WOODY CREEKER: You are such an important part of the culture here in Woody Creek, and a guiding light for so many of us. I’m really honored to have you in The Woody Creeker.
PATTI STRANAHAN: Thank you. I’m honored to be in it.
WCR: Where did you grow up, and how did you get to Woody Creek? PS: I grew up in New York, in Westchester County outside the City, and went to an all-girls Catholic school there, which was crazy (laughs). But my family had a summer place on Cape Cod that was always really home to us, and that’s where my parents retired to and my mom still lives; my dad passed away a few years ago. I was in Cape Cod just last week; we go there a couple times a year. I have two sisters and a brother, and they were all there last week with their families, too.
During my junior year at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, I took a semester off to come out here to ski. My boyfriend at the time had graduated and was already living here. He invited me out, and I fell in love with the area. I arrived on Winter Skoll weekend and it was crazy fun, so I stayed and worked all kinds of crazy jobs. I worked at The Gallery, a nightclub where the Little Nell is now: what wild times were had there when I was 21!
In 1978, I think, I had decided I’d really better go back to Boston and get a life and finish my education. I was planning to spend the rest of that summer here and then go back to college. But before I left some friends and I decided to go rafting in Utah. I didn’t really know George at that point — I had only met him briefly — but he also went on this seven-day raft trip on the Green River, and we got along immediately. I rode on the back of his motorcycle on the way home; we stopped in Telluride and had a blast there, came back, and in about a week he asked me to marry him.
WCR: And the rest is history.
PS: We didn’t get married until ntil 1980. I thought it might be a wise decision to test the waters first, so we lived together for a couple of years.
WCR: Was he in Wood Creek already?
PS: Yes. Since 1956. His house had burned down a few weeks before we went on the rafting trip, so we wound up living in its shell, basically. There was a Jacuzzi and a shower and two bedrooms that hadn’t burned down that mainly his kids were living in, so we lived in a lean-to out in the back of the house.
WCR: That’s so romantic.
PS: It was, actually, and when you’re in that infatuated phase, you can do anything.
WCR: Yep, the courting took place in a lean-to.
PS: After that, we rebuilt the house together. Then in 1980, the year we got married, the Woody Creek Store closed. It was just a funky little convenience store with a gas pump out front where the patio is now, but it had been a real gathering place for everyone in Woody Creek to pick up on neighborly news and whatever, so its closing left a big void. Then one night Mary Harris, who at the time was married to Jon Kent, and George and I were sitting around talking about what we could do to fill that void. And it dawned to us: “Let’s open a tavern.”
WCR: So, there was no tavern yet. It was just an empty building next to the trailer park?
PS: The post office occupied a small part of it back then. The side of the building where the Woody Creek Store had been was actually a home; the people who had been running the store and the post office lived there. It had originally been built and run by Virginia Vagneur and her husband, Lee Jones, so there was a lot of local history in that building
WCR: So you and George started the tavern with Mary and her former husband. What was it like at first?
PS: Oh, there was nobody there. Some nights we would sell one hot dog and one plate of chicken wings.
WCR: How many tables did you have?
PS: The layout was similar to what it is now, without the patio — maybe ten tables. And we had some real characters working there. Joe Burquist, Jon Kent, and George bartended; I was the short-order cook; Mary’s brother David also cooked, and Oliver [Treibeck]’s former girlfriend Brenda, who was wild, was one of the waitresses, as well as Mary, who could do it all.
WCR: So there was absolutely no money in the Tavern for a long time.
PS: Oh, no. It took a couple years to get off the ground, for sure.
WCR: So how did the transition go from you to the Harrises?
PS: Well, after about two and a half years — the bar business takes its toll on everybody, I think –Mary and Jon got divorced, and it was just getting difficult on our lives, so we decided to sell it. We sold it to Dan and Doreen Golden and Marsha and Andy Arzaz, and they owned it for three or four years. Then Dan got cancer and Andy also got sick, and Dan needed money for an experimental treatment in Minnesota. So he came to us and asked if there was any way we would buy it back. Thus in 1986, we bought the Tavern back for probably four times what we had sold it to them for, but they were very nice people. Dan went and got the treatment, but it was sadly unsuccessful.
WCR: So you were back in the bar business.
PS: Yes. But by then we had adopted Ben, and the last thing we wanted was. . .
WCR: For Ben to grow up in a bar.
PS: Yeah. So first we asked Gaylord Guenin and Jillian Boyle if they wanted to run it, and that turned into a wild and crazy time. After it was mutually agreed upon that the arrangement wasn’t working, we called Mary and Shep Harris and asked if they wanted to take it over. They did, with the idea that they would eventually end up owning it bit by bit, which is what happened.
