stephanie powell :: articles

Cave Inn

Combine a bit of geological maneuvering with a wild imagination and the result is Kokopelli's, a destination you have to see to believe.

I’m standing on top of a mesa outside of Farmington, New Mexico. The plateau below me sprawls for miles in every direction before climbing into various mountain ranges: the Chuskas, the Utes, and the San Juans. To the west stands Shiprock, the neck of a dormant volcano rising nearly 1,800 feet from the high-desert plain. In the cloudless sky two hawks circle and dive. As I turn to follow their midair performance, I catch sight of my husband, James. He’s holding a suitcase and two bags of groceries, and wearing a face that clearly says he thinks I'm insane. I’ve promised him a weekend getaway at an off-the-beaten path bed-and-breakfast. Right now he’s thinking "off the beaten path" is more like "the middle of nowhere."

Before I can explain, Lindy Poole, the manager of Kokopelli's Cave Bed & Breakfast, chimes in. For the last half-hour she’s been explaining the local flora and fauna, the history of Farmington, the oil and gas wells dotting the landscape, and, more importantly, the specific piece of land we’re currently standing on.

“This is the roof,” she says, thumping her heel into the sandstone.

James and I scan the surroundings. Our compact rental car, parked beside a scraggly piñon tree is the only vehicle in sight. And apart from the hawks, the landscape appears devoid of life (not to mention a cozy B&B). James throws me a sideways glance as if to say "the roof of what?" but smiles at Poole as she explains that Kokopelli’s Cave Bed and Breakfast is built into the side of a cliff, seven stories underground. The three of us are currently standing on its 70-foot-thick ceiling. To prove her point, Poole points out three cleverly placed fake rocks that camouflage ventilation as well as water and electrical pipes drilled into the ground.

“This way,” she says, pointing to a steel rod jutting up from the ground. Poole takes a few steps past the rod and quickly disappears. James glances at me with raised eyebrows. I shrug my shoulders in response and start after Poole. She leads us down a set of tiny, uneven steps winding alongside a vertical cliff face, which would be adventurous even without suitcases and grocery bags. Thankfully, the howling wind constantly whips my hair into my eyes and prevents me from seeing the vertigo-inducing drop. Ten minutes later, we round a corner and an iron Kokopelli sign appears out of nowhere. I look back to watch James as he spots the welcome sign. Instead, he smiles in the other direction. “Check it out,” he says, pointing with his chin. I follow his gaze out to the flagstone porch and immediately realize why he’s smiling: In this barren land, he has found his civilization in the form of a large gas grill.

On the porch, Poole fiddles with a key in the giant metal door covering the arched entryway. Its deep groan echoes off the cliff walls as she swings it open. To my delight there are no bats hanging from the ceiling, nor pitch-black hallways lit with medieval torches. Instead, pink carpet and 12-foot-ceilings greet us, along with furniture, floor lamps and plenty of houseplants. As Poole gives us a tour of the accommodations that will be ours for the next 36 hours (Kokopelli’s only takes reservations for one party at a time), James and I are speechless.

We follow Poole around the 1,650-square-foot cavern, which wraps around a central pillar; rooms flow together without doors or walls. There is a tiny kitchen, a dining room, a sunken living room (complete with futon couches, recliners and a TV), and a den with a small fireplace and replica kiva. Nooks are jammed with pueblo pottery. Kokopelli figurines and Navajo rugs adorn the walls. I pull open a set of jewel-colored curtains to reveal a bedroom three times as big as the one I sleep in at home. From the bedroom, a sliding glass door opens onto a balcony 300 feet above the cottonwood-lined La Plata River.

Real cavemen, I’m sure, never had it this good. But even without the plush carpet, gas grill, and cliff-side balcony, Kokopelli’s comfort is still man-made. The cave was blasted into being thanks to the vision of Bruce Black, a local geologist who dreamt of having an office literally built into the land. In the summer of 1981, Black hired an engineering and mining firm in Durango to make his dream a reality. While the crew worked, Black gave directions on what to leave and what to enlarge or take out. His plan called for a grand central column surrounded by a large private office, a restroom, and a kitchen. After 20 days of excavating and a price tag of $25,000, that’s just what he got. Black set up shop and moved in. There was only one problem: His clients (many of them elderly) weren’t as excited about his new office location as he was. They complained about driving outside of town and lugging documents up and down the side of a cliff. Eventually, Black was forced to move out, leaving his one-of-a-kind office sitting empty for over a decade.

In 1995, Black revived the project not as an office but as a complete living space. Black and his son teamed up to finish the construction, adding raised flooring, plumbing, rockwork, and plastering. Anything they couldn’t carry into the cave with their hands, including all the furniture and large appliances, they lowered over the side of the cliff using a winch truck. Black’s son and daughter-in-law lived in the cave for nearly a year before they began sharing it with family and friends as a guesthouse. As word of the Bedrock-style accommodations got out, requests to stay in the cave went through the roof. Caving to demand in 1997, Black turned his original private dream office into a public bed-and-breakfast.

We’re so glad he did.

Later that evening, as James and I cook dinner and sip a glass of red wine (all guests receive a complimentary bottle), we find ourselves giggling at our surroundings. “We’re in a cave, underground, eating shrimp fettuccine alfredo,” James says with a laugh. When we realize no one can hear us through the walls, as they might in a normal B&B, we laugh even louder. Every few minutes, I rub my hands along the walls and examine the central pillar where Poole pointed out petrified and carbonized wood and plant fragments, along with river-current direction indicators deposited in prehistoric stream channels.

After dinner, we catch an amber sunset sinking over the Four Corners from the balcony and watch the stars slowly pop into the night sky. Back inside, I fill the rock-chinked bathtub for a soak and listen as James tries to identify the various critters visiting our doorstep in search of food. By midnight, it’s chilly and we turn on a space heater in the bedroom. It casts an orange glow on the rock all around us. Once again, we laugh at the ridiculous fact that we just plugged an appliance into the wall of a cave.

But the outrageous and plentiful anachronisms in this place are just part of what makes the cave so appealing. The spectacular mesas, abundant wildlife, and remote location are really what make Kokopelli's Cave a destination like no other.

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