A Bit of History
Riversong is located in Dallas County, MO. The property was purchased on September 26, 1980, by Gary and Barbara Lammers of Kansas City, MO. from the estate of Harry K. Waggoner who had left the approximately 24 acres to The School of the Ozarks, Point Lookout, Mo, Park College, Parkville, MO and the Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO. The Lammers family became aware of the property through Jim Mueller, brother of Barbara Lammers, whose colleague was handling the estate. The purchase was made with a generous gift from Marty and Eleanor Mueller, parents of Barbara Lammers. The legal description of the original property is:
That part of the North 825 feet of the SE 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of section 11 Township 35 Range 18 lying and being West of the Big Niangua River and containing 21 acres more or less.
Through the diligent efforts of Gary Lammers, the actual location of the property was found after much searching of records and traipsing through the woods and over the hills.
An additional approximately 3 acres were purchased on August 29th, 1994, with the legal description of: The N 165 feet of the South 495 feet of the SE Quarter of the SE quarter of section 11, Township 35, Range 18 on the left bank (or the West side) of the Big Niangua River.
Through the vision and effort of Gary with the aid of Barbara and our kids including our four children, Windy, Stacy, Jessica and Matt, we enjoyed many years of camping, fishing and floating the Niangua River and just playing in the water. We shared it with many friends and family in this fashion. Gary began dreaming of building a cabin on the property soon after we acquired it and at one time had a pad excavated for that purpose high on the hill at the top of the property. It was not until spring of 2014 that the possibility of a cabin became real. After several talks with some of the Burns family who own and operate the Niangua River Oasis (NRO) Gary began to formulate a plan for building a small but accommodating cabin. Many hurdles had to be thought through and overcome not the least of which was how to power such a remote cabin. After bringing in conventional electricity was eliminated because of the expense and the necessity of destroying far too many trees, and the lack of cooperation from some of the neighboring property owners, solar power was decided upon. However, since that power would be limited and not always reliable, a propane gas generator was added. In addition to power, water and sewage had to be addressed. A well needed to be dug and a septic tank installed. All of these things brought us to hire Titus Chupp of Chupp’s Construction Co. (This company was eventually replaced by Deryl Osborn Construction), Aaron Wilson from Wil-Co for well drilling, Ron Schrock Electrical, LLC, for solar power installation, and Charlie Strickland for excavation and septic system installation. All through the summer Gary Lammers made phone calls and emailed and visited with these men on site trying to formulate a plan using plan 592-055D-0102 from houseplansandmore.com. Over these months the plans were modified and the placement of the house changed because of input from the hired companies and also from Michael Pate, son-in-law, and Phil Lammers, brother of Gary.
After consulting with financial advisers it was decided that we would mortgage our current home in order to pay for the construction and use invested money from an inheritance from Marty and Eleanor Mueller to pay off the loan over a 15 year period. Jim Mueller provided the legal expertise to form the Won’t Blow Over LLC for the management of the property. (There is a story on the "Stories" page about the origin of the name, Won't Blow Over.) Please note that the name of the LLC was formerly changed to Riversong Cabin LLC in July 2018 just to simplify things.
It is our aim to have a place where we can enjoy extended visits sharing this rich world with friends and family and to leave to our children and their children a piece of nature which will enrich their lives.
November 22, 2014 Site
New and last site!
Approximately where the car is! The old site was slightly
behind the car and up the hill.
Ground Breaking—-sorta
On, Sunday, December 7, 2014, Gary Lammers along with Michael Pate and his friend, Matt Wantland, felled 25 trees in preparation for the excavation by Strickland Excavation.
Papi and Charlie Strickland
Wednesday, December 10, 2014, Mike Austin from
Strickland Excavating began the ground work!
OOOOOPS!
