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(Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, A Division of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, Mason Toms, photographer)
When physician Charles F. Perkins and his wife, Edith, decided to build a house on their one-hundred-acre farm, the term “lodge” implied an upscale retreat such as those in the Adirondacks. The lodge occupies a spot at the top of a steep slope overlooking Dancing Rabbit Creek. The three-story house is built of squared logs from the property, with local stone used for foundations and a basement dug into the slope. For many years the lodge was the largest residence (seven bedrooms on the second floor) in the area, and its image from the main road was striking, enlivened by the two-story wraparound portico with round tree-trunk columns rising from footings on the hill slope to the third story. Inside, the living room is paneled in oak, the dining room in walnut, and the kitchen in cherry. Subsequent owners included, from 1934 to 1946, J. William Fulbright, then president of the University of Arkansas and, beginning in 1946, a U.S. senator. The City of Springdale purchased the house in 2014 to incorporate into a nearby park.