Lake side of the wood sided cottage, with a timber framed covered porch and stone steps down to the lawn
Projects  /  Lake houses

Narrow lot cottage

Family cottage·Narrow lot·Variances and fire walls

Where
A very narrow, 33-foot-wide lot
Building
Small one-story cottage, in the family for decades
Work
A 26-foot-wide design with variances and fire walls for the small setbacks, opened up inside
Service
Lake houses and residential

The firm provided the canvas. The owner finished the painting.

The owner had spent his childhood summers in this cottage, and he wanted certain rooms and certain feelings from those years back. That was the brief, and it is not a common one. Most of the design work went into recreating those specific spaces, and a long list of other specific things he remembered, inside a house that had to be new.

The site made it hard. The original cottage was small and one story on a lot only 33 feet wide. The 26 foot wide design that replaced it needed variances and fire rated walls because the setbacks were so tight, and the small rooms needed careful handling to feel open rather than narrow.

The result recalls the original in feel and in materials but is a different house because of the views, the vertical space, and the way it works. The owner is an Ohio landscape contractor who does high end work, and his understanding of materials shows everywhere inside: masonry details, artifacts, and finishes, all in durable, high quality stuff. In the firm’s words, it provided the canvas that accommodated everything he needed, and he finished the painting.

From the street it is a conventional cottage. Inside it is not, and the surprise is the point.

Hallway with a custom wood dutch door at the end, open at the top to the yard
Bedroom with pine walls, a log bed and a hickory floor
The finished cottage

Outside, on a 33 foot wide lot.

The cottage seen from the lawn, fitted between the houses on either side of its narrow lot
Street side of the tall, narrow cottage, with a timber framed entry porch under a metal roof
Lake side of the wood sided cottage, with a timber framed covered porch and stone steps down to the lawn
Covered porch with a wood plank ceiling, heavy timber posts and a stone floor, open to the lawn and the lake
Built in stone grill at the end of the covered porch, beside the sliding doors to the living room
Inside

Stone, timber and pine.

Dining area with a wood table beside sliding doors, on a stone floor
Living room with a leather sectional and two levels of windows facing the lake
View from the upstairs railing down to the living room, under timber trusses and a pine ceiling
Two story stone chimney with a wood stove set into it, on a stone floor
Kitchen looking toward the living room, under exposed timber trusses and a pine ceiling
Kitchen with dark wood cabinets, a stone wall and a stone floor
Bedroom with pine walls, a handmade wood bed and a built in wood cabinet
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