An Unexpected Encounter with the World’s Most Beautiful Coffee House
There are many beautiful roads in the United States, but some are more beautiful than others. The Department of Transportation coined the term National Scenic Byway and crowned 184 roads, the top one-third of which are given the even more prestigious title All-American Road.
Utah State Route 12 in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is an All-American Road. A few years ago, I traveled it on my way from Bryce Canyon to Capitol Reef and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful scenery. I also had a surprise: In the vast land of majestic canyons, I stumbled upon an exquisite coffee house.
Yes, you heard me right. A coffee house. The kind of building usually situated at the corner of city streets where an aromatic drink is served and bohemian bourgeois gather. The coffee house is only a stone’s throw away but not visible from the highway. The driver must follow an inconspicuous sign to turn into a small side road that takes one to a parking lot:
Then one can follow a footpath to go down a few steps to find the entrance of Kiva Koffeehouse:
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If you are like me, you are probably thinking of the same thing: why is there a coffee house here? You haven’t seen any man-made structures in the last half an hour, and presumably, no development is allowed in the national monument area. Who is the owner of the coffee house, and how did he get the privilege?
As it turns out, Kiva Koffeehouse was built by an engineer and artist named Bradshaw Bowman. Born in the early twentieth century, Bowman studied engineering at Stanford before settling down in Carmel, a small town off California’s Coast Route 1 (also an All-American Road), to raise a family. He liked the Grand Staircase-Escalante and considered it “probably as close to heaven as I’ll ever get.” In 1977, he moved his family here.
Bowman ran into trouble in heaven. In 1990, the government found 60 cannabis plants on his 160-acre ranch and charged him on four drug counts. Bowman maintained his innocence, claiming the marijuana had been grown by trespassers. Eventually, the authority sentenced Bowman to ten days in prison and fined him $120,000. To raise funds to pay the fine, Bowman sold three-quarters of his ranch.
The Kiva Koffeehouse was built on the remaining 40 acres of his land. Bowman came up with the idea in the late 1980s. Instead of a utilitarian building, however, he treated it as an art project and spared no effort in the preparation. Just collecting the 13 40-inch pine trees on the façade took him two years. Some of them are older than the United States.
In 1996, President Clinton designated the Grand Staircase-Escalante a national monument. Although Bowman’s permit to build the coffee house was grandfathered in, he was not happy with the decision. Only after he realized his coffee house would always be surrounded by the Grand Staircase’s pristine beauty and no ugly apartment buildings would ever be erected to contaminate the views from his ranch did his anger dissipate.
His reconciliatory spirit is justified. The coffee house is the only structure in a radius of dozens of miles.
The entrance of the coffee house. Next to the door is a 40-inch thick pine column:
The interior of the coffee house. Everything was built with local materials:
A large picture window is placed between each pair of logs:
Other details are also quaint and elegant:
Guests can sip coffee on the patio in fine weather:
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Kiva Koffeehouse was completed ten years after the idea emerged and five years after the construction began. Bowman was 87 years old then and died two years later. It is now run by his daughter and granddaughter.
I have sat in countless coffee houses in the world, but Kiva is the most unique and breathtaking. Kiva is an Indian term for a dwelling that is half-buried underground. Kiva Koffeehouse was built with the same spirit. An octangular structure perched on a slope, it blends in seamlessly with the surroundings and offers an unobstructed view of the red canyons and Escalante River. Sitting in front of a window with a cup of coffee here is an unparalleled treat.
I like to divide ambitious people into two categories, successists and artists. A successist has an unquenchable thirst for success, while an artist is someone with a powerful desire to do well in his craft.
The successists and artists are not mutually exclusive. A successist has to do something well to succeed, and an artist is not necessarily entirely indifferent to worldly success. But the former is predominantly motivated by external reward, the latter by inner joy. The successists can benefit society. Fame and fortune are usually awards for work that improves people’s lives. But the artists are more interesting. The beautiful work they create, be it a novel, a painting, or a superb consumer product, is human society’s most precious asset.
Bowman is clearly an artist. Only an artist will spare no time and expense to build something in a faraway place. The result is the world’s most beautiful coffee house.
References:
https://www.deseret.com/1992/4/11/18978130/settlement-reached-in-drug-case
