Log Haven

Food, energy and labor costs may be on the rise, and it may be as difficult as ever to find and retain employees, but Margo Provost has seen tougher days as the owner of Log Haven, a fine-dining destination restaurant in a historic log mansion in the Wasatch National Forest, just 20 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City. Now a $2.5 million enterprise, Log Haven didn’t start out that way. Fifteen years ago, Provost left a lucrative career as a technology consultant for the health care industry to renovate a condemned building in Mill Creek Canyon. She lived in an RV on the site for two years. She encountered construction cost overruns, asbestos, a buried diesel tank and intervention from the Environmental Protection Agency. Provost teetered on the edge of bankruptcy to make her dream come alive.