Building the Lodge — the History of The Guest Lodge at Santa Claus Lake, Temple, Maine

The signs at the top: Lake Drive toward the wildlife section, and Christmas Lane — the lane that runs down to the Lodge.

This sign stood near the corner of Day Mountain Road and Staples Pond Road. Robert Logan Bull’s original vision was a whole community of vacation lake houses here. Fred Logan Bull built three on the lake to identical plans — the Guest Lodge came first, and it’s the only one still in the family. As best we can reconstruct the order: the Lodge, then the Homestead, then the next house out on Lake Drive — which became Steve’s — and, last, the house next to the Homestead.

Creating Christmas Lane, down to where the Guest Lodge now sits.

More of the making of Christmas Lane.

Out by the Day Mountain Road and Staples Pond Road intersection.

This sign stood in front of Olive and Earl Barker’s house — the first house on the right after you turn onto Day Mountain Road. Born and raised in Temple, they welcomed travelers who stopped for information about Santa Claus Lake. Rob and Laura called them Grandpa and Grandma Barker — no relation at all, just a very kind old couple who loved to tease and always had a great story to tell. Rob and Laura would sit for hours in their living room, just listening. It was a lot of fun.

The fireplace with the old wood box on the right — and up on the wall, the Hickling Bull sign. It hung outside a pub in England until a friend of Robert Logan’s found it, decided it belonged at the camp being built on Santa Claus Lake, and brought it all the way from England to Temple, Maine. It has hung here since the early 1970s.

The original table, built from scrap lumber by Fred Logan Bull — we still have it, though it lives elsewhere now. The bench under the window is still right where you see it, and the desk in the corner — also built from Lodge scraps — is still here too, now painted red.

Some of the early furniture, before Carol Bull’s upgrades made the Lodge so much warmer. The knotty pine has darkened beautifully over the years, and those two bookcases now stand one on either side of the fireplace, both painted red.

The original sink and vanity. See the worn spot about six inches up from the bottom-right corner of the mirror? There was a “secret” button hidden behind the lip of the frame. No guest could ever find it. Nobody was sorry when it was finally replaced.

Inside the cabin, early 1970s.

The fireplace with the original wagon-wheel lights — very 1970s, and not very bright. They went as part of the 2013–14 renovation. That renovation has a story: the Lodge shares a well with the next camp out on Lake Drive, where Rob and Laura’s half-brother Steve lived, and one winter the water didn’t shut off completely. A frozen pipe burst, and water leaked and froze in the floors and walls all season. It was all one hundred percent cleaned up and repaired — and the Lodge got a top-to-bottom refresh in the bargain.

A better look at Fred’s scrap-wood desk, before it was painted red.

The table before there was a bench — or even chairs. You can still see some of the tools in the corner.

The kitchen and the bar top. Those two chairs stayed until the early 2010s, when they were retired because nobody ever used them. Note the original, much smaller refrigerator. The kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom had wallboard in those days — real knotty pine replaced it in the 2013–14 renovation.

Fred Logan Bull reading in the living room with his pipe — every memory of him comes with that pipe. Taken from the loft.

Fred in the same spot, pipe in hand.

The original kitchen: the dark-green stove, and the old water heater that gave us fits — the shared well would lose water, the heating elements would burn out, and we’d replace them once or twice a season. It would often simply run out of hot water, too. The on-demand hot-water system the Lodge has now — we’re on our second generation of it — is so much better: you never run out.

The Lodge when it was still young, right after the road was built. The first materials came across the lake by canoe — that proved much too difficult, so the road went in before any more work was done.

One of the earliest photos of the finished Lodge, taken in winter. The original steps ran all the way down to the water on the right, and the strips of wood under the porch are lattice today.

Another early photo — look how young the trees are. The big one in the middle was later hit by lightning, split, and had to come down. Lightning likes the Lodge hill: the well head has been blown up more than once; Robert Logan was driving down the hill when a bolt split a big spruce right beside him; and a strike in the late 2010s sent a surge through the lines that blew the plumbing and wiring out of the walls of the last house on Lake Drive. The Lodge had surge protectors installed for exactly that reason — it was unharmed.

Early winter at the Lodge, after the big center tree had come down due to a lightning strike.

The young Lodge, from Christmas Lane.

Another early view from Christmas Lane.

Looking up at the Lodge in summer. The staircase still runs down to the lake in almost exactly the same place — though the banister on the porch had just a single board under it then. We changed that for safety.

An early view, looking up from the lake.

Nearing completion — scrap wood still lying about, and the stickers still on the windows. The originals were single-pane and far from airtight. Only twice has anyone tried to winter at the Lodge: Steve and Freddie, both grandsons of Fred, in the late ’70s — and Laura, the winter after Robert Logan died. She called nearly every day with a new adventure in keeping the pipes from freezing; one morning a damp towel had frozen to the bathroom floor overnight, back when that floor was still wood.

Just completed — and the road just roughed in. A car couldn’t have made it up; you wanted a pickup, or something with clearance.

