December 1, 2000
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST
Special Travel Section - Hotels Around The World
Struthers Burt, a Philadelphia gentleman and 1920’s Wyoming dude rancher, once summed up the business in a sentence: "It consists in giving people homemade bedsteads but 40 pound mattresses." In keeping with this tradition, Hamilton Bryan runs the UXU Ranch, a dude ranch seventeen miles from Yellowstone National Park on a stretch of road Teddy Roosevelt called "the most scenic fifty-two miles in America." Like Burt Bryan understands the benefits of a lifestyle fashioned from both refined and roughhewn elements. He houses his guests in vintage cabins appointed with lodgepole pine furniture, fine linens and French soaps and serves them gourmet cuisine after a hard day’s ride.
A dude rancher’s job is much more complex than that of a simple hotelkeeper. "It’s sort of like producing a movie, and I’m the producer," Bryan says. "I really try to present an honest western experience." The UXU’s guests enjoy trail riding, fly-fishing, mountain biking, hiking, water-skiing, windsurfing and guided tours of Yellowstone. Evening entertainment may include cowboy poetry, a trip to the local rodeo, a game of horseshoe or pool, or stargazing from a cabin porch. On Thursday nights, Bryan treats his guest to his specialty, a buterflied leg of lamb, and every night he joins them for dinner and conversation. In the evenings he loads the children up on hay bales stacked in his green 1929 Model AA Ford truck and drives them to the softball field.
Walking over paths blnketed in pine needles, visitors feel as though they have stepped into the past-a past with electricity and running water. Grasses and wildflowers grow through buck-and-rail fences, and pine and cottonwood trees shade the eleven cabins on the property. Snow-covered peaks rise in the distance; wildlife such as buffalo, deer, bears, elk and moose frequent the area. Inside the modest log buildings, stone fireplaces or wood stoves and vintage Old Hickory chairs create an atmosphere as comfortable as an old denim shirt.
The UXU was established as a dude ranch in 1929, but by the time Bryan purchased it iin 1996, it had been transformed into an informal lodge with "cutesy wreaths over the beds," Bryan says. He tossed the dried flowers and wreaths and kept the lodgepole pine furnishings and wood-burning stoves. In the lodge and the accompanying cabins, he hung his own photos of the West, along with a photograph of Buffalo Bill Cody and western paintings by William Mathews, Geoff Prker and John Demott. He even built his own coatracks from half logs and railroad ties. As befits a simple western life, there are no phones, televisions or faxes in the cabins. And guests should not be surprised to find dirt under their nails or feel a breeze waft through their cabin or see a grizzly at their front door. "This is a dude ranch, not the Ritz-Carlton," Bryan Says.
RecentlyBryan asdded the Hollister cabin, an old stagecoach stop he purchased for seven hundred dollars at a nearby auction and moved onto the property. He hired furniture designer J. Mike Patrick, of New West in Cody, Wyoming, to furnish the place.
Patrick,s designs are reminiscent of the work of Thomas Molesworth, and they display a similar sense of whimsy. "Dude ranch furniture needs to be comfortable and fun and evocative," he says. "When you come back from a trail ride, you don’t want to plunk yourself down in some generic easy chair. It should be an honest-to-God, no B.S. western setting.
One of Patrick’s favorite chairs is his cowboy version of the Morris chair, a robust piece fashioned from Douglas fir and alder with antiqued leather cushions. He built two for Bryan, along with beds, mirrors, ottomans, sconces, night tables and dressers. Like Molesworth, he incorporates Chimayo cushions and carved images of moose, fly fishermen and bowlegged cowboys.
Happily, the dude ranch legacy still lingers at the UXU, in spirit as well as in style. Everyone is treated like an old friend in a family’s home. "One of the greatest satisfactions is when the kids want to take their horses back home with them," Bryan says. The old guard of dude ranching would be proud.
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