Shelter House, Emmaus

About Shelter House

Shelter House is a restored colonial log cabin where visitors explore one of the oldest continuously inhabited log structures in the Lehigh Valley. The eight-room, two-story cabin, built beginning in 1734, stands on the northern slope of South Mountain in Emmaus and is recorded in the National Register of Historic Places. The original one-story structure featured oak and chestnut logs with a three-room floor plan including a kitchen on the west facade and a stove room with bedroom. By 1741, a three-room second story was added along with a two-story annex using the more advanced Dutch notch log cabin style. Visitors can see period details including mud and straw chinking between logs, hand-hewn pegged triangular roof joists, and an interior stairwell. The cabin's original German name, zufluchtshaus, meant "house to which to flee," and it served as a place for meetings, trade, and shelter for settlers. The structure remains preserved in eighteenth-century detail.