Cooking For Crowds Nothing New
Karol Johnson sets a steaming plate of homemade enchiladas in front of you and you tell her they look and smell wonderful. You ask her whether she’s cooked in a restaurant.
She shakes her head no. So how does the new co-owner of the Carlin Bay Resort manage to cook for crowds without such experience?
“We raised foster children,” she answers. “There were never less than 12 people at our table.”
Fred and Karol Johnson have moved back to North Idaho - for the second time. They first moved here in 1976 with their own four children and three foster children to begin a construction business. But a poor financial climate prompted them to move within a couple years. They reluctantly returned to Solvang, a Danish community on the coast just north of Santa Barbara, Calif.
Being foster parents has been great training - the couple cares about people and it shows. In one four-year period, before their first move to Idaho, the couple provided a home for 23 girls. They answered a calling to be foster parents because Fred had spent several years with foster parents before entering the Marines at the age of 18.
“It was a way of repaying the system that had helped me,” Fred said.
He even learned the construction trade from his foster father.
Karol, too, has strong feelings about the system and caring for children at risk.
“There are no fair laws when it comes to children. The dollar is always the bottom line,” she said.
Fred and Karol still hear from six foster children - three regularly.
After returning to California in 1978, Fred continued his successful construction business. His customers included such celebrities as Rona Barrett and Whoopie Goldberg.
“I restored a historic adobe for Whoopie,” Fred said.
Located at the Santa Maria pass off U.S. 101, the property consists of the 24,000-square-foot original house with two-foot thick walls and a tile roof. It was built in 1906 as a stagecoach stop and later was owned by the John Deere family. Whoopie bought the property from the estate of one of the heirs.
Besides restoring the house, Fred restored several out buildings and landscaped part of the estate’s 80 acres.
“Gardenias are Whoopie’s favorite flower and we lined the driveway with gardenia bushes,” Fred said. “It’s a region where the natural vegetation is pines, live oaks and white oaks.”
Both Fred and Karol are thrilled to be back in North Idaho and Fred refuses to leave, even for a vacation.
Over two years ago, after deciding to retire from the construction business, the couple began searching the region for a new avenue for their energies.
It was then they learned that the Carlin Bay Resort was for sale. They bought it and began upgrading - cleaning, painting, installing a new heating system and storm windows. Air conditioning is in the plans before next season.
After a successful first summer, the couple plans to be open all winter, except Mondays, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They will accept reservations for special parties and are opening a small convenience store along with their gas pumps.
They are thrilled to be where they are and love their business.
“We need to know people,” Karol said. “We’ve never been happier.”
People respond to the couple’s warmth. Last summer, customers hired a band and staged a surprise thank-you party for the Johnsons. Plans for the evening spread by word of mouth and by party time, the place was packed.
, DataTimes MEMO: Jeri McCroskey, a freelance writer and antique collector, lives with her husband at Carlin Bay. Panhandle Pieces is shared among several North Idaho writers.