In our two year search for the perfect cabin, I’m pretty sure that we looked at well over 2,000 online (and I’m not even exaggerating). I was on Zillow every day, refreshing the listings multiple times a day. I have seen every house in the Lake Arrowhead area that has come on the market in our price range since 2021. And in that time, some of them even came up more than once. Some days there were 20 cabins on the market and other days there were 100.

As we’d drive around, we’d see the mountain covered in quaint cottages, so we didn’t think that what we were looking for would be hard to come by. We thought that we could find a cute, vintage fixer upper for an affordable price that had maybe two or three bedrooms, lots of trees, no neighbors, and was in a quiet area on a sleepy street. But as it turns out, our dream of a fair priced cabin in the mountains was in fact more difficult to find than a home renovation show on TV that we both can agree on to watch over dinner (Brian’s not a fan). Unless of course we increased our price range by $200,000-$300,000. Then there were a bunch of options!

As we were looking, we might find an appealing house online, but then when we went to look at it in person, it would either be located in a remote part of the mountain away from civilization, be on a main road, sandwiched between a packed-in row of neighbors, have a funky layout or falling down deck, need too much work, or require an all cash offer. So when we finally found a cabin that ticked all of our boxes and was an actual contender, I would fall hard.

We found a couple cuties and I’d pour my heart and soul into a “love letter” that we’d submit to the sellers along with our offer. Every time the offer didn’t work out, I would shed some tears and be absolutely convinced that we would never ever ever find another house like the one we just lost out on that I could even possibly love as much. But yet, somehow, another one came along.

Here are a few of the cabins that we thought could be “The One”, but weren’t.

My First Love: Green Gables

When I first started perusing Zillow and wasn’t finding what we were looking for, I switched the filters from “for sale” to “sold” and found this hidden green gem. This was it! She was perfect. She just wasn’t for sale.

This one set the bar high for me when I fell head-over-heels in love and became a little bit obsessed. It was built in 1930, had shingles, two stories, three bedrooms, a stone fireplace, and loads of potential for me to put my design stamp on. It last sold in 2020 for what we thought was an expensive price. I was convinced that this was it and I just needed to be patient until it came back on the market.

I couldn’t get this house out of my head, so I finally made Brian do a drive by when we were up there cabin hunting. No one was home, so I walked around the outside staring at her and tears started to fall lightly onto my cheeks. You know, like they do when a groom sees his bride for the first time walking down the aisle; those kind of tears. Real, hopeful, heart-skipping-a-beat, true love waterworks. Only she still wasn’t for sale.

So 10 months into our cabin quest when I got a Zillow notification that she was ready for us, that her status had changed from “sold” to “for sale”, my heart completely jumped out of my chest! I knew it! This was our cabin.

Nope. Not when the listing agent put her on the market for $320,000 more than she last sold for two years prior. Ugh. What a soul-crushing gut punch. But wait. Maybe we could afford it if we…still nope. I had to let her go. And then she sold for $20,000 over ask in less than two weeks.

The Yellow Brick Road House

This one didn’t look like much online, mostly because there were only a few exterior pictures. But we put it on our list of places to drive by on one of our many cabin hunting adventures. And when we pulled up, we both fell in love.

She had that familiar stone fireplace I was looking for, vintage 1925 charm, original hardwood floors, a living room with peaked roof and exposed beams, a shed out back that Brian could make into his workshop, and a huge backyard with a bridge that went over a stream and then disappeared into miles of forest that looked like it was straight out of a fairytale. It didn’t have shingles all over, but Brian said we could add them. And she was within budget. Yup. This was it.

But as we lingered in the backyard and talked about what we would do to the cabin, the annoying whizzing and whirring of cars driving down the main highway that she sat on grew louder and louder. The traffic was pretty constant and we didn’t like the thought of escaping to our mountain home and having to listen to thunderous motorcycles and trucks driving by when what we really wanted to hear was the faint flapping of bird wings in the trees. And in the future, when we adopted a dog or had a baby, we didn’t want to worry about them running into the busy street. That became the deal breaker for us and we turned onto that crowded highway and drove away from the Yellow Brick Road house with two broken hearts.

