Three cabins at Day Mountain Ranch are waiting to be landscaped to finish them off.
CUB RIVER – Doug Day, a California businessman and contractor, is building a luxury resort in the Cub River area east of Franklin, Idaho that could rival upscale resorts in other mountain communities.
Day found land for sale in the Cub River area located at 77 S. Springcreek Rd. Preston and when he looked over the land, he envisioned The Day Mountain Ranch, a resort with horses, cattle and luxury cabins. He bought the 1,675 acres and began to do what he had been doing all his life: build.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Day said. “I have relatives in Logan and Brigham City and liked the area, so I was looking for something like this in the area when I found it. It had been for sale for a few years.”
The California native built a shop and cabins using rock from the hillsides for the exterior walls and imported wood furniture from Indonesia for the interiors. His family has been living in the area for four years now while he works on it. Each cabin has granite countertops, nice furniture fully furnished and several Bob Hill western paintings hanging on the walls.
“The ranch was part of the Hull Family Trust,” Day said. “Bob Hull’s family were the trustees and were trying to sell it for a number of years.”
When he bought the ranch, he also purchased some extra land leases and started grazing cattle.
“There wasn’t anything here except some old homestead wood structures,” he said. “We put in some roads and wells to improve the water structure. Then we brought in underground power.”
Day built a viewing station or lookout with a deck surrounding it on one of the peaks. Guests can look out over the valley and see Johnson and Lamont reservoirs and turn another direction and see the tail end of Glendale Reservoir. He also built a shooting range for pistols, shotguns and rifles.
“We have six high-end cabins and a large, heavy pavilion and horse barns,” Day explained. “We designed the place for group events, family reunions, corporate retreats, weddings and other gatherings.”
The horse barn will be turned into a welcome center where people can buy swag. People have already been finding them from their website.
“Between families and individuals, we can sleep up to 74 people in all the cabins,” he said. “The cabins are set up like homes with central heat and air, soaking tubs, large showers and bathrooms.”
All of the cabins have unobstructed views with decks. The basements have a wall with built-in bunkbeds, pool tables, foosball, and air hockey tables.
The cabins also have high speed internet and cable televisions in every room.
“I have other companies and when I built this I thought of my own needs,” he said. “We can do our company retreats here and we have a big family and we struggled finding a place to have family reunions.”
They have tried cruises, traveled to Mexico and other places, but they are growing and nothing felt right until now.
“I wanted to have a place to accommodate everyone, a place where other people could come and enjoy themselves,” he said. “That is why we made it so nice. It has worked out; we are getting all kinds of groups scheduling the cabins.”
They have a full-time horse trainer on site and horses for trail riding. They have a pond dug, but didn’t fill it this year because the water table is too low.
“It’s been chaotic, but it is starting to come together,” he said. “We have other buildings in the works. We are waiting for building material prices to come down a little before we do more.”
The resort is situated near Cub River with steep hills all around it.
“I wanted to keep like it is preserved it,” Day said. “It is such a beautiful area to see and experience.”
The website is daymountainranch.com.
“I’ve worked all over the country and this is my last spot,” he said. “This is my happy place.”