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The Way Corps Chalet revisited


pjroberge
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Many of you were around when the presidential palace was built, but we knew it as The Way Corps Chalet.

How many of us donated our time and money to build the corps chalet for the travelling way corps to have a place to stay as well as some staff corps?

How did you feel when Martindale took it as his private residence after we all gave our time and money for another purpose?

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The four rooms at the back of the chalet were called the "Corpstel". I guess it was supposed to be for the use of "corps" who were traveling through or somesuch, but I never knew of anyone who actually used it.

I've told this story before, but maybe it's worth repeating.

The chalet is built of Colorado logs - trees that grew and were aclimated to an arid environment, consequently being located in humid Ohio (and due in no small part to Mr. Wierwille's decision to leave the chalet unfinished out in the weather - without a roof - for a year or so) the logs are constantly rotting away.

There was a major rebuild on the corpstel section where an entire corner had to be replaced (no small feat with a real log building). Then there were numerous repairs to replace a log or two, or trim the exposed ends, or inject epoxy and slather on gallons of "Sikkens" wood preservative. In '88 the entire top of the building was torn off, many logs replaced, and an entirely new roof system was installed (the original shake roof having been done improperly).

I guess there's been yet again many major remodels performed on it to the tune of who-knows-how-many thousands of dollars.

When I last saw the place I was stunned to see how horribly out of level the decks were surrounding it. I was told this was due to the time the building sat out in the open and the logs got soaked and bent and twisted any way they wanted, and the "Waybuilders" were never quite able to cover up the damage.

Anyway, my take on the situation is that it's a bad concept from the gitgo. A wrong type of structure for Ohio to begin with, and given to a bugwit that didn't deserve damned thing, yet was given the "keys to the kingdom" by the all-knowing MOGFODAT.

A real joke all the way around...

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i didn't know the story georgie, glad you told it again

what jerks, what ego

hey god.... bring that log palace to the hereafter and make the "presidents and first ladies" (ohgod talk about ego) watch the logs rot for eternity....

.... or at least on beta max

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

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I was at Rome City when VP came through with a slide show of the cabin they were planning to build in the Way Woods.

Wierwille specifically said the cabin was for Way Corps who were traveling through the area, and that when he and Dotsie retired, they would live in the lower level, while the upper level and loft would be for traveling Corps and assorted Corps get-togethers.

Imagine my surprise when the next year they flew a bunch of us Corps from Illinois in to "see the Chalet" and I discovered that not the Way Corps, but Craig and Donna had moved in.

We were allowed to "sleep over" on the floor upstairs, but all the bedrooms were reserved for the Martindale family.

Years later, my husband and I stayed in one of the four little motel type rooms off the back of the main cabin, several times. And it was in fact nice. But the majority of Way Corps have never, EVER gotten to stay in that huge cabin that was built with our money, for our purposes, and then given to someone else.

Same old TWI concept of bait and switch.

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JT,

VPW and his wife spent EXACTLY one night in the Corps Chalet and he HATED it. He didn't like the "loft" aspect among other things.

LCM and Donna were living in one of the small units on grounds trailer 4,5, or 6 and VPW decided that was not grand enough for the corps director/president elect of twi.

ROR

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I worked countless hours on the Corps Chalet on the plumbing in 1978 in Way Builders. VPW told all of us that we would be entitled to its use when we were traveling through the area. I feel as if we were simply lied to.

If Donna still lives there, I think it is outrageous. She should have been made to go out on the field with her family. Instead I heard she got to stay there in the "Presidents Home" in all its luxury. It seems like all those places would be constant reminders to her of her husbands rampant adultery. There must be more to it as to why she would be allowed to stay and why she would even want to stay.

Sorry if these pictures are too big.

CorpsChalet3.jpg

CorpsChalet2med.jpg

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I remember hearing in the late 90's or so that LCM decided his office that was in the chalet needed to be redone. Something about the dimentions of it weren't quite up to snuff - like the numbers weren't spiritually correct enough for him (maybe it was 666 sq. ft. or something - who knows?).

Anyhow he had his home office gutted a redone more than once - a price tag that was very expensive considering materials and labor...

Anyone got the numbers or the details of this?

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I remember hearing that too, Chas, but I thought it was during the building of the multi-million dollar room.

I think they said a WC person working on the project got M&A'd because he eventually put his foot down to LCM.

I'll look in the archives and see if I can find it.

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I joined this site looking mostly to confirm things I had seen or suspected. What I got was an endless series of "what else can there be?" This pushes that line once again. What bastards.

It really is like a bad movie except real people WERE harmed in the making.

So after VPW pronounced it a good spot for LCM, they just moved in? No question, no protest? VPW said it and there was light? Once again, how could we be so stupid?

JT

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Tom Odd,

Yeah, and about that gate. One day whilst we were working on the chalet (I was putting on a new roof along with some in-res. "help") we came to work to find the gate laying on the ground. It had fallen over in the night. Fortunately no one was around to get flattened by it (though I can think of a couple who maybe could've used the treatment).

New logs had to be cut for it (again, I guess they had problems like that before). And a guy who had spent some time with the log home builder in Colorado, spent a week or so rebuilding the thing.

The place is a non-stop maintenance project...

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One snafu I remember at the chalet my first week on way builders,Buddy C. and I were pounding sheetrock nails,I think it was,on one of the walls,and we heard all this crashing...It was all the bathroom tile from the opposite side of the wall falling off into the bathtub....

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