Disco Inferno: Our First Offer (Sort Of)

A year into our search and a few broken hearts later, up popped this listing one evening while we were at dinner in Orange County. It was listed at a reasonable price, was in a coveted neighborhood close to the lake, had lake rights (Lake Arrowhead is a private lake), two bedrooms, two bathrooms, good square footage, a deck in the trees, level entry. Wait, why was this priced so well? I immediately text our agent to inquire if the price was a typo. It wasn’t. Ok. Was this our cabin?

The catch with this one was that it wasn’t that cute from the outside. And to be honest, we both didn’t really love the inside either. It was built in 1971 and had all that groovy charm that we definitely weren’t looking for. The vibe screamed “disco inferno” with that funkytown carpet and wood paneling, but the price screamed “good investment”. So we went for a closer look.

The prow-front floor plan was bright and open and there was enough room in our budget to be able to completely redo the kitchen and baths. The bedrooms were both downstairs and were good sizes. This really was a great house – just not the vibe we were going for. But we felt comfortable enough that we were ready to officially submit our first offer. Our agent called the listing agent and she said, “We already have seven offers so if your client isn’t going to offer $50,000 over ask, don’t even bother.” That was our max budget and would blow our remodel funds out of the water. So the excitement of putting in a real offer and having a real chance of owning a home hustled its way out the door and left that linoleum floor and retro dishwasher behind.

It later sold for $68,000 over ask and they gutted its disco soul, flipped it, put in modern marble and gray plank flooring everywhere, and then turned around and sold it for $123,000 over what they paid two months prior. Guess it really was a hot property after all.

The Ghost House

With our hopes of ever being homeowners waning, we soldiered on in our search to find that ever elusive perfect getaway. Maybe we had to open our minds to something different. Maybe we had to look in another location further from the lake or broaden our search criteria. Maybe we had to… Wait. Stop right now. There’s a house that just came on the market that has not one, but two sheds for Brian! There’s land, a lot of land around it. I can’t see any neighbors in the pictures. There’s a cute restaurant at the end of the street within walking distance and a really long driveway. Grab your keys because we’re flying back up the mountain for this one.

We pulled up to the large three-story green house built in 1920 that was tucked away in a neighborhood called Twin Peaks and were met with that long dirt driveway, falling down fence, wood sign out front with the last name “Simpson” on it, and loads upon loads of potential. We hadn’t seriously considered this area before, but this part of the neighborhood was really quite quaint. We liked it. It was cute. This was it. I could feel it in my actual soul. I fell really hard for this one. It felt like home.

The house itself was very generous in square footage with the entire upstairs being the primary bedroom and the entire downstairs being a weird second bedroom with a leftover organ in the corner and ominous picture hanging above it. There was even a polaroid of an old lady playing the organ laying on top of the organ. A little creepy, but this place was awesome and had so much potential for us. I wanted to turn the downstairs into a bunk room and add a queen size bed where the organ was.

The overall layout of the cabin was a little wonky and there was no bathroom on the main floor. That’s ok, we could add one. The outdoor space overlooked forest land which meant that no one could ever build on it and our view would remain wild and open. There were trees upon trees that stretched for miles. Then we stumbled into what I thought was a shed, but the upstairs portion of it was an old workshop and it had the prettiest bay window. It was located right next to the main house so I thought that maybe we could make it into a charming little “guest house” and turn this two bedroom place into a three bedroom palace.

When we went back later in the day to take another look before heading back down the mountain, we ran into someone picking up a piece of furniture that they had purchased at the auction to clear the house out before listing it for sale. Apparently the organ wasn’t a big seller because it was the only thing left. We also serendipitously ran into the listing agent. He was super nice and we chatted for a while. We told him about how much we loved the house and that we would be submitting an offer. It was a Wednesday and he let us know that the previous owner had recently passed away and he had left the house to a school and that the lawyers wouldn’t be reviewing offers until Monday. So we had some time and he let us know that we didn’t have to go crazy over list price. This was all sounding like it was finally coming together for us.

