18-Mary Poppins

For me, owning the Clarion River Lodge is like coming home again. We opened December 2018 after being closed for several years. As a child, I spent my summers in the Cook Forest area.
When my grandparents retired in 1967 they bought a place not far from the lodge on Greenwood Road we used to ride around in the back of my dad’s pick-up. The family always had a place in the forest.
As an avid fisherman and hunter, it’s always been a dream to buy and restore my grandparents’ place. Which led to buying and selling camps and cabins from Tionesta to Cook Forest. I loved doing it, it was a nice break from my work in finance in the city.
When I first walked through the lodge, boy was I intrigued. Cook Forest and the Clarion River are so ingrained in me. So, I made the jump and bought the lodge. I lived here with my daughter Lucy while I was remodeling.
Every room has history. The floor of the bar is slate that I saved from a barn in Sigel. The sycamore bar top came from the property. The original red barn wood covering the bar walls came from a farm in Kittanning that I spent 7 years remodeling into a wedding venue. The wooden beams have also been repurposed.
We inherited the antique furnishings and kept the themes but installed new bathrooms and made several other upgrades to make it more modern but leaving the roots strong.
Cook Forest is going through a rebirth itself. The old camps are being replaced by summer homes. I just thought there was a need for a place where people can enjoy themselves.
The lodge has 16 employees including housekeepers, bartenders, servers and front desk staff. The people who come here are on vacation and they should see smiles.
When I was working on this place it got to the point that I had to put a chain on across the driveway to keep people out,” he said. “They would want to talk about events they attended at the lodge. That was the fuel that kept me going.