COTTAGE CAMPS

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 October 1928, Page 8

COTTAGE CAMPS

AMERICA’S NEW METHODS. Two Wellingtonians who recently made a 10,000-mile motor tour in the Western States of America, visiting California, the Colorado Canyon, Yellowstone Park, and later making north to Oregon and the Canadian Rockies, write back in high praise of the cottage camps now to be found along America’s highways. Carrying a tent and gear with them, they were prepared to make use of the public motor camps en route, but lo! behold, no tent was necessary. One could use it if desired, but how much easier and more comfortable it was to pay a dollar or a dollar and a half and have the use over night of a snug little furnished bungalowette with everything at hand,, and no laborious business of pitching and striking camp. Only twice in a six weeks’ trip was the tent used, practically every other night in the wanderings of these tourists was spent in a cottage. During the last year or two American motor campers discovered that fixing up a new camp every day was too weary a business. At the end of the third or fourth day everyone was pretty well tuckered out, and setting up the old tent, making the camp beds and cooking the family meals took a great deal of the joy out of motoring.

The first cottage camps, sometimes called cottage cities, grew up to full maturity in the southern States. A great many good pay camps were quick to catch the idea and began to add cottage after cottage to their attractions.

If .one wishes to motor camp without the bother of toting equipment, he can now spend his nights in little cabins, canvas apartments with board floors, slab camps, stuccoed houses, screened bungalows, and in Ohio, one may have the unique thrill of living in a huge cask completely fitted out for easy housekeeping. Most camps now offer a cafeteria service, while some of the best offer huge sanitary kitchens, where a family steak can be broiled to a turn.

Indeed, so complete are the best cottage camps that, according to recent descriptions, one finds rugs on the floor, a telephone on a neat shelf, comfortable chairs, tables, sink bedrooms, and bath. A mail service is maintained, a post office is handily located; drug stores willingly render delivery service; newsboys vend their wares; a dance hall with radio or orchestra is provided, a large and wellequipped playground is at the disposal of the children; golfing privileges are obtained through the management; a barber plies his trade and a beautifier her arts; entertainment is provided by moving pictures, music, lectures, scenic bus trips, and near the gate one finds an efficient touring and shopping service.

One of the most unique cottage cities in Colorado is at Colorado Springs, where Pikes Peak Cottage City entertains over 55,000 guests each year in 150 well-furnished individual apartments. Seventy-five of these camps are equipped with one doublebed, one signle cot, two tables, four chairs, a washbowl, and cooking utensils. Forty of the other cabins are a bit more pretentious and boast a gas plate and sink with running water. The remainder are in the order of de luxe furnished rooms, with a sleeping porch, sun parlour, living-room, bath, and kitchenette, which includes a cosy breakfast nook. Pikes Peak Cottage City spreads over 2 acres of wooded grounds at the city line and in 13 blocks from the downtown shopping district. A score of employees service the cottages and grounds. The community building is a central structure, where ordinary needs of the traveller can be cared for; lounging room and porch with comfortable chairs and porch hammocks, cafeteria, dance hall, grocery stores, bake-shops, bath and shower rooms, barber shop, and marcelling shop, and what do you need? There are still many tenting camps in America, and practically every cottage camp offers tent space for those who desire it, but the big demand all the time is for the cottages. One would think a cottage camp ought to be a profitable enterprise at a place like Taupo, or, say, on the attractive stretch of coast near Tongaporutu or Awakino, on the New Ply-mouth-Te Kuiti Road —a locality much favoured by motor campers on the North Island’s No. 1 Highway during recent summers.