STONEFLOWER
Whoa baby! Sugar shacks Sweet getaways, from lavish to laid-back. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK
LONGBOW RESORT Prim $200 to $285 weeknights (rates depend on the cabin); $225 to $350 weekend nights. longbowresorts.com Prim, for the uninitiated, is famous among geologists and other petraphiliacs for its round rocks. The little unincorporated town in Cleburne County has ancient spherical sandstone boulders all over the place; they’ve apparently popped free of whatever concretion they were once part of. Of deeper interest, perhaps, to someone who wants a bit of seclusion, is Longbow Resort, where famous Arkansas archer Ben Pearson built a getaway amid the bluffs, crevasses and streams of a ridge formation — you might call it the toe of the Ozarks. His son, Ben Pearson Jr., and family run the resort now. Longbow has four private luxury cabins
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nly the homiest homebody doesn’t want to leave the house and get away for a bit, spend some time in a nice secluded spot where you don’t hear traffic or your neighbors or, for that matter, your children. It helps us all to get a little peace and quiet, and if there’s water nearby, that’s even better. Trees help us chill. Stars remind us how insignificant it is that the laundry has piled up. Fortunately, there are a zillion places in Arkansas that will afford respite. Here we write about a few of them, places you might want to go with your sweetheart, or other couples, or other couples and their children, or your far-flung family. We have our reasons for the ones we picked, as you’ll see. We start with the pricey and move to the home-away-from home-types.
on two acres with hiking trails. One of the cabins, also called Longbow, is built into a cliff and has a 30-foot waterfall and spring-fed pool — always cool, even in an Arkansas summer — at the back in which to take a private dip. A stone patio overlooks the waterfall and pool. Longbow is well appointed, with a JennAir cooktop and such. A walking bridge leads to another cabin, Bushmaster; a short hike away is Diana’s pool, formed by another spring-fed waterfall from a rocky overhang. Bois d’Arc cabin is bowshaped (hence the name) and one-story. In the Sovereign cabin, a cliff wall supports the sleeping lofts. Since Cleburne is dry, the proprietors remind you to stock up on the booze before you come; you won’t get cell service, either, in the Longbow or Bushmaster cabins, so deep are they in their box canyon. That’s good, right? Sovereign has two queen-sized beds; the others have one, though there
BEN PEARSON
ENGLISH COTTAGE IN THE OZARKS
LONGBOW RESORT
are couches. Longbow plans to open a larger facility, Longbow Lodge, which will accommodate 50 guests, a banquet room and bar, in 2017.
STONEFLOWER 704 Stony Ridge Road Heber Springs $199 a night stoneflower.info Stoneflower, on a prominence above Greers Ferry Lake, is an architect’s
retreat: E. Fay Jones designed this tall, narrow haven for landscape architects Bob Shaheen and Curt Goodfellow in 1963. It resembles Jones’ famous Thorncrown Chapel, but here’s the thing: He designed it before Thorncrown. Its inspiration (and Thorncrown’s afterward) came from the building materials that Shaheen and Goodfellow salvaged: 2-by-4 timbers and big stones. The oneroom-wide cottage, with a Frank Lloyd Wright/Fay Jones Arts and Crafts aesthetic, features a stone “grotto” shower with a man-made waterfall on the lowest level and redwood board and batten siding for the upper levels. According to an article on stoneflower.info, the rear gable’s vertical beams were designed to defend it from stray golf balls. You can see a hint of the Thorncrown to come in the cross-braced beams that support the walls. A 30-foot-long deck extends over the back slope of the ravine that Stoneflower is built on and is eye level with the tree canopy. Though there are other homes nearby, the trees keep the feel of privacy. There is one queen bed on the third level and benches on the second level that can serve as single beds.
RIVERSIDE RETREAT West of Hatfield $155 a night vrbo.com Riverside Retreat, south of Mena, sits on a bluff overlooking the Mountain Fork River, which flows into Oklahoma. The exterior is nothing fancy — just your 21st century long-cabin look — but it has direct access to the river, a screenedin porch out back with a view of the water and woods, a fire pit (wood provided) and a two-person Jacuzzi tub. arktimes.com
OCTOBER 13, 2016
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