Julien's Cliffhouse Kombucha

Across the border of southern Wyoming and into Colorado. Suddenly: evergreens dot rolling green and red pastures. We’ve crossed another line . . .

. . . into a world in which people live up canyons. Jamestown, CO, where Kate, Rudiger, and Julien are, is a former mining town of approximately 300 residents, up the canyon carved into the Rockies above Boulder by the Jamestown creek. There’s a post office, a community church, and “The Merc,” a mercantile / café that hosts live music every Thursday and some weekends (The Merc is the big white building in the photo below, taken from the porch of Julien’s Cliffhouse). The serpentine road up the canyon is overpopulated by lean bikers outfitted in sleek, unnatural biking costumes that cost hundreds of dollars. But up in Jamestown itself, mountain lions still eat neighborhood cats; dogs roam freely unleashed; and 10-year-old Julien can walk across the street to go to the village elementary school through the fifth grade.

We had the distinct pleasure of staying in Julien’s Cliffhouse (pictured above left): a hand-constructed playhouse built by Julien’s father, Rudiger, for him. The cliffhouse is cantilevered, on steel beams, over the creek and the town center: I took this picture walking back up to it from the post office, which is almost directly beneath the cliffhouse. The porch rail is made from unhewn logs and sticks; the ceiling is vaulted, shaped by pine Rudiger steamed and curved and glued; the lavender exterior and teal trim are the colors requested by Julien.

Rudiger, born and raised in Germany but most recently of Guatelmala, is trilingual and so self-sufficient it is impossible not to envy him. Julien’s Cliffhouse is testament to his extraordinary skill as a carpenter and woodworker. All of the family’s hot water, and some of their home’s heat, is supplied by water-based solar panels he installed on the roof. He brought a kombucha mushroom with him from Germany in 1985, and after more than 20 years of fermenting this natural energy drink for himself and his family he has begun to bottle it and sell it--under the “Julien’s Cliffhouse” label. The raw, quiet beauty of self-sufficiency required by a location such as Jamestown (or Stonington, ME) is lost on neither old-school Republicans (aka, Libertarians), nor Democrats (aka Hippies), both of whom happily co-reside in many Colorado canyon, and Maine island, towns.