All the world likes to return to the primitive at times. In most cases this return takes the form of cooking and eating a meal outdoors. There is something about a fire outdoors that awakens impulses lost in us ages ago. And a well cooked outdoor meal makes hearty vacation appetites even keener.
Since the purpose of your vacation home is to get closer to nature, you should plan to get the most out of it by providing facilities for cooking and eating at least some of your meals in the open. On the other hand, you will want to arrange to have greater convenience than the open fire on the surface of the ground that served your ancestors long ago. The outdoor grill, or an outdoor fireplace with a grill built in, provides the comfort and facilities that the modern generation demands.
This barbecue grill and fireplace built in the stump of a great redwood looks as if the tree had actually grown around it. From the E. D. Thompson summer home at Ben Lomond, California.
This barbecue layout consists of grill, oven, and separate fireplace. The oven is heated by the draft from the fireplace or barbecue, which passes around it, but it may also have a separate firebox. Note the handy adjustable grill, which is one of several types sold by Pacific Coast manufacturers.
An isolated area surrounded by trees and shrubbery makes an ideal setting for the outdoor fireplace. Be sure, however, that there is no dense growth overhead to interfere with the draft. Large logs make rustic seats, one on each side. Place the rough table about ten feet away with split logs for benches.
Outdoor grills range from the simplest form U-shaped brick cooking place, covered with a heavy steel screening, to huge affairs of brick or stone with chimneys and dampers, Dutch ovens built into the sides, warming places for plates, and perhaps a roaring separate fireplace to soften the chill of the evening air. All of them are relatively easy to build and reasonably inexpensive. However, you must keep the fire hazards in mind, and in the National Forests, before you begin to build, have your forest officer approve your plan and location.
Construction of the outdoor fireplace is much the same as that of an indoor one except that the chimney and flue are not carried to such a height. Nor does the footing need to be as thick unless your fireplace is very heavy. A concrete base eight inches thick with four inches of this above ground is usually ample. You may use the chimney of your cabin fireplace for your outdoor fireplace or grill but be sure to provide a separate flue.