By Gerald Ochs

By Gerald Ochs

Rappahannock News Special Writer

In the 1970s, we had disco, the BeeGees, Watergate ... and skiing in Harris Hollow.

The skiing didn’t last as long as disco — a couple of warm winters convinced those entrepreneurs that all of the snow making equipment in the world could not create flakes in temperatures above 40 degrees.

The few hundred acres that was intended to be Virginia’s answer to Vail, Colorado was subdivided, mostly into twenty-five acre lots. Some were purchased and improved.

The parcel that featured the “white elephant” of a ski lodge changed hands a number of times until it was acquired at a foreclosure auction two years ago on Valentine’s Day by Bill Tieckelmann and his wife, Donna Rose.

Tieckelmann and Rose saw the incredible vista beyond the rust-hued cinder block rubble that was the lodge.

They decided to capture the scenery —” rubble not withstanding — by creating a home with a living room and master bedroom suite that invited the view indoors, rain or shine.

Standing on the foundation walls where the living room will be in a year or so, one can see North Marshall Mountain, Big Devil’s Stairs, Thoroughfare Gap, The Peak...

The work goes on

While Rose works as a management consultant, Tieckelmann is applying his fine arts education and construction experience to the design and building of their home on Jenkins Mountain. He has owned a construction firm, and will get back in the business after completing this job.

With |he exception of some help from Chrifr Frazier — who otherwise is involved in the RappMusic scene — Tieckelmann is singlehandedly f creating this edifice.

The tep inch foundation walls look (Capable of withstanding an Alpine avalanche*. but will support instead a two-story, stone-veneered colonial structure. This relatively conventional exterior will belie the home’s interior.

Douglas fir posts and beams salvaged from the lodge will be intermixed