Columnist Susan Snyder: Living the cozy life in Cold Creek

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Reach her at [email protected] or 259-4082.

No security gates, guards or stone horsies watch over the entrance to Phil Butler's "subdivision."

There's a sign just before the turn-off of U.S. Highway 95: "Prison area. Hitchhiking is prohibited." The state prison is just beyond, and then there's nothing for 14 miles until you reach the community of Cold Creek.

Population? Depends. In summer all 78 of the houses have families in them. About half as many have year-round families, like Butler and his wife.

"I wanted to move out where it's peaceful and quiet," he said. "We're at 6,500 feet. Higher than Denver."

House fires are fought by volunteers with used trucks and a lot of passion.

And nobody in Cold Creek gets an electricity bill because nobody in Cold Creek has electricity -- or telephone service, or cable TV. A private contractor picks up the mail from a Las Vegas post office. Residents use cellular phones. And newspapers are "delivered" whenever someone goes to town.

"They pick up a couple of extras, and we pass them around," said Randy Dale, one of Butler's neighbors.

The town's water supply is taken from the spring and stored without fluoride, chlorine or treatment. County health officials test it monthly. Nobody's been sick yet, Butler says.

The retired Clark County juvenile court official started building his house himself in 1989. He built bit by bit, so it would be all paid for when he finished.

Dale is a building contractor who bought a lot in Cold Creek two weeks after he built a house there for someone else. That was six years ago. The town gains two or three houses a year, and Dale typically builds them.

He ventures into Las Vegas once or twice a week for groceries and building supplies. It takes about an hour, one way.

"But with the development in the northwest area it's getting closer and closer," Dale said.

Don't get too close. Signs warn house hunters to bring a real estate agent as an escort. There are no signs after the U.S. 95 turnoff telling visitors how far to go. If you don't know, maybe you don't need to.

"I lived in town 30 years and knew the neighbors on either side. The rest were strangers," Butler said. "Up here everyone is inter-dependent. There's a lot of bartering with labor."

It's not always easy and cheap. Butler has 32 golf-cart batteries in his basement. They take energy from the solar panels and feed it into a box that converts it into a 100-volt household current. Butler installed the system himself, making it a bargain at $11,000.

His daughter broke her leg a while back and had to be flown out by helicopter -- a $6,400 ride.

But wild mustangs trim and fertilize his yard for free, and "rush hour" may consist of half a dozen elk or a bobcat.

The air is fresh, clear, cool. And the quiet is, well, it's something you have to hear for yourself.

Butler stood on the deck of his log home and gazed over a valley stretching wild and unbroken to the mountain range on the horizon. Hummingbirds darted among the feeders hanging above the rail.

"There's not going to be any buildings or hotels out here -- not in our lifetime. With the view, the neighbors and the quiet ... it's hard to beat."

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