CASEY BOTT: MONROE COUNTY
Casey Bott came back to Monroe County with fresh eyes. Now, through lodging, parks, trails, and a steady stream of new ideas, he’s helping others see the possibilities in the place he calls home.
PEOPLE · STEWARDSHIP · MONROE COUNTY
Casey Bott came back to Monroe County with fresh eyes.
He had spent years away—first at Ohio State, then working as a chef in Dublin and Jupiter, Florida—before returning home to Woodsfield in his early thirties. Like many people who grow up in small Appalachian counties, he left to build a career elsewhere. Unlike many, he chose to come back.
That distance changed the way he saw home. “I see it for its flaws,” he says, “but I also see it for its beauty.”
Back in Monroe County, Casey found himself noticing something he felt other people often missed: the county’s outdoor assets. The region had creeks, cliffs, woods, and parks with real potential, but many of them were underused or underappreciated. “We do have resources here,” he says.
That realization started shaping much of what Casey does now.
A local entrepreneur, he runs several lodging properties in Monroe County, including cabins, treehouses, and a conservatory designed as its own kind of destination. He also serves on the Monroe County Park District board, where he has helped push new projects forward, including a mountain bike trail at Piatt Park.
On paper, those things might seem separate. In practice, they are connected by the same idea: Casey wants people to experience Monroe County differently.
When he first moved back, he began developing small cabin-style lodging in Woodsfield, partly because he recognized a gap. Monroe County had no hotel, but still had visitors coming through for work, family, and recreation. So he built places to stay. Later, he expanded into more distinctive properties, including treehouses and the conservatory, which draw guests looking for something more than a standard overnight stop.
“You’re actually
the destination.”
For Casey, that kind of lodging is about creating an experience. “You’re actually the destination,” he says.
That same mindset shapes the way he thinks about outdoor recreation.
At Piatt Park, Casey saw a place with natural beauty and room for much more. He began volunteering his time, helping with signage, cleanup, and trail work, and bringing ideas to the park district.
Now, Piatt Park is in the middle of a major new project: a mountain bike trail system that Casey helped plan and secure funding for. The park district is building the trails largely in-house, using equipment and workers funded through a grant structure Casey helped put together. When finished, the system is expected to include about seven miles of trail.
For Casey, the appeal of Piatt Park is not just the mileage. It is the landscape itself.
The park’s recessed gorges, hemlocks, cliffs, and creek corridors give it a character that sets it apart. The trail system, he believes, will offer something both challenging and visually striking—an outdoor asset that can serve locals while also drawing visitors into the county.
And that matters, because Casey’s work in Monroe County is ultimately about more than any single project.
His lodging brings people in. The parks and trails give them a reason to explore. Together, they begin to build a different kind of story about the county—one rooted not in what Monroe County lacks, but in what it already has.
That perspective comes from being both local and slightly outside of it. Casey grew up here, but years away gave him a different vantage point. He knows the county’s limitations. He also knows its possibilities.
“There’s a reason I’m back here,” he says.
“There’s a reason I’m back here,” he says.
For now, he seems content doing a little bit of everything: building, planning, designing, volunteering, and dreaming up the next project. He talks easily about treehouses, trail corridors, creeks, bridges, guests, and equipment. Underneath all of it is the sense that he genuinely enjoys making things—especially things that help people experience the place he calls home.
As he puts it, “I’m just an overgrown kid.”
That outlook is easy to see in the projects he continues to take on. Casey is currently developing an additional treehouse and waterfall conservatory experience while also helping advance efforts to expand recreational opportunities in Woodsfield through the Monroe County Park District, including plans for a new soccer complex.
In Monroe County, that sense of curiosity and possibility has become a way of investing in the place he came back to—and helping others discover what has been there all along.
