10 Years, 600+ Guests: What Hosting a Montana Cabin Taught Us About Why People Need Quiet
Before hosting a single guest, to be completely honest, Alla hated it. Every time Garrett and I visited this land on our vacations from South Korea, there was so much to do! Imagine a piece of forested property without any buildings, electricity, septic, water, or roads. Sure, it was pretty, quiet, and had beautiful sunsets overlooking the mountains, but a city girl needs her comforts, and back in 2010, The Hohnstead had none!
Our summers weren’t filled with exploring Missoula and writing helpful travel blogs (that would come later). They were filled with learning to use a nail gun, running into town for endless supplies, cooking on a camping stove, installing solar panels, prioritizing tasks because we only had a few weeks off, learning from Youtube how to DIY, and constantly wondering why are we doing this, when our teaching careers, our dog, and our stuff were thousands of miles away in South Korea.
Our lives abroad were, in one word, busy.
We hustled between our teaching jobs at a university, additional private tutoring sessions all over a city of 1.5 million people; we both had lots of hobbies (Garrett - hockey, homebrewing, and drinking beers at a dog park; Alla - photography, dance classes, and travel). There was so much to do, and our schedules were always packed, which we enjoyed a lot.
Looking back, our busy lives felt purposeful, but the pace wasn’t sustainable, not in the long-term.
In the beginning, the Hohnstead felt like the complete opposite of our life in Korea, with hands-on, repetitive, and many times boring activities we didn’t even know how to do. But when your budget is tight, you learn by necessity. You learn how to build cabins, hook up water, install solar, design furniture, and solve problems you never imagined facing (like surely that wood shaving would come out of your eyeball after 3 days of torturing you). Slowly, through plenty of mistakes and failures, this unfamiliar place started teaching us patience.
Garrett and I never had a big plan for this land; we didn’t foresee a digital detox retreat, or five cabins, the accolades, or 600 guests who would come to stay with us over the years.
If the pandemic taught us anything, it was that the contrast between living in a city of 1.5 million people and living remotely in the woods was bigger than we realized. We started romanticizing the quiet life more and more. The Hohnstead in the summers became our quiet vacation getaway, where we could read books in a hammock, get our hands dirty in the garden, watch the sun set and the stars come out, hike in the woods, discover mushrooms, wildflowers, witness elk, sandhill cranes, bears, mountain lions, and other wild creatures.
Looking back, I think that's where everything started changing.
Our mornings were no longer rushed, and five-minute cups of coffee turned into an hour.
The month we got connected to electricity, we celebrated with the purchase of a used hot tub. Positioning it under the pines made us wonder what non-summer seasons at The Hohnstead would feel like. We imagined quiet winters, with bright stars above, crunchy snow below our feet, and no pings or constant notifications.
Every summer, we experienced time away from the hustle, and that feeling grew stronger and stronger. Returning to Korea became a bit of a dread - that long flight, having two of everything, back to teaching the same thing, back to humidity, back to reality.
Years later, we learned that our experience wasn't unique. A 2021 review published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that exposure to natural environments is associated with better mental health, improved sleep, reduced stress, and better attention. Looking back, maybe that's why returning to our busy lives became harder every summer.
After many years of hosting guests on our property, we’ve noticed a trend in our conversations and reviews.
Some guests come for the hot tub, but remember the silence of the woods.
They book for the stars, but leave talking about birdwatching from the deck.
Their dog is often the happiest member of the family, frolicking through the woods, tongue out, exploring all the smells and nooks and crannies.
They worry they'll be bored, then wish they'd stayed another night.
We've lost count of how many guests have told us, "I haven't slept like that in years."
We didn't design a digital detox retreat on purpose—but over the past ten hosting years, that's what many guests have told us they found here.
We even had one couple come back twice in a single summer. She was able to finish her knitting project, and he helped finish a puzzle and spent quality time with their dog.
A Weekend We See Repeat Itself
Friday evening
Guests arrive talking about work.
Phones are still in their hands.
Elaborate meals are planned.
Saturday morning
Sleeping in.
Coffee on the deck.
Dogs exhausted from exploring.
Guests start noticing birds, asking, “What’s the bird that makes a loud sound, like a dinosaur?”
Saturday night
Campfire.
Stars.
Long conversations.
Sunday
Nobody wants to leave.
Someone asks: "Have you seen my phone?"
When you experience an unplugged weekend at The Hohnstead, you finally get permission to exhale. There is no rush to wake up early, pack the car, and chase a list of sights. Your body settles into its own rhythm. You sleep in, watch the forest wake up, and let squirrels volunteer as alarm clocks without your consent. Birds serenade you over coffee, and you smile, realizing you haven’t checked your phone once.
The day unfolds slowly: a little reading in the hammock, a nap beneath dancing trees, a hike where your partner returns inspired by something they photographed along the way. The evening ends with conversations about the future in the hot tub, sunsets through the pines, and s’mores around the campfire.
After hosting hundreds of guests, we’ve realized the most meaningful moments are often the simplest ones—the quiet conversations, the unexpected wildlife sightings, and the feeling of being exactly where you’re supposed to be, here on this little piece of Montana wilderness not far from Missoula.
When we bought this land, we thought we were simply creating a quiet getaway for ourselves. Later, when we started building guest cabins, we thought we were creating a small side business. We didn't realize we were creating a place where people could remember what quiet feels like.
We don't think people come here because they love cabins more than hotels, or forests more than cities. We think they come because modern life asks us to be available every minute of every day. Here, for a little while, you don't have to be.
And maybe that's the real luxury.
Turns out, we need that reminder just as much as our guests do.
Garrett and Alla at The A-frame Cabin.
