A visit to Cort Cottage Bed and Breakfast brings you to a natural edge between home and mountain. From the comfortable and artfully appointed interior and building design to the sweeping meadow below the panoramic window, the cottage is about simplicity. It becomes your private home-away-from home in the southern Sierra Nevada.

Cort Cottage, the oldest Bed and Breakfast in Tulare County, is a single, private guest collage located four miles from the main entrance to Sequoia National Park at Ash Mountain. It was approved as a bed and breakfast by Tulare County in 1986. The cottage has a blog called Almanac from the Edge, started in 2002 before blogs were called blogs, that gives a seasonal perspective of living on the edge with the natural world.

The natural setting is breath taking for this private bed and breakfast guest cottage deep in Salt Creek Canyon at the foot of Case Mountain. Fitting snugly into the the hillside, the cottage has an open floor plan and was designed and built in 1985 as a special home for the host's Grandma. Grandma's favorite color of blue is found in the dishes, carpets, linens and furniture. A panoramic half-circle window frames the southern Sierra Nevada foothills and seasonal wildflower meadow outside, and provides a magnificent framing for the star-studded night sky and the full moon rise from behind the mountains across the canyon.

The kitchen is fully equipped for cooking, including microwave, gas stove, refrigerator, coffee maker, and all dishes and cooking utensils. Breakfast food offered includes fresh fruit, muffins or assorted bread, juice, organic half and half, oatmeal, homemade granola, raisin bran, and eggs for guests to conveniently prepare on their own schedule. Freshly ground French Roast coffee, both regular and decaf, is available along with a wide assortment of herbal teas and English teas. There is an outside flower and herb bed at the level of the kitchen window at the sink.

There is a queen-size bed, with down comforter in the bedroom area and a futon sofa in the living room which opens to a full-size bed. Extra bed linens, pillows and blankets are found in a cedar chest in the living room. The bathroom has a tiled step down shower which also doubles as a sit down bath tub.

The outside deck is made from the circular bottom of a large redwood wine vat. A shade umbrella and table with chairs provide an outdoor living space. Hiking and mountain biking is welcomed nearby on the BLM land at Case Mountain a few yards from the driveway entrance to the cottage.

Full and Hearty Breakfast

Seasons Open: Year Round

Range of Rates: $150-165 / two persons

From your host, Elsah Cort, "I have always felt that offering the cottage to guests is a way to share the peace, serenity and the intensity of living on the edge. In our increasingly fast and busy world, we need a place to tone it down. The best thing you can do when visiting Cort Cottage is to do nothing at all. Of course, meandering among the giant trees in Sequoia National Park is a great plan...and don't forget a few naps and walks at the river's edge."

Cort Cottage Bed and Breakfast was started in 1986 by Three Rivers resident, Elsah Cort. Elsah has lived in Three Rivers since 1977, but her love for the Sierra Nevada foothills and Three Rivers started in the 1950s, during many childhood visits to her aunt, uncle and cousins. She would spend time every summer at their cabin up the South Fork on Blue Ridge near the condor preserve (donated by her uncle.)

She is one of the founding members of the Alta Peak Chapter, the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society, started in 1990. She also is a founding member of the Arts Alliance of Three Rivers, started in 1985. She is the organizer of the Three Rivers Artsts' Biennial Studio Tour, which is held throughut the foothills of Three Rivers every other March. She is a collage artist and photographer. Her on-site art studio is open to guests by appointment.

Elsah, a registered nurse since 1969, has practiced both craniosacral therapy and feng shui consulting since 1997. She describes these two energy work practices as two sides of the same coin. Relaxing biodynamic craniosacral work sessions are available for guests.

The cottage is not easily handicapped accessible. It has been accessed by a few high functioning persons in wheel chairs, with special instructions from the host to use an alternative route from the normal footpath which includes steps.

Cort Cottage encourages guests to recycle during their stay at the cottage. It offers organic fruits in season for its breakfast menu. The bed linens are sun dried, weather permitting, which is most of the time.