Nobody Believed in Their Colorado Cliff Home… Until the 12-Day Storm Buried the Valley

The Cliff House That Outlasted the Storm: How One Colorado Couple Survived a Blizzard That Buried a Town

By the time the snow finally stopped falling, Ridgerest was no longer visible.

For nearly two weeks in March 1881, storm after storm had driven down from the Rockies into the narrow Eagle River valley, dumping snow without pause and packing it into drifts as hard as stone. Roofs disappeared. Chimneys vanished. Streets became an unbroken white plain more than 20 feet deep.

Inside the buried town, families were suffocating, freezing, and slowly running out of food.

High above the valley floor, however, carved into the southern cliff face like it had always belonged there, one home stood untouched by the storm.

Inside it, Isaiah and Martha Redmond waited.

A Home No One Wanted

The Redmonds arrived in the Colorado Territory in 1878, when Ridgerest was booming with silver money and speculation. Isaiah, a stonemason from Philadelphia, had spent two decades shaping stone for churches, banks, and townhouses. Martha, a former schoolteacher, had left behind the expectations of Eastern society in search of something quieter and more permanent.

They did not come west to mine.

Isaiah came to build.

While most newcomers competed for land on the valley floor, Isaiah filed a claim on a sheer sandstone cliff rising nearly 300 feet above town. The land cost him just four dollars. It had no pasture, no timber, and no road—only a deep natural overhang and soft, workable stone beneath it.

Town officials thought he was mad.

Neighbors laughed openly. They called the project “the Swallow’s Nest,” a joke aimed at the couple’s plan to live clinging to a rock face like birds. The wealthiest man in town, land speculator Harlon Prescott, dismissed it as a novelty that wouldn’t survive a single hard winter.

The Redmonds ignored them.

Building With the Mountain

Construction began in the summer of 1878 and lasted more than a year. Isaiah worked patiently, carving rooms directly into the sandstone with hammer and chisel. The overhang above the entrance extended nearly 15 feet, ensuring that rain and snow would never strike the doorway or windows.

The home consisted of three chambers: a main living space, a bedroom, and a small stable for their horse, Cedar. South-facing windows captured winter sunlight. The cliff itself formed the back and side walls, providing immense thermal mass that held heat long after the sun went down.

Stone floors warmed by daylight radiated that heat through the night. In winter, the temperature inside the cliff never dropped below the low 50s without a fire.

By August 1879, the Swallow’s Nest was complete. The total cost: $234.

It was modest. It was quiet. And it worked.

The Storm That Changed Everything

The winter of 1879–80 was mild, and skeptics felt vindicated. “Anyone can survive a soft season,” Prescott reportedly said.

But in March 1881, winter returned with fury.

The first storm seemed ordinary. Then it did not stop.

By day five, the lower floors of Ridgerest’s buildings were buried. By day eight, only rooftops remained visible. By day ten, even chimneys disappeared beneath packed snow. Smoke backed up into homes. Fires failed. Air ran thin.

In the Swallow’s Nest, snow never reached the door.

The cliff overhang deflected it outward, sending tons of snow cascading harmlessly to the valley below. Wind screamed through town but could not touch the sheltered rock face. Inside, the Redmonds had food for months, water seeping naturally through sandstone into a cistern, and warmth stored in the stone itself.

On the seventh day of the storm, Martha broke the silence.

“There are children down there,” she said.

Isaiah already knew.

Rescue From Above

When the storm finally broke on the twelfth day, Isaiah put into motion a plan he had quietly prepared for years.

During construction, he had anchored iron rings into the cliff face and stockpiled rope, blankets, and provisions. He and Martha descended onto the snowpack, which had compacted enough to walk on like solid ground.

They searched for chimneys.

At each faint plume of smoke, Isaiah dug while Martha called down. Over the next three days, they pulled families from airless pockets beneath the snow—one by one, hour after hour.

They rescued 31 people directly and organized efforts that saved many more. The Swallow’s Nest, designed for two, became a refuge for dozens. Food was shared. Water rationed. Warmth preserved.

Among the last rescued was Harlon Prescott.

His $8,000 mansion—three stories of imported timber and glass—had collapsed inward. Isaiah hauled Prescott and his family from the wreckage with his own hands.

Prescott said nothing as they climbed toward the cliff dwelling he had once mocked.

A Town Reborn

When spring arrived, Ridgerest lay in ruins. Every structure on the valley floor was damaged or destroyed. Seventeen people had died.

Without the Redmonds’ cliff home, survivors agreed, the toll would have been far worse.

At a gathering held beneath the cliff, Prescott publicly admitted his error. “I built for display,” he said. “They built for survival.”

Isaiah offered no speeches. He offered instruction.

Under his guidance, Ridgerest rebuilt differently. New homes were carved into cliffs or backed against stone walls. Overhangs were used as natural roofs. Buildings were oriented toward winter sun and away from prevailing winds.

Prescott funded a community hall carved into the rock—a shelter for future storms.

A Legacy in Stone

Isaiah and Martha Redmond lived in their cliff home for more than three decades. They had no children, but they taught hundreds how to build with patience, humility, and respect for the land.

Their home still stands today, its stone walls warm to the touch even in winter.

Carved above the entrance are words Isaiah etched by hand:

The earth endures. Build with her.

In Ridgerest, no one laughs at cliff homes anymore.