Blowing Springs Park
Joan Glubczynski gleams with pride when talking about the tiny cabin at Blowing Springs Park.
“It’s my baby,” she said. “I’ll be honest.”
Glubczynski, the Bella Vista POA’s director of recreation and wellness, manages the popular Blowing Springs Park, which features 64 full-service RV sites, 11 primitive tent campsites, and 1 cozy cabin, which is less than 150-square feet big.
For now.
Due to the overwhelming popularity of camping at Blowing Springs, and the success the tiny cabin has seen since it debuted three years ago as a pilot program, three more tiny cabins will be added this year.
“We are going to create a tiny cabin village not far from the primitive camping area,” Glubczynski said. “The tiny cabin we have there now has done wonderful and has increased in occupancy more and more. This month we are booked back-to-back. We barely have time to clean it before the next guest comes in.
“It’s a money-maker for the park, which helps offset the cost of other things.”
Glubczynski admits there were some people a bit skeptical when she first brought up the idea of putting some sort of cabin structure in the park.
“I had a vision with the park, some sort of cabin or yurt,” she said. “When I found this design and what I could do in a small footprint, it just worked. We installed it in late 2018 and by October, with very little advertising, it was booked all through the winter months. I was thrilled.”
The original tiny cabin, manufactured in Noel, Mo., cost $18,500 and, after being installed and furnished, cost the POA $22,000.
“There are always doubters, but one of the things that people were most surprised at is how economic it was to build,” Glubczynski said. “Yurts or tiny houses can run in the 40-, 50-, 60-grand range but this is much
less and helped me sell it.”
The rest is history and Blowing Springs will soon be the location of four tiny cabins by the end of the year, one with a bunkhouse feel to it, Glubczynski said.
The cabins are furnished with a double bed, a kitchenette with a microwave, coffee maker and refrigerator, a small deck and a fire ring and picnic table. They are rented through Airbnb for approximately $100 a night, plus fees and taxes.
“It’s glamping,” Glubczynski said. “Some people love the outdoors, but they don’t want to be 100% without some comforts.”
The popularity of the tiny cabin is just one small part of what has led to the soaring success of Blowing Springs. After renovations and additions were done to the RV and tent camping areas in 2018, things have taken off — especially during covid-19
restrictions in 2020.
In fact, many campsites are already booked for the spring and summer weekends this year, especially Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day weekends.
“Last year was a boom for anything outdoors,” Glubczynski said. “People were getting out and were in the outdoors rather than staying in crowded metropolitan areas.
“Our peak months are March to November anyway, and covid didn’t slow that down.”
The renovations in 2018 have also helped, including improving restroom facilities.
“We have people tell us they’ve stayed and camped at places all over but have never seen a bathroom as nice as the one we have there,” she said.
Another positive is the expansion of Northwest Arkansas’ Razorback Greenway. It used
to come to an end at Blowing Springs park but will soon be completely open all the way to Metfield Park on the east side of Bella Vista.
“The Greenway is picking up in the front of the park and will go to Metfield Park, and people are already starting to use that paved trail and that’s really an improvement,” Glubczynski said. “When it’s done, we will have a three-mile, paved path from the park to Metfield Park, allowing everyone from the Metfield area of town to get to the most central part of town easily.”
The completion of the Greenway expansion sometime this summer will be just another change that has happened in the four-plus years since Glubczynski took over managing the park.
“It’s was nothing like it is today,” she said. “We have put a lot of effort to take it to a new level.”