Owners of cabins along the Cedar return, when they can

CEDAR RAPIDS - Many owners of homes and businesses lost to the Cedar River four years ago this week didn't return, but for those who have rebuilt seasonal cabins, there's no place they'd rather be.

“We finally got a dock in down there,” Jolene Salehoglu said one afternoon last week. “So it's time to get the stinkbait out and sit there for hours.”

Salehoglu and daughter Syriana, 6, were looking forward to their first overnight in the cabin they helped husband and dad David Salehoglu rebuild at the former ZCBJ Park off Old River Road SW.

A short distance downstream on the Cedar's opposite bank, Dale Bruening is back in his cabin, although he's not sure whether it's for good, or whether his neighbors will be back.

“With the economy and everything going on right now, I kind of doubt it,” he admitted. “I'm debating whether to put that money back in myself.”

Like its neighbors, Bruening's cabin was mounted on stilts before the Floods of 2008, but at about 6 feet they weren't high enough. The cabin took on water to its ceiling, but because it was fastened down - unlike its five neighbors - it wasn't swept away.

“Everything just floated away, here,” Bruening said.

For now, Bruening's neighbors are staying in recreational vehicles parked on property leased, like his own lot, from owners of a quarry near Bertram. Linn County granted a temporary use permit to park the RVs for the summer.

“This guy here, he might build,” he said, pointing to a nearby site. “When he starts to get the figures together, what it's going to cost him, I don't know.”

Darrell Langan of Cedar Rapids said he “used a lot of my 401(k) money” to restore a pioneer-era cabin on 38 densely wooded acres near Palo.

“It was like coming out of retirement, but it was good for me,” he said. “I'm 74 now, and I'm still able to do it.”

Langan's son, Kevin, bought the property in 1977 and died there in April 2007 of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

Langan's son might not recognize his old hunting shack. Darrell Langan hired a housemover to raise the cabin atop tall concrete pilings. The exterior is clad in siding, while inside, wallboard and plaster hide the rough-cut lumber.

The house boasts air conditioning, an all-electric kitchen and full bathroom with shower. The carpeted bedroom is upstairs under the eaves.

Langan salvaged an intricately carved archway from the home on Ellis Boulevard NW that he and his wife, Karen, lost in the June 2008 flood. That house has been razed, and they've moved to a smaller home in southeast Cedar Rapids. But Langan expects he'll be spending most of his time at the cabin.

“I kind of feel my son looking down and saying, ‘Dad, you did it right,'” Langan said.

Raising the cabin is a key part of any property owner's rebuilding: A federal standard requires any rebuilt structure be elevated above flood level.

Owners have rebuilt five cabins, all on pilings, at the former ZCBJ Park - it's now Wildwood Park LLC, owned by its members - with at least one more planned.

“My parents just bought the lot next door and are planning to build,” Salehoglu said.

The park was developed in the 1930s as a nearby getaway for the city's Czech community - ZCBJ is short for “Zapado-ceska bratrska jednota,” or Western Bohemian Fraternal Society. The property became Wildwood Park in 2002 when its members, many of them descendants of original members, bought it from the insurance company the fraternal group became.

With a post-flood grant of $37,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, administered by the Linn County Historic Preservation Commission, the park's pavilion is being restored and should be completed this summer, Salehoglu said.

New beams support the hall's ceiling, and fresh-smelling pine paneling lines the interior. The building's wide serving windows - they swing up to create an open-air bar and kitchen - were saved, to serve visitors using the nearby horseshoe pits and outdoor bowling lane.