we go.
So we made an offer, and we went low. It was rejected immediately without even a counteroffer. We regrouped, came back with another offer, and this time it was accepted immediately.
Suddenly, the ten acres that had seemed like a pipe dream were going to be ours. We didn’t yet have a final cabin plan. We didn’t know exactly what would happen with the old barn. We certainly didn’t have all the answers about what these ten acres could become.
We just knew there was something here worth creating, and that is where Timber & Stone began.
Timber & Stone 
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