Timber Ridge Outpost and Cabins opens Saturday
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Southeastern Illinois' tourism industry will grow by two new log cabins this weekend and two treehouses later this summer with the opening of Timber Ridge Outpost and Cabins in Hardin County located between Garden of the Gods and the Illinois Iron Furnace.
Elizabeth and Marty Canfarelli make high end cabinetry for Chicago area builders, but for the last few years they've done so from a home on 85 secluded acres in the middle of the Illinois Ozarks.
Their family had land down in the region for the last 25 years and Elizabeth Canfarelli said she had been wanting move for years. About five-and-a-half years ago they bought the property and for the last three years have lived on it full-time.
"I'm living in paradise and I'm never leaving," she said Thursday.
She graduated in the early 1980s with a degree in culinary arts and hotel/restaurant management. Now she and her husband are putting that knowledge to use in their new hospitality business.
"It's something I wanted to do but life didn't steer me in that direction until now," she explained.
"(In) Hardin County, the one asset that we really have a lot of is the land.
Tourism is really the best thing going. The more we can draw people down here, the more it will stimulate the economy and hopefully generate more jobs," said Canfarelli, "Tourism is our industry."
Todd Carr, chairman of the Hardin County Bed Tax Committee agreed.
"Our lodging and bed tax receipts are really doing well. Last year we saw quite a gain in tourism (here). In the last 10 years it's been going up, up, up," Carr said.
Figures from the county treasurer's office showed $15,388 in local bed tax paid in FY 2011 which ended last November. That figure represents lodging expenditures by tourists totaling nearly $308,000.
It's not a lot compared to Marion which sees tourists spend $14 million a year for lodging, but it shows room for growth in the small county where the largest operators only have 8 to 10 rooms or cabins.
The opening of Timber Ridge comes well-timed. Canfarelli's first guests this weekend were referred by Dixie Dart who operates Rim Rock's Dogwood Cabins just up the Karbers Ridge Road. Dart and the county's other lodging operators are generally booked completely this weekend.
Saturday's guests give Canfarelli and her husband a solid deadline.
"We put in two log cabins and two tree houses. What is ready this weekend are (the) two log cabins," she explained.
The smaller treehouse suspended from a maple tree she hopes "to have open July 1." That one will sleep two to four people. The larger two-story treehouse should be done "four to six weeks after that."
The larger treehouse should sleep four to six. The Sassafras Ridge cabin is designed to sleep six to eight and the smaller Hickory Hollow Cabin will sleep two to four.
The cabins and treehouses will be fully-finished with bathrooms and kitchenettes. Lodgers will need to provide their own food, but towels, pots and pans as well as dishes and silverware will be provided. All offer both heat and air conditioning for year-round use.
Each place has its own picnic table and fire ring outside and a campground-style charcoal grill. Timber Ridge also offers bicycles for rental and Canfarelli's husband who is an 4-H archery instructor for the area will also offer lessons for guests.
So far the cabins and treehouses have gathered quite an interest. Canfarelli gave five tours Wednesday and was giving another Thursday morning to fellow innkeepers Dart and Andrea Dahmer from the Davie School Inn in Anna, and Carol Hoffman from Southernmost Illinois Tourism Bureau.
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Musgrave receives e-mail at jmusgrave@dailyregister.com</li>
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