Jean and Sandy at the outdoor kitchen and their grandchildren.

Timeline: (Click on images to enlarge)

1909 - Ed and Dr. Etta Farmer purchase the property in 1909
       Ed farmer opened the grocery store across the street which is Obexers Market now.
1922 - The Farmers sell their house and grocery store to Jake Obexer
        and made their garage/workshop into a home.

19?? - Dr. Farmer died
19?? - Ed Farmer married Orpha Mugford, a friend of Clara Sikes (Jean McBride's mother)
1950s - Jean and Sandy would bring Don, Dale and Jean's mother Clara Sikes up
       to visit her friend Orpha.
1961 - Jean and Sandy McBride bought the property from Orpha Farmer a friend of Jean's mother.
1972 deck expanded.
          
Early 70's - The Madden Creek Water company was created to put in new water lines
      below the frost level for winter water.

1981 - Added a living room, upstairs bedroom and half bath to the front
       and moved the old doctor's office to the back of the lot as a guest house.
       

1989 - Added a bedroom and porch onto the back and made the old bedroom into a
       full bath and laundry room in the hall.
       

199? - Kitchen remodel

December 2014 A 150+ foot tree  fell on the cabin 

2015-16 - Construction  to repair the damage from the tree and
   expand the upstairs loft to add 2 bedrooms and a bathroom.

          

Sept 2016 We started renting thru Vacasa

Sept 2017 Switched to rental thru AirBnB

The year was 1909. Optimism and prosperity were on the rise. Mr. Ed Farmer and wife Dr. Etta Farmer of Folsom were among the moderately prosperous fold of the new era, when Model T "Horseless Carriages" began to appear on America's roadways, bound for wondrous destinations such as Lake Tahoe. They bought this property from Thomas McConnell of Sacramento who developed the subdivision McKinney Shores in Homewood and built their home at 5255 West Lake Blvd in the large flat area between the outdoor stove and fire pit.
Mr Farmer, one of America's many emerging small town entrepreneurs, had already established a summer business with a small market and repair shop for wagons and Model T's, both located in the current Obexer's marina and market location. His wife, a doctor, served the local residents, tourists, and some native people, from a small office presumably located in a room of their home across the street.
In 1920 Mr. Farmer developed T. B.; Dr. Farmer kept him here for a year and he was cured.
in 1922 they sold the store to Jake Obexer; Jake wanted the house also, so they moved it across the street, where it stands behind the market.

The tin sided workshop was moved to the west side of the street and converted to a 3 room home, which is the core of the current cabin. It was raised, a floor added. It was divided up into a kitchen/dining room, bedroom and bathroom.
A small room was added to the front for a doctors office.
The current great room which served as a kitchen, parlor and dining room, is still used for the same purpose.
The bathroom with a clawfoot tub, sink and toilet is still used across from a new bathroom which replaced the old bedroom in 1981.
  Some years later, Dr. Farmer died of cancer. Mr Farmer eventually married Orpha Mugfored. Orpha continued to use the cabin in the summer after Mr. Farmer died.
In 1961 Orpha felt she could no longer maintain the cabin and sold it to Jean and Sandy McBride.

McBrides purchase the cabin
In 1962 Jean, Sandy and their sons, Don and Dale started spending summers at the cabin. Sandy who had an insurance business in Roseville would come up Thursday night and back to their home in Citrus Heights Sunday night.
Don and Dale slept in the old doctors office and got summer jobs.
In 1962 Don worked at Homewood Resort, the old Hotel which stood where the West Shore Café stands now and Dale worked at Meeks Bay Resort, where he met his wife Marty in 1964.
Sandy maintained the Sugarpine Chapel, an outdoor chapel with benches and a piano, where visiting pastors held Christian worship services every Sunday.

Jean and Sandy hosted an annual retreat in August for the Polaris Mariner group of the First Presbyterian Church of Roseville , which continued for 30 years.
Some slept in two canvas platform tents set up on small platforms the Farmers had in the back yard. Others used our Bols Airo travel trailer Dad hooked up to water and sewer in the back of the lot. Others brought their own campers and tents.
Church friends helped build a larger deck which extended from the front around the south side of the cabin.

Homewood was still primarily a summer area. Water pipes were not deep enough to avoid freezing in the winter, so the water company turned off the water.

In the late 60's and early 70's, Don and his friends started coming up from the Bay Area to Ski at Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Olympics.

In 1981 we moved what had beeen the doctors office to the back of our lot. It is now storage in the winter for our yare furnature, and a guest house in the summer. We then added the living room and the bedroom and a one half bath up stairs.
  In 1989, we added a bedroom onto the back of the house - also a back porch which gave a place to store wood for the winter. We made our old bedroom into another bath and a laundry in the hall.

A Peaceful Easy Feeling (This has nothing to do with the Eagle's song by the same name. I just thought the phrase was appropriate.)
The Cabin gained a reputation as a place where friends and family could relax and forget about life's problems.
At Mom and Dad's funerals, numerous people from church came up and said how much they enjoyed those weekends.
One cousin said it was the only place he could really relax.
Another wrote an essay which referred to the cabin as a "Magical Place".
That was in part to the quiet west shore of Lake Tahoe away form the hustle and bustle of the north and south ends.
But mostly it had to do with Mom and Dad's hospitality which exuded a spiritual peacefulness. They had a gift which is hard to explain. I think they would explain it as a blessing from God.

Cabin Families - The McBride - Farmer connection:
By Jean McBride,

Jean McBride's Mother, Clara Thomas Sikes, graduated from Lakeport, CA high school with Orpha Farmer, from whom we bought the cabin.
The picture to the right is a reunion of the "Round Robin (R.R.) Group", women who all graduated from high school in lakeport, CA n 1907 and 1908. It was taken in the dining room of the Sikes Ranch in the Tremont District of Solano Co, between Davis and Dixon.
The group kept a packet of letters going for their life time. As each one received the packet, she would remove her old letter, add a new one and send the packet on.
In this picture the 4th lady on the right is Orpha Milroy Mugford Farmer, from would we purchased this cabin in 1961.
My [Jean's] mother is at the head of the table behind the candles. She is Clara Thomas Sikes, mother of Jean Sikes McBride. I do not remember the names of all the R.R. grop. The first one on the left is Sylva Mosher. She was superintendent of schools while I was teaching in Kelseyville, CA. The third one on the left is Olive Mason and the fifth on is my Aunt Alta, a sister of my mother. The first one on the right is Harriett Bayless, the wife of the principal I taught under in Lincoln, CA.

Orpha's first husband had a heart problem. He was a cousin of Ed Farmer. Ed's wife, Etta, was a medical doctor and cared for Mr. Mugford until his death. The Farmers had a home in Folsom, CA and purchased this Tahoe property in 1909. They built a home here, out in the open area from the deck to the fire pit.
  They lived here in the summer and in Folsom in the winter. They had a grocery store here and Mr. Farmer had a workshop and repaired wagons and the few cars that were here at that time. About 1920 Mr. Farmer developed T.B. Dr. Farmer kept him at Tahoe for over a year and he was cured. In 1922 the Farmers sold the store and their home to Jake Obexer. Some years later, Dr. Farmer died of cancer. Mr Farmer eventually married Orpha Mugfored. There were times after that when we would bring my mother to visit them.

In 1961 Orpha Farmer can no longer maintain the cabin and sell it to Jean and Sandy McBride.