CONTEMPORARY Cabin in the Woods

By Corinne Stremmel

Photos by Paul Dols

At the base of a steep and windy road barely large enough for one car, sits a sleek, modern cabin that doesn’t compromise cozy for contemporary.

The home, which is only a few miles outside River Falls, WI is carefully tucked away in the treetops just off the bank of the St. Croix. Upon spotting the home, the clean lines and geometric angles almost feel out of place, but that’s the whole concept of the home, mixing two very different ideas in order to get a one-of-a-kind result.

Photo by Paul Dols

“It takes on this elaborate treehouse feel,” says architect Brian Hinz.

Whether it’s mixing the indoors with the outdoors, or a log cabin with a modern home, this property is the best of both worlds when it comes to feeling off the beaten track while still having all the bells and whistles of a contemporary home.

With high demand for waterfront property and its remote location, building this cabin escape presented a few challenges. The only way Thomas Building Company and architectural firm Studio EA could build a home so close to the river was if there was an existing structure.

Luckily, the team found a property

with a small cabin near the river that the house could be built out from.

“First and foremost we had to respect the footprint of the original cabin that was built here. The only way we could do it was by staying in that exact footprint,” said builder Thomas Bystrzycki.

Construction began in 2011 with the help of some clever design work. While the team had to stay within strict guidelines of the cabin’s footprint, architect Brian Hinz decided to cantilever out much of the home, leaving it with a canopy-like effect.

“As you go up each level it feels like you are getting higher and higher up into the canopy,” said Hinz.

Level one acts as an introduction to many of the themes repeated in the home’s design. Sheets of raw steel, hidden closets, and nearly undetectable light fixtures lean into elements of contemporary design while a wall of Eastern Yellow Pine adds a sense of texture in the home’s foyer, giving it that log cabin feel.

“The Eastern Yellow Pine has been harvested to extinction unfortunately, but we wanted to include it in the entryway,” said Bystrzycki. “It’s truly unique, we got the wood from a granary

up in Duluth which was the only granary in the country that was built with it. I have maybe five more of these slabs left, and it was the perfect time to use it.”

Even the stairs leading up into the main area of the home had to undergo several phases before finding the right design.

“We probably had 30 iterations of these stairs. We wanted to try it with center beams, cantilevering it out, attaching it to the wall, floating it out, but we settled on these steel stairs, which actually feel pretty soft when you’re climbing up them,” Hinz explains.

The home’s kitchen follows the invisible kitchen trend, hiding everything from the pantry, to dishes, cabinet handles, and even the sink.

“Part of building this home with entertaining in mind was that you could just close the door to all of the mess,” said Hinz.

The kitchen is completely open into the dining room, making it perfect for entertaining, plus the invisible kitchen gives the look of zero clutter. The kitchen island doubles as an eating bar as well as the perfect prep station with hidden compartments for knives, cutting boards, and ingredients.

With entertaining in mind, the home includes an outdoor kitchen just off the dining room that feels like an extension of the indoors. In the summer months, the dining room can open up right onto the cantilevered porch which includes outdoor kitchen appliances plus a pizza oven.

Back inside, the dining room includes two hidden drink fridges and an eye-catching slab of Arabesque marble for the dining room table, which was hand delivered by the Stillwater hockey team.

Photo by Paul Dols

“We had about nine hockey players come up here to deliver marble. It’s super breakable, so it has to be supported at all times, we need each one of those guys to transport it,” said Bystrzycki.

The living room includes one the home’s most

stunning views of the river just opposite of a patinated cold rolled steel wall.

“When you cold roll steel it gets this discoloration as you can see on the wall, which we actually kept because it creates a nice purple and greenish color,” said Bystrzycki.

In addition to the public entertaining spaces, the main floor includes private spaces like a cantilevered sunroom just overlooking the property’s ravine and a deep green bathroom as a reminder that you’re in the forest.

“Even the bathrooms are like a little resort in themselves, each one has a different experience, a different energy and that adds to the fun of the home,” said Hinz.

Photo by Paul Dols

Upstairs into the true canopy of the home is a more subtle division of public and private. The upstairs bedroom features the same Eastern Yellow Pine slab on a custom-made headboard, a generous walk-in closet, dual shower, and a sun filled reading nook, all of which can be closed off when entertaining. Just off the bedroom is another outdoor porch with a hot tub, which required even more imagination to install.

“There are a lot of limitations when you’re building in a location like this so we build the entire place using a lull. We basically had to find a way to lift the hot tub over the top of the home,” said Bystrzycki.

The top floor features another heated outdoor porch with a spectacular view of the river. The top floor views don’t end there. The third floor bathroom features its own window just over the sink to provide scenic views while guests wash their hands. Plus the bathroom features a blue mosaic of shadowy trees to give the exact feeling of being up in the canopy.

Photo by Paul Dols

And because the home is close to the river, the cabin wouldn’ t be complete without what the building team affectionately referred to as the “dorch” or dock porch, where guests can park their boats and walk up to the cabin.

Just like the rest of the home, the cleverly named dorch is the perfect mix of two must-haves for a cabin made for entertaining. Instead of asking for one or the other, this property is the blueprint for mixing cozy and contemporary while redefining the classic cabin.