On March 5, 2015, Titus Chupp, our builder informed us that he could not do the project. He cited his need to go to Moberly, MO, to build a church for his Mennonite community and the loss of his crew. He gave us the name of his recommendation for a replacement for him...Deryl Osborn from Mack’s Creek, MO. We met with Deryl Osborn at the building site that same day. We followed him back to his home to take a closer look at the plans and talked at length with him about our needs and wishes. He said he was interested and would get back to us within about a week with a bid...Well on April 12, we finally got his bid. And…it was well over our bottom line so it was back to the drawing board. After a number of phone calls and emails we met again with Deryl Osborn and came to a verbal agreement on May, 11, 2015.
On June 6, 2015, we signed a contract
with Deryl Osborn Construction
And the building begins...
After much negotiation, research and bargaining, we came to an agreement with Deryl Osborn to build our cabin nine feet off the ground, with solar power and back up generator. On June 9, 2015, Deryl and a worker named Jordan, graded the road and the site once again in order to set the stakes for the footprint of the cabin.
These images are of the original house plans that we then modified. The orange marks are our changes.
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On June 28, 2015, Papi and Baba packed up camping gear and headed to the river to hopefully witness the foundation peers being dug and poured. But, alas, the weather had another plan. When we arrived to set up camp things were damp but not too bad, however, the building site itself was swampy because the well had become a flowing artesian well and was feeding a continuous supply of water to the site. Papi was able to dig a small trench to divert the water and the site began to drain. But, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, July 1, it began to rain. Heavy rain. For hours. When we awoke that morning Quick Creek was roaring. Dry Creek was rolling and the road to the river was flooded. We chose to pack up and go home because there were flash flood advisories. We put wet tents and tarps into the back of the Equinox and all the rest of our gear into the Tahoe and hauled them home. Papi checked the water level site on the internet and found that in that one day the river rose from 3 feet to 18 feet. It went back down to 14 and then back up to 17 feet within days. And, more rain was predicted. No building at our site the forseable future…See story of the flood on stories page, "Remember..."
Dry Creek!!!!
Moving day was September 10, 2016, although the cabin was not yet complete. Papi rented a 26 foot U-Haul truck for 48 hours for $ 315.67. It was loaded on Friday afternoon and driven by Papi to Riversong on Saturday, 10/10/16 and then returned to the U-Haul place on Hwy. 73 at Hwy 64. The furnishings had mostly been stacked in the garage of our Olathe home by Papi, Zach Belcher and Keaton Prohaska prior to moving day which had been delayed several times. On the Friday before the move Zach, Sara and Noah Pate, and Jake and Laura Lammers-Meis helped Papi and Baba load everything into the truck and Tahoe. After that we had a pizza party! Early on Saturday morning--about 6:00, Papi drove the truck and Baba drove the Tahoe to Riversong where Jesse and Javen who have been helping to build the cabin met us and then unloaded the truck, hauling everything up the stairs. Then Michael, Stacy and Sara Pate arrived and started putting beds together. There were 4 sets of bunks and 3 queen beds. All of them were used and parts were scattered everywhere! Thank you for having the patience to figure them out, Pates! Then Ann Lewis and Marta Hake arrived and continued to help with putting beds together and unloading the Tahoe which held most of the paintings and mirrors. Ann provided us dinner of tacos and peaches. Everyone pitched in to figure out how to arrange the great room furniture and then Michael and Papi began to hang mirrors and pictures. Many of the pictures were ones which had belonged to Eleanor and Marty Mueller. Some were original paintings of Eleanors and then some were photos on canvas which our kids gave to Papi for his 70th birthday. Stacy got them ordered for Papi. Most of those are photos of us camping on Riversong 30 years prior to building the cabin. One is a photo of Matt Lammers with his arms spread helping Papi see boundary lines for the property.
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The cabin at this point had no hot water, some doors and knobs were not yet installed, the porch was not screened, the Radiantec heating was not quite complete, the insulation and cover were not in place under the house, the appliances were not yet working and there was a terrible sewer smell emanating throughout the house at night! But we slept in comfy beds. No one was seriously hurt although Papi took a nasty fall on the staircase going up stairs. The weather cooperated completely--we were anticipating heavy rain on Friday evening so we moved up the loading of the truck but it didn't rain and it was only in the 70s during the day while were were unloading at Riversong. We had all the right help at all the right time! We are so blessed. We are so grateful.
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