‘Side hustle’ becomes a full-time gig for the Kimballs
When they first laid eyes on the Hocking Hills property that would become The Cantwell Lodge, Jonathan and 2004 Worthington Christian graduate Christine (Short) Kimball saw something that no one else could see: potential.
Most others saw it as a money pit.
“I’m sure a lot of people thought, ‘What in the heck are you guys doing?’” laughed Christine, who lives in Worthington with Jonathan and their children Rowan (12), Aria (10), Sienna (8), Jude (3), and Margaret (1).
“We both felt, ‘Yeah, we can do this and it’s going to be awesome.’ It has been much more than we ever expected.”
The Kimballs had done several house flips and ran two city Airbnbs and some campus rentals. The two became interested in creating vacation rentals to help supplement their work at the Awaken Church. Jonathan spent an afternoon driving around to various properties in Hocking Hills with a person who wanted to sell off some lots.
After hours of looking, none of the properties stood out to Jonathan.
“Finally, Jonathan asks him, ‘Do you have anything else to show me?’” Christine said. “He says, ‘Well, I have another place,’ and drives him to this old lodge cabin. He said, ‘You might want to tear this place down, but the property is beautiful.’”
Despite the seller’s lackluster endorsement of it, the two bought the Cantwell Lodge and 100 acres of the surrounding area and transformed it from a crumbling, ramshackle building into a luxurious 18-person, six-bedroom lodge with a hot tub, a swimming hole, and a waterfall. They named the area around the Cantwell Lodge The Cliffs.
Two months after their first rental, a YouTube video of the Cantwell Lodge and The Cliffs received 12 million views. Shortly afterward, reservations for the lodge and The Cliffs properties were filled up for the summer and were being booked for the following year.
Soon, that “side hustle” became more like a full-time job. The two were able to stop taking a salary from Awaken but have continued to do their ministry at the church.
“We’ve learned over the years that if we have a good instinct from the Lord, trust it,” Christine said.
A Lump in the Road
Christine said God provided for her and her family even during one of the darkest periods in her life.
In 2016, Christine discovered a small but painful lump on her foot. Her doctor said it was probably nothing, but she should have the lump removed and, just to be safe, they would conduct a biopsy on it. The surgery was postponed, however, when she became pregnant with the couple’s third child.
Christine gave birth to Sienna in November 2016 and, less than a month later, doctors removed the lump from her foot.
“At the time, I thought it was done and no cause to worry,” she said.
Two weeks later, the Kimballs’ worries grew. Christine learned a term she had never heard before: myxoinflammatory fibroblastic sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that affects fewer than one person per 1,000,000 people each year.
“When I was diagnosed, there were only 200 reported cases of this type of cancer,” Christine said. “I had this super rare cancer, but we lived two miles away from The James and my doctor had seen four of those 200 cases. I wouldn’t have a leg now if I lived in another city.”
On Jan. 25, 2017, two days after Rowan’s fourth birthday, Christine underwent surgery to remove a large section of her foot and spent 11 days in the hospital undergoing treatment. After she left the hospital, Christine went through a period where she was only allowed to put her foot down for minutes at a time to prevent damage to the transplanted tissue and the blood vessels in her foot.
According to Christine, the hardest part was not being able to take care of all her children. Following the bed rest, it took Christine eight months to walk again without support and even longer to safely carry her children up and down the stairs. During that time, Christine’s mother, Roz Short, and Jonathan’s mom, Colleen Kimbell, helped take care of Rowan and Aria.
“It was probably almost a full year until I could be home alone with my kids,” she said. “That was extremely difficult, but we had so many people help us out.”
Bali Bound
That year was not only a difficult time for the Kimballs, but also for the life of the Awaken Church. Several other parishioners were dealing with cancer, including a friend who was diagnosed with a sarcoma and was at The James at the same time as Christine. He succumbed to the disease, leaving behind a two-year-old child.
“The trials we were going through were not unique,” she said. “It was a time of suffering and refinement for our whole church body.
“(In 2019), the other pastors encouraged us to take a sabbatical, saying you guys should take some time to heal as a family and regroup.”
The Kimball family spent two months on the island of Bali, a province of Indonesia. This was a much-needed period of restoration.
“I had felt so beaten down for a while, but that was such an amazing time for us as a family,” she said. “We grew so much closer together. It brought a lot of clarity to the next phase in our lives.
“Bali is such a beautiful island, and they love children. Everything was beautiful, from how they presented their food to how they built their homes and furniture. Everyone seemed to be an artist.”
Refuge Spot
The time in Bali launched the Kimballs ‘ passion for creating vacation rentals.
“Our time ‘getting away’ as a family was so special and life-giving, and we wanted to create that for people in Ohio,” she said.
“We would have never created The Cliffs without going through our time of suffering and hardship in 2017. Our sabbatical, which we took because of that hard time, led to everything we are doing today.”