Yard of the month

The Pine Haven Beautification Alliance has awarded "Yard of the Month of July" to Jeff and Tammy Wandler at 36 Lake View Drive. Jeff and Tammy use to come out to Pine Haven and Keyhole Lake when they were young and partied a lot.

Then they decided to buy this trailer house so they could stay in it and have friends over. In 2000, they were going to build a log cabin; however, as it would have been very expensive, they just decided to keep working on the trailer. Anyway, they have gradually made a very beautiful place with a large boat house, and a garage with a guesthouse attached to it. It's nice and fun to see all the antiques in the driveway that they have collected.

Next to the guesthouse is a swimming pool, a tree house and a darling miniature kid's house which their grandkids were still asleep in. Their grandkids are seven, eight and a baby who is eight months old.

Tammy says she mows and plants all the flowers etc. and it's very therapeutic for her. There is a huge fake tortoise in the yard and a small river runs through it. She said a lot of times deer come in and lay underneath the deck and scare her sometimes because she doesn't know they are there.

Bill Suchor, their neighbor, has built a lot of things for them. He's made light houses for the windows, tables and fire pit and has made some of their planters etc.

Jeff and Tammy own Frontier Auto Museum in Gillette that is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., six days a week in summer time. Some of the parts are called, Betty's Drug store (his mother), Leon's Winchester Shop, Owen's shoe repair (grandson) Watch and Clock repair, and Chandler's laundry.

Jeff has always loved collecting a lot of stuff throughout his life and he even has a could-be museum at his house in Pine Haven. He took us through this 4000 sq foot garage (at which he laughed and said his house is only 800 sq ft) but he has a lot of collections in the garage and boats (only two of which are licensed, the rest are just old ones that are fun to look at).

He had a tackle shop fishermen would love, lots of gas pumps and just lots of things. He said he would like to make it a museum here in Pine Haven but he doesn't have time to run it and would have to find someone that would be able to do it for him.

Right now, he just keeps adding stuff to it on walls, pictures and all kinds of things. It was very interesting.

I would encourage you all to take a ride and see their place. It's like a hidden treasure again revealed in Pine Haven. Thank you, Jeff and Tammy, for letting us see all your fun stuff.