In short: For nine years this cypress log house has been Patricia’s home. Here she shares what daily life is like in the house and on the land, from quiet mornings with the lake turning silver below to the rooms, the gardens, and the spring.

There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles over this place in the early morning. The light comes up over the hills, the lake below turns silver, and the first thing I usually hear is birds singing. For nine years, this log house has been my home, and I want to tell you about it the way I’d tell a friend sitting across the kitchen table.

The spring at the heart of the land

Water is the heart of this place. A cave spring comes out of the hillside above the house and fills the two cisterns that supply both the house and the metal building. Over nine years, through hot, dry Ozark summers and hard winters, those cisterns have always had water. The only times they came up short were when a tap was accidentally left running or the pipes at the spring needed repair. There is a spot that was once a pond, and the spring’s water still finds its way there. I often imagine it being dug again and filling up again someday. There may be other springs on the land that could be developed in time, though there are no guarantees.

After a hard rain, the wet-weather creek wakes up, and the whole land fills with the sound of running water. I love those days.

Living with a spring changes how you think about water. It stops being something that comes out of a faucet and becomes something you know, something you’re grateful for, and something you care for.

A house with a cypress heart

The house is a hybrid log home. The living room and master bedroom have solid cypress log walls, and the rest of the house is framed. The trim, stairs, and window frames are solid cypress too, and the wood gives the rooms a warm glow. Upstairs, the bedrooms have dormer windows that look out over the land and the lake. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of that view.

There are three levels, and room for everyone. The kitchen opens onto a bright dining room, where people naturally gather. On nights when the power goes out, the propane heater in the kitchen keeps us warm. And after twenty-five years as a professional organizer, I have to confess I love the walk-in pantry with its roller shelves.

The walk-out basement suite has its own separate entrance, its own bathroom, and a big, light-filled room with two windowless rooms. Family and friends who come to stay can come and go freely and have a space of their own, while still being just a staircase away.

Nine years in the garden

If you asked what I’m proudest of here, I’d walk you outside. For nine years I’ve been building up the soil around the house, season after season. Now native plants, wild edibles, flowers, and pollinator plantings return every year on their own. From spring into fall, something is almost always blooming, and the bees and butterflies have found it.

The organic garden has its own fenced area, and newer gardens are taking shape in other corners of the property. Gardens like these grow out of years of small, faithful work.

The metal building, the lake, and the neighbors

The big metal building is its own little world, with a wood stove for cold days, spring water, and a door wide and tall enough for an RV.

The house looks out over a privately owned lake. The house is part of the Living Springs neighborhood, about 700 acres where everyone owns their own land, and where many neighbors help each other out. To learn how lake access works today, read The Lake, the Rutz Family, and a Good Kind of Boundary.

What I hope for this place

This house has held a lot of life: long conversations, quiet prayers, visits with family, and even a stretch when my son, his wife, and their four children lived here for six months. And, of course, more hours in the dirt than I could count. I hope whoever comes next loves it the way I have. I hope they drink from the spring and keep the mint going.

See more of the land, the gardens, and the house at www.livingspringsloghouse.com.

---

A few insights

• A home’s worth isn’t only in its square footage. It’s in the years of care poured into it, like soil built up over nine seasons.
• A reliable spring shapes daily life. It teaches attention, gratitude, and stewardship.
• The best places leave room for the next person’s dream. Nobody has to arrive with the whole vision finished.

How we wrote this together: This article was written collaboratively by Patricia, a resident of the Living Springs Log House and a friend of its owner, Barbara, and Claude.ai, an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Patricia brought the memories, the facts, and the love for this place, and Claude helped shape them into a story. Along the way we noticed that a home comes alive in its small, specific details: birdsong in the morning, mint along the garden edge, the sound of the creek after a hard rain.

---