Looking out to the lakeside porch before the walls and ceiling went in. The Lodge was meant to be a summer place: many walls were framed with 2×3s rather than 2×4s, with only the minimum of insulation. Between that, the single-pane windows, and the wind coming up off the lake, an off-season guest could feel a breeze indoors. All of it was corrected in the renovations and when the siding was replaced.

We believe this is the mason who built the chimney — and the fireplace it feeds — at work.

Laying out the original posts and foundation beams. The Lodge sits on these very beams today; a few of the uprights have been replaced since, after water got to running underneath and rotting them.

The only photograph we know of from the hand-clearing of the site in the 1960s. We think one of the men is Fred Logan Bull — the print is too grainy to be sure.

Looking into the living room during the build: the opening on the left is where the fireplace would go, and those are the mason’s rocks covering the floor. He was a highly skilled perfectionist and an avid hiker — he’d find an interesting rock on a hike, pack it out, and add it to the pile. The fireplace took him the better part of two years, because he’d set one or two stones and then stop until he found exactly the right next rock. Every stone is just as it was found — nothing carved or cut, save two hidden ones filling old vent holes — all gathered within about thirty miles of the Lodge. In the end, the fireplace cost more than half the price of building the entire Lodge.

Framing the walls.

The fireplace opening, with the mason’s rock collection waiting on the floor.

Looking down Christmas Lane from the top. The big rock on the left is still there — you’ll spot it looking down the lane from where the well is.

Roughing in the driveway and bringing in gravel — that’s the old Caterpillar that did the work.

The drive freshly cut, before the gravel went down.

Drilling the well. It went at the top of the driveway for two reasons: the rig couldn’t manage the steep drive, and the next camp out on Lake Drive — later Steve’s house — was already planned to share it as well. For a time it fed three houses; today it serves two, and it has its own power service.

The bulldozer just starting down what is now Christmas Lane.

Another photo from the very beginning of Christmas Lane.

The original rutted road — Lake Drive or Christmas Lane, we’re honestly not sure. When the Lodge was built, only a very basic version of what is now Staples Pond Road existed; Lake Drive didn’t, and there was no power or telephone until Day Mountain Road. Electricity had to be brought in from there.

The car Robert Logan Bull drove, at the top of the Lodge hill near the well — with the old Christmas Lane and Lake Drive sign. When the property was purchased, the lots around the lake all followed the Christmas theme, named for Santa’s reindeer.

The old Christmas Lane and Lake Drive sign at the top of the hill, in winter.

The original Santa Claus Lake sign, out by the Day Mountain Road and Staples Pond Road intersection.

The lake, in the 1960s.

The lake in the 1960s. Take this photo out on the water today and you can find the very spot — the same rocks are still there, easy to recognize.

Another 1960s view of the lake — the landmarks haven’t moved.

The original rowboat — wooden, with a fitted top that turned it into a little tugboat you rowed from inside. It eventually sprang a leak too big to patch and retired in the early 1990s; we went years without a rowboat until the aluminum one arrived in the 2010s. The passenger is Red, Robert Logan’s Irish Setter.

Fred and Betty’s aluminum camper, parked at the top of the Lodge hill by the well while they finished the Lodge. It followed the work: to the Homestead while that was built — Fred helping there too — then to the next house out on Lake Drive — which became Steve’s — then to the house next to the Homestead, and finally back to the Homestead, parked between what is now the house and the barn, where they stayed a fair amount of time. The Guest Lodge, Steve’s house, and the house next to the Homestead were all built to the exact same plans — Steve’s is simply rotated ninety degrees to the water. The family story is that Fred found the design someplace, liked it, and thought it looked reasonably easy to build — so he built three of them.

The camper in camp, flag flying.

Betty — Laura Isabel “Betty” Bull. By every account a remarkable, lovely lady, loved by all who knew her: a champion athlete in both high school and college, and a nutritionist by training.

The Grumman canoe — the same one at the Lodge today. We can’t quite make out who’s paddling.

Taken in front of the Homestead — the house Robert Logan built, with the office attached to the barn where he ran his business — looking out at the lake. The Lodge is off to the left, about halfway down.

In front of the Lodge, looking toward the peninsula between the two “legs” of Santa Claus. At the point of that peninsula you can still find the remnants of Rob and Laura’s treehouse.

The Grumman again, out on the lake.

Bull Run. Walk north along the shore from the Lodge and you’ll come to two inlet streams; the first — this rocky one — has been called Bull Run since the 1960s. It had no name before us.

Fred with a catch from the lake — that’s the Grumman’s hull behind him. Fred was a soil and water conservationist in Maryland all his working life. He and Betty lived in the Black Horse Tavern in Jarrettsville, Maryland — a house with its own history: George Washington stayed there in the 1700s. It’s where Robert Logan grew up.

The lake.

The lake again — some views never change.

Robert Logan Bull, with Robert Alan Bull in his lap.