Their routine goes something like this:
When they first arrive at the log cabin, he takes the three dogs for a walk.
”Up that path,” he said, pointing, ”and then I try to keep them out of the pond. But they usually smell like pond water, and they get full of cockleburs.”
She, however, is apt to just sit right down on the front porch and start reading. ”It takes Jim a while to slow down, but I can relax right away. This place does that to me; there`s a peace here.”
This is Jim and Brenda Edgar, the governor and his wife, in the log cabin they bought last year, shortly after his inauguration. It`s their getaway, their place to relax and unwind.
”I asked George Bush once what he did to relax, and he said, `I go to Camp David,` ” Edgar said. ”This is like our Camp David, except we paid for it.”
It doesn`t take long to realize just what this place means to the Edgars. They are visibly relaxed, pointing things out, occasionally interrupting each other, mugging slightly for the camera and laughing as the three dogs tumble over each other.
”This is us,” she said. ”The first time I walked in here, I knew this was what we needed.”
”Every house we`ve ever had has been temporary,” he said. ”I`d always say, `Well, let`s wait and see if we`re going to be staying.` My plans are to keep this place forever.”
What`s surprising about this as yet unnamed log cabin getaway (she grimaces at ”Stone Chimney,” which he likes, and another place is already named ”Springpatch”) is that it`s only 20 minutes from the Executive Mansion in Springfield.
”I had always wanted a cabin in the mountains,” he said. ”This is it. It was Brenda`s idea that we had to be close to Springfield, and she was right.”
”Five or 10 more minutes, we`d hardly ever get here; there just wouldn`t be the time,” she said. ”This distance, we come just for the afternoon sometimes. And look, there is a hill. No mountain, but there`s a hill.”
They didn`t want to compromise on two things: He wanted a log cabin and she wanted a road nearby.
”There`s a warmth about logs that has always appealed to me, but I have to say I wasn`t too excited about the road, or the `hard road,` as she calls it,” he said. ”I mean, she grew up on a farm; you wouldn`t think she`d need a road.”
”That`s probably the reason,” she said. ”I don`t like feeling isolated; I need to know I can get to the road.”
”But the road is OK; Brenda can see it when she sits on the porch but it doesn`t detract, it`s not in clear view,” he said.
The cabin, which is four years old and sits on six acres, isn`t clearly visible from the (hard) road. There`s nothing to indicate that this spot is owned by Illinois` First Couple. There`s just a simple, slightly crooked rural mailbox out front. The story has it, according to Edgar, that the road was part of Abraham Lincoln`s mail route.
Brenda Edgar started looking for a retreat almost immediately after her husband`s inauguration in January 1991.
”Before we moved into the mansion, we had talked about getting some sort of place, but there hadn`t been any urgency,” she said. ”But then, yes, I got urgent. I don`t think Jim knew how committed I became to finding us a place.
”When you`ve just been regular people, and all of a sudden you`re living in a place like the mansion-50,000 people go through it a year-well, it`s an honor, but it`s not yours. You constantly have to have everything in order, your house is supposed to be perfect, your hair is supposed to be perfect, your makeup, and that gets old.
”So you need a place like this, where you can wear comfortable clothes, sit and rock on the porch in the summer or make a fire in the winter, rent a movie and eat popcorn or pizza. Whatever. A place where there aren`t any expectations.”
She has wallpapered some of the rooms (She doesn`t find the actual wallpapering hard, she says, ”it`s steaming off old paper that was awful.”), and he worries about the bare patches outside caused by the drought. He cooks on a propane grill on the deck outside the dining room-hamburgers, pork chops and chicken-and she said his skills are improving.
”Jim always used to cook everything too fast; he was always in a hurry. He`s slowing down (with the grilling) now.”
Casual, relaxed comfort is the key word here, even for the dogs. Emy (who gets to sleep at the foot of the bed and whose name stands for Executive Mansion Youngest) and Daisy and Bud (who were adopted recently by the Edgars from the Springfield pound) are in their element-no constricting fences and the pond to boot.
The entire 2,500-square-foot house is light and airy, with a spacious, high-ceilinged living room-dining room area full of windows and a kitchen that looks out on birdfeeders and a hammock swinging between two trees. The hammock was last year`s Father`s Day gift from Elizabeth, 18 (a college sophomore), and Brad, 24 (in Washington, D.C., working for the Department of
Transportation).
There`s no television in the living room, just several places to curl up with a good book in front of the large stone fireplace.
Much of the furniture has been in their families for years, sometimes generations-their bedroom set originally was his family`s; twin beds and a dresser in daughter Elizabeth`s room belonged to Brenda`s grandmother; there`s a table from the early days of their marriage when they lived in Park Forest, a rocking chair from her grandmother, a cookie jar from his mother.
The cabin is also home to his Indian collections, which he is quick to say are from Illinois, not the Southwest: a pot unearthed near Canton, which he said dates from 1200 A.D., framed arrowheads and other artifacts.
A television set and a large sectional sofa that was in their family room before they moved to the Executive Mansion are in the lower level; two bedrooms and a small office with a big rolltop desk are on the second floor.
The Edgars can talk about almost every piece of furniture, quilt, picture and accessory-where it came from and how long they`ve had it.
”That couch is one of the few new things Brenda has gotten since we got married,” Edgar said, pointing to the buttery soft leather sofa in the living room. ”It was our anniversary gift to each other.”
Their 25th wedding anniversary this year helps explain why this place-whatever they name it-is important.
They were planning to go to Austria. Part of their itinerary included a stay at a former palace, where Edgar had arranged for an orchestra to perform a private concert for the two of them.
”I thought it would be very special for us, and it was going to be a surprise for Brenda,” he said. That was the week of the Chicago flood. ”We didn`t go.”
”I was packed, ready to leave,” she said. ”We kept saying, `Should we go? Shouldn`t we go?` Of course we couldn`t; Jim had to be here.”
Laid back, kick-off-the-shoes vacations just haven`t been part of their lives for a long time.
”If we had a vacation, I`d just like to go somewhere and stay in one place for a few days,” she said. ”We do a lot of packing and unpacking. We`re dashing places.
”When we come here, we just have a little overnight bag. And there is this peace.”
It`s not quite all finished yet, she said. Some of the pictures don`t look quite right where they are, the mantle needs a little more color, odds and ends-”but then you never really finish, do you?”
But when it is pretty much finished, will they do much entertaining at their log cabin?
They look at each other.
”I don`t really plan to,” he said.
”My intent is to keep this for our family,” she said. ”We need this for us.”
