We arrived on the Island at about 10:00 am on a Saturday morning, and, went directly to the sales trailer. In those days there were no roads west or north of the intersection of Horseshoe Trail and Stone Island Road so the Sales Trailer was on the southwest corner of the intersection.

We introduced ourselves to Bob Kettles, the salesman on duty that Saturday morning and spent about 15 minutes going over the PUD plat plan with him.  We selected lot 65, section 2, unit 4 and said we would like to see the lot.  Bob informed us, laughingly, that he would like to see the lot also, however, none of the lots in Units 2,3,4,5,6 had been surveyed and marked so we would have to settle with seeing the general area.

We all piled into a Jeep and headed west from the trailer through the dense woods.  When we reached the place where what is now Kettledrum Trail and Arrowhead Trail, Bob turned right and drove to a point just west of the climbing tree.  He proceeded to tell us that the lot we had selected would be approximately directly to the west from the tree with the road named Kettledrum Trail in between.  He also told us that the canal would be dug about 150 feet to the west of the road and would run north and south.

After seeing virtually nothing but woods and a platt plan we decided that we liked it enough to ask some serious questions.  The first being, "If we buy today when can we start construction on our home?"

Bob, having no power to commit to that question called the Owner/Developer Mr. H. M.. "Corky" Huffman who told us that by July 1, 1973 the water and sewer lines would be run and the roads constructed and the canal dug and the fill soil dry enough to grade and build on.

By July 1, 1973, all promises had been kept and we broke ground on our home.  After several conferences with Stone Island Construction we selected them to build the house. It was like it was raining Huffman's.  Mike Huffman who had just Graduated from Architectural School in California, worked with my rough floor plan, designed the house and oversaw the construction.  Jim Huffman, a master mason almost built the home single handedly with a helper. He did the foundation, the walls the fireplace the porches, the chimney and to cap it all off he threw the stucco on the entire house with a trowel.

It should be noted here that at that time the entire western end of the island was fenced in and Corky had leased it out to a farmer who put about 100 yearling black angus bulls and one humongous red bull out to pasture in this area.  To this day, there are bull prints in our slab.

One of my funniest memories of our first few months in the home was hearing Norma screaming one morning and looking out to see her at the end of the drive way with the newspaper in her hand and 3 or 4 bulls between her and the house.