WCR: So Shep and Mary own the place now, and very successfully. There’s a gallery. And the Woody Creek Store, which is now called the Community Center, will hopefully reopen soon.
PS: We hope so.
WCR: What are some of the significant changes you’ve seen, if any, in the last 25 years in Woody Creek?
PS: Well, certainly the loss of its agriculture and cattle. This used to be quite an agricultural valley. We ran cattle, as did the Natals, the Vagneurs, and the Craigs. The end of farming and cattle in the area certainly marks a significant change. And, of course, more homes have been built here and there. But I think the soul of Woody Creek still remains, and that’s what’s really encouraging to me. I think this is a truly unique community where there are a lot of very unique individuals, and as much as there can be a lot of healthy disagreement and tiffs here and there, when push comes to shove I think everybody’s there for each other. And I think that’s really a rare thing. It’s a small enough community so that can occur -where people care about one another, even though there are certainly many different personalities and lifestyles and everything else here.
WCR: What’s your involvement with the Compass School?
PS: The school was certainly a huge part of our lives. George was one of the founders. Then when Ben started attending, when he was about 18 months old and the preschool was built, I became very involved, and it was really an important part of our lives. When Ben graduated we stepped back, and now it’s time for other people to carry the torch up there.
WCR: Good point. What’s unique about Compass? How does it differ from a traditional school, or does it differ?
PS: It does. It’s a charter school now, so certainly there are some rules that have to be complied with that did not have to be followed before, but on the other hand I think that there have been a lot of positive changes made. Its reputation of being the “hippie school on the hill” perhaps has changed.
WCR: So it was an alternative school. What made it different?
PS: It started back in the ’70s, during the whole movement toward alternative schools. Now there are very few of those still in existence, so it’s rare — the idea of cross-classrooms, where younger kids are in there with the older kids, with kids teaching kids, and with a lot of outdoor education. I think the school had a pioneering focus on experiential education, as I would call it, with a lot of hands-on learning. The school was also out front with the idea of adults really honoring the children as . . .
WCR: Human beings?
PS: Yes.
WCR: So is it a little bit like a Montessori-style school?
PS: Not really. It offers another type of alternative education.
WCR: My understanding is that the students who have graduated from the Compass School typically thrive in life.
PS: Yes, I think so. They have a lot of self-confidence, and follow their passions as opposed to just doing what they’re told to do. They are encouraged to question.
WCR: That’s wonderful. It’s great to have a school like that in our community.
PS: Yes, I think it’s a big asset in Woody Creek,
WCR: And Ben is now where? PS: Ben is at the American Acade-my of Dramatic Arts out in L.A. He’s starting his second year. His passions are music and acting and perform-ing, and I believe I can attribute a lot of his enthusiasm to the Communi-ty School’s fostering that in him, es-pecially Rett Harper and her wonder-ful productions at the Wheeler Opera House. Ben gained so much self-con-fidence from attending that school, and then from the Yampa Mountain High School in Glenwood Springs. But he loves Woody Creek. I see him continuing to come back here forever. And George’s five other children love it here and plan to spend a lot of time here, too. Yeah, we’re here to stay. We have a cemetery on our property, as you know, so I guess we’ll be here one way or another.
WCR: What do you see for the future of Woody Creek?
PS: I would like to see it continue to be a community that does not just blend into the whole valley and become part of the mass. I hope that the Woody Creek Community Center really takes off and becomes a model for other communities. I think we have an opportunity here, with a building being available to us where people can gather and exchange ideas, and have music nights, and poetry nights, and . . .
WCR: Politcal nights?
PS: Political nights. All of that just neighbors getting together, or as a place to meet if there’s a problem that we need to address together. I think the Woody Creek Caucus serves as a really strong voice in the political machine of our valley.
WCR: I know that the gravel pit was established before there was a strong caucus, for example.
PS: Exactly.
WCR: Is there anything else you’d like the Woody Creeker’s readers to know?
PS: I guess the only thing I’d like to add is how much I miss Hunter: you know, early-morning chats with him from the swimming pool, and your visits.
WCR: Yes, he was your nighttime swimmer. How did that work?
PS: Hunter was always welcome to come up and use our indoor pool any time after midnight, although we asked him to try to leave before 5 a.m. The main reason for that was because Ben was in school, and I would be up that early making his lunches and trying to get him out the door on time, which is hard enough in any household without extra distractions. Hunter was extremely respectful of the privilege of using the pool and we were rarely aware of his presence. He always left it in better condition than he found it in and I think it was like a meditation room for him. But sometimes Hunter wouldn’t make it out before 5, and when that happened it would often be fun to have him sitting there telling stories while I’d b making Ben’s lunch. I think Hunter is one of Ben’s Heroes, for sure — as he is for so many of us
