FOREVER GROOVY

MEGHAN WARNER BAKER WAS AHEAD OF HER TIME WHEN SHE PURCHASED A 1970S SKI CHALET AND LET IT BE ITS RETRO SELF. FIFTEEN YEARS LATER, IT’S COOLER THAN EVER.

- ELIZABETH EDWARDS

The barn roof–styled chalet was closed up tight for the winter when Meghan Warner Baker saw it for the first time in 2005. She was in her early 20s then and ready to purchase her first home. Trudging around the chalet, set into a slope within sight of Boyne Highlands and a short walk (or ski if there’s enough snow) from Nub’s Nob Ski Area, Meghan knew she had to have it. She loved the way the tree that grew through a cutout in the above-grade-level deck made the place feel like a treehouse. And Meghan could barely draw herself away from windows that rose 30 feet from the main level to frame a postcard view of Boyne Highlands. “I knew that I wanted it even before I went inside,” she says. “You know how it is when you get that feeling.”

And Meghan hadn’t even seen the original black leather-upholstered bar in the downstairs rec room yet, or the swinging basket chair, or what she calls the Darth Vader black-metal fireplace …