Not with a stream running through their front yard, a hillside of pine trees out back and several canyon ridges between them and the city lights.
"Some people fly to Bermuda on vacation," Kenneth said. "We just come up the canyon."
His wife nodded, "We come home."
A string of tree-shadowed homes stretches for miles up this suburban canyon in the Wasatch Mountains -- some rustic rebuilds of half-century-old cabins, others sprawling luxury houses that cater to more affluent move-ins.
While mansions now encroach on some skylines here, Emigration Canyon remains a rugged, and visually remote, retreat from city life.
"I used to drive to go hiking," said Cynthia Furse, a historian and professor of electrical engineering at the University of Utah. "Now I drive to the grocery store every two weeks and go hiking twice a day."
With their homes minutes away from the state's largest metropolis, canyon residents -- who live in one of Salt Lake County's six townships -- still find moose occupying their backyards, bicycles cruising their streets as much as cars and summer days 10 degrees cooler than downtown.
Emigration remains a world of two-lane roads and brush-blanketed hillsides more than 150 years after the first wagon train rumbled through its ridges.
But it also is home to two distinct communities -- one that values independence more than city services on the canyon floor and another that continues to build million-dollar mansions on the hilltops.
Gateway to Zion
The wagon ruts have long vanished from these rolling canyon walls, but their story is written outside Ruth's Diner and on a placard overlooking Little Dell Reservoir. Both tell of the trek of thousands of Mormon pioneers, who descended the canyon to establish a "Zion" out West.
But the Mormons weren't the first Anglos to traverse the canyon. The Donner-Reed party -- searching for a shortcut to California -- carved the first path through Emigration Canyon in 1846 with two dozen wagons, according to historians Furse and Jeffrey Carlstrom.
That route later guided the Mormon migration, establishing Emigration as the premier gateway into the Salt Lake Valley.
Yet the canyon's past was much more than wagon companies. It included, historians say, one of the region's largest breweries, an electric railroad that extracted stone and imported tourists, and a popular Pinecrest Inn that enticed crowds with live orchestras and everything outdoors.
For decades, the canyon remained a summertime town. But that changed in the 1930s, when electricity, oil-surfaced roads and, finally, the telephone made winter living a little more comfortable for cabin dwellers.
By 1940, about 10 families had moved to the canyon year-round. That population has since swelled to more than 1,500 residents, according to the township's latest count.
One canyon, two communities
A private road winds from the canyon floor to a spacious mountain subdivision known as Emigration Oaks.
At first, developers had planned 2,000 half-acre lots there -- a number the county's Planning Commission dropped to several hundred after a resident outcry.
Yet the subdivision has become a haven for palatial living, where floor plans top 5,000 square feet and house prices reach seven figures in some places.
Like their neighbors in the canyon below, Emigration Oaks residents aren't interested in living the urban life. They enjoy the open space, hiking trails and mountain air.
"We really wanted to get out away from things," said homeowner Wendy Fenton, whose husband planned to bike home that evening from his downtown office. "We just like the seclusion of the area."
As a triathlete herself, Fenton said the setting is supreme.
But the seclusion sought in Emigration Oaks is far different than the seclusion championed by the canyon-floor crowd.
"Before the 1980s, the people who moved [to Emigration] wanted to to get away from the city," said Carlstrom, a historian and quality-assurance manager for the medical device company Dynatronics. "Although people still say that, they bring the city up with them."
So while the ridgetop subdivisions seek the same amenities as their urban counterparts -- like a community water system and snowplowing -- the canyon floor has resisted. Those folks would just as soon drill their own wells, shovel their own snow and return to days when a passing car raised curiosity.
"I hope to live on a dirt road again someday," remarked Furse, who said she gladly would have gone without asphalt, garbage pickup and many of the other urban amenities that her city colleagues would consider the "nicer things of life."
"This community is neither looking for additional help," she said, "nor wanting it."
Although the mixed population has been a source of friction historically -- county planners ultimately set a 790-home cap on canyon development -- residents say animosities slowly are settling.
Still, Emigration remains one community geographically and two politically.
Within the wildland
Nearly 20 years ago, Kenneth Struhs doused his roof with water. Flames were approaching.
A wildfire, sparked by an unattended campfire, had ravaged nearby Killyon Canyon and Burr Fork. Now it was nearing their Emigration home. So with family photos and a silk rug from China in tow, he and his wife fled.
It wasn't the first time nature had threatened to destroy their mountain home. A flood poured through their basement in 1983, washing away furniture and gouging eight- to 10-foot trenches through the couple's neighborhood.
But this time as Jocelyn Struhs left her home -- which firefighters had transformed into a headquarters -- she wondered whether she ever would see her home again.
Years later, she remains "paranoid" about wildfire. But Jocelyn isn't going to leave her home of 44 years where moose lap water from her stream and where her husband planted 1,500 seedlings that have turned from twigs to towering pines.
Yet fire remains a real threat at this intersection between urban life and wilderness.
Kathy Christensen, who coordinates the community's Firewise program, said Emigration Canyon has about 15 fires a year -- a number that includes everything from kitchen fires to grass fires.
While none has caused the havoc seen in 1988, which nearly destroyed the Struhs' home, the flames serve as a startling reminder of nature's ferocity here.
But times are changing.
Emigration will get its first fire station next summer. The $2.8 million facility will house a wildland firetruck, a structural fire engine and four full-time firefighters.
The community also is installing a $3.2 million water line, which will supply the canyon floor with potable water and fire hydrants.
"I get concerned about fire," said Fred Smolka, manager of the Emigration Improvement District. "But we are better and better prepared than we have been in the past."
Home sweet home
Hungry motorists congregate by the dozens here at nostalgic Ruth's Diner -- the only cafe where customers can get a 1/3-pound hamburger with corned beef and Thousand Island dressing.
This decades-old cafe is a landmark, established in 1949 by the irascible Ruth Evans, who had a reputation for her outspoken abuse of customers, flowered sundresses and cigarette dangling from her lips, according to a history of the township.
Fashioned out of a 56-seat trolley car just east of Hogle Zoo, the diner serves a staggering 1,000 customers each Sunday and hundreds during the week.
"It's that feeling of home," explained owner Tracy Nelson of the diner's success. "People like to go where things haven't changed much over the years."
The same is true of the canyon. While the community has grown considerably, residents say it hasn't lost that scenic solitude that made it home.
"As soon as you hit the zoo, you are in your driveway," Carlstrom said. "Even though you have miles to go, there are no traffic lights. You are home."