We got with our agent and felt like we had a really good shot at getting the cabin and felt like the listing agent really liked us. We strategized and decided to wait until first thing Monday morning to submit our offer so that maybe we could get a sense of what the other offers would be while also not driving the price up by submitting an offer early. Our agent called the listing agent and let him know that. He was warm and seemed receptive. She called him again on Friday and Saturday and left messages. We’d hoped he’d get back with her before Monday, but figured he was super busy.

In the meantime, I got to composing my love letter to the cabin and googling the address and previous owners to see what I could find. Their names were Laurel and Winifred Simpson and Winifred was a music teacher that taught out of her home. That’s why there was an organ downstairs! Then I read that she had passed away in 2004 peacefully in her mountain home. Crap. Was she still there? Was her spirit going to come out of that polaroid late at night while I was sleeping and roam the halls? I had to have a real hard think about if I would legitimately be ok living and sleeping in the same spot where Winifred had passed. But this house was so charming and so perfect that I told myself that ghosts aren’t real. On we forged as I added sage to our Amazon cart just to be safe.

8 am Monday morning and we’re on the phone with our agent going over the terms of our offer when I hit refresh on Zillow and the cabin vanished into thin air. It’s status had suddenly changed from “for sale” to “under contract”. Our agent immediately called the listing agent. He didn’t pick up. I told her to hurry and submit the offer anyway. I didn’t want to lose out on this home and increased our offer and escalation clause to well above ask. Our agent even walked over to his office to see if he was there. He wasn’t. He never called her back. He ghosted her. I guess ghosts really are real.

Two days later he finally text her back saying that they had accepted an offer and that the house was no longer available. Super cold. Beside myself with regret, I cried. A lot. I hoped that the house would fall out of escrow and we’d maybe still get a shot at it. The listing agent smugly told our agent, “It won’t fall out.” That was the last we heard from the agent apparition.

30 days later, I get a friendly email from Zillow taunting me that the house that I had favorited had just been sold. And get this…for $15,000 under our lowest offer! Then I noticed that the buyer just so happened to have been represented by the listing agent’s daughter who is also a real estate agent. Hmm. His phantom tactics made better sense now. That’s why he ghosted our agent so many times and dodged her calls.

But later on I learned that the house was actually purchased for his daughter. And as his daughter walks those halls late at night, I still secretly hope that Winifred plays that organ for her every once in a while.

The Tiny One Bedroom Charmer

Months went by and my heart had to mend. No house would ever beat the ghost house. Or so I thought.

After a whirlwind trip up the mountain to view 15 different cabins just to get “back in the saddle”, we came home and still had one of them lingering in our heads. It was a one bedroom built in 1932 that was in the same neighborhood as the first house we wanted to put an offer in on. It had lake rights and what it lacked in square footage, it made up for in charm. The house was tiny, but that also meant that the amount of money it would take to fix her up and eventually add another bedroom, would be more manageable. It wasn’t the house we thought we’d buy because it was so small, but she grew on us. We were excited about all the outdoor space and potential for a fire pit and the fact that it was within walking distance to the lake.

We drove back up to take a second look and serendipitously ran into the sellers. They gave us a personal tour and as the wife cried because she didn’t want to sell the home, I rubbed her shoulder and told her about how much we adored it and how we promised to take care of it and love it just as they had. We also said that if they accepted our offer, we’d love to have them come back up and stay if they ever wanted to. We connected, we bonded, we made friends.

Before leaving, the wife got out of their car and gave me her card and wrote “call me” on it. We learned our lesson the hard way last time, so we immediately submitted an offer the next day at $5,000 over ask. We knew that there were two other offers already on the table and one of them was lower than ours. We had a good shot at this one. Or so I thought.

After the sellers countered to all three offers and we all agreed to their terms, it was up to the seller to pick one of us, with the price being the same. And I knew it was going to be us. We met them. They liked us. They knew we weren’t going to rip the soul out of their beloved family home for profit and turn it into an investment property.

But they didn’t. They chose someone else.

I knew that losing out on this cabin too meant that something better was out there and we were just going to have to wait a little bit longer. And now when we drive by, we see how the new owner has changed the house and how the charm is all gone. But that’s ok. That place was meant to be their journey and we finally found ours and couldn’t be happier. For a tour of the cottage we actually purchased, click here.

Which cabin was your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.