For the week of March 17, 1999  thru March 23, 1999  

Luxurious and really cool

Igloo graces Bavarian back yard


By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

m17igloo.jpg (9125 bytes)Amenities include 104 gross square feet of floor space, a 400-square-foot sun deck, multiple levels, an open-hearth fireplace, a bed and beer cooler. (Express photos by Charmaine McCann)

Look out Thunder Spring; Ketchum’s Bavarian Village is host to the most luxurious of new Ketchum developments.

Towering half-a-story high, Gary Quinn’s backyard igloo is the result of two weeks of hard work. It is also the result of Mother Nature’s well-received snows.

Though the igloo hasn’t gone through the Ketchum Planning and Zoning Commission’s design-review process, its architectural style is tasteful beyond question.

It’s amenities include 104 gross square feet of floor space, a 400-square-foot sun deck, multiple levels, an open-hearth fireplace and wind-barricading walls.

Quinn, who came to the Wood River Valley from Florida, is a carpenter and the overseer for Bavarian Village. He had never had the opportunity to play in the snow before this winter.

So far, he has used the igloo to entertain friends and to hang out in during the evenings, but he hasn’t yet spent the night in it.

"I loved working with snow," he said. "And I have always wanted to build an igloo. I feel like I’m a kid again."

Quinn used sheet-rock blades, several different sized shovels, five-gallon buckets and his imagination to construct the shelter.

He packed blocks out of snow that were two feet square by 10 inches thick and stacked them in a circle, closing in on the middle as he added subsequent layers.

Inside, carpeting insulates inhabitants from the frozen floor. A padded and carpeted twin-sized bed is by a wall adjacent to the doorway.

Quinn said his igloo is warm inside. At night, a flap can be pulled down over the entrance, and body heat combined with a few candles produces enough heat to melt the inside walls slightly.

With the warming temperatures of late, Quinn’s igloo might not last long, but he already has plans for next winter.

He is going to get started early next year, blowing and plowing snow into a centralized location so that his igloo will provide shelter and entertainment for the entire season.

 

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