One Night in a Tiny Cabin Designed for Remote Work in the Mountains of Southern California

Welcome to One Night In, a series about staying in the most unparalleled places available to rest your head.

The idea of a "work cabin" felt odd when I saw them start to bubble up around 2020. They seemed like sparse, melancholy rooms for one, where a weary employee might toil over spreadsheets, hop on Zoom calls with devastating lighting, and hustle to meet company quotas. But I also had a more sanguine vision of a woodsy hut nestled sweetly in the pines. There was a meadow, maybe butterflies. It was worlds away from modern life’s lockstep pace and the anxieties it induces, the kind of place Henry David Thoreau hid out to uncover the "essential facts of life." What a luxury.

With the seismic paradigm shift in work culture caused by the pandemic and, as a result, many high-rise office buildings waving goodbye to corporate America, more than a few prefab startups are making a bet that you can retreat into nature and generate returns. As Dwell’s design news editor, I’ve seen it firsthand: Find your spiritual center, send better emails, purport many of the pitches I’ve fielded for cabins designed for remote work in recent years. Some are tiny structures that can be plopped in your backyard, creating an effective illusion for separating home and office life. Some are more like sheds, and others are prefabs that can be purchased turnkey. At the other end of the spectrum are concepts for rentable retreats that take remote work at its most literal sense. One such is Find Sanctuary, a startup that pitched me a stay at its pilot cabin situated in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains that, according to the company’s website, is "a remedy to the noise."

Looking into it, Find Sanctuary’s tiny cabin leaned toward the promise of the woodsy hut I had imagined. Less oil-burning candle vibes and more sleek Airbnb weekend escape, it had huge windows with mountain views, a deck with a sunken hot tub, and an isolated setting that granted access to the region’s hikes and watering holes. But it also had all the tech my job requires, namely strong Wi-Fi and a way to make coffee. Could it go toe-to-toe with my daily WFH situation, a breakfast nook entangled with domestic duties? Could I apply myself purposefully here and simultaneously reap the mind-clearing benefits that natural splendor removed from civilization, at least somewhat, can offer? This was Find Sanctuary’s promise, so I decided to test the limitations of staying connected while getting out of town.

Sunday

Morning: Around 11 a.m., my wife, dog, and I meander down the coast on 101 toward Los Angeles. Driving through Ventura County, wildflowers and green hills are glowing under a gray sky. The ocean to our right is calm and steel blue. 

With check in at 3 p.m. and plenty of daylight to work with, we peruse a menu of activities provided by Find Sanctuary as part of their digital concierge service that includes where to eat, hike, and grocery shop near the property. We love the outdoors, with notches on our belt including Yosemite’s Clouds Rest trail and more than one overnight Northern California kayak excursion, so we pick a five-ish-mile round trip trail to a hot spring not far from the cabin. Easy. We’ll knock that out and be checked in before sunset.

Afternoon: Highway 18, the road that takes you from the San Bernardino Valley into the mountains, is harrowing, and that’s without snow. As we begin our ascent, looking ahead, its four lanes are a strand of endless thread stitched into the mountainside, burying into the cliff on some turns and looping out over trellises on others. This is one of the roads to Big Bear, a popular ski destination among Southern Californians for its proximity to Los Angeles. Should we forget, the swift speed of traffic reminds us we are newcomers here. But taking it slow allows us to stave off nausea and catch views, which are only more spectacular the higher we climb, given a gauzy glow by the smog hanging over the valley.

Thirty minutes later, we crest the ridge and arrive at a series of small mountain towns with scattered pines, a log cabin general store advertising sundries and fishing tackle, and woodsy homes to match. At 70-plus degrees outside, it’s warmer than it has been here, but evidence of the 10-year storm that dropped more than 100 inches of snow in late February and early March, trapping some residents for weeks, lingers, with patches of dirty snow in shade spots along the road.

Cruising past alpine residences still thawing from a cold winter didn’t give us the sense we were headed in the direction of a hike with a hot spring. But like turning a page, we emerge from the forested setting into a treeless landscape scattered with boulders and chaparral. A little more winding and we dead end at a closed gate, where four other cars are parked around a bridge crossing a river. This is our trailhead. We hop to it behind a group of four who have hiking poles. Are those necessary?

After a couple of hours of wandering down a gently sloped canyon, our dog, Lou, is not doing great. There’s heavy panting and constant shade breaks. Fair enough, it’s warm out, he’s now 10, and not the three year old that would trot up and back on trails, covering twice the distance my wife and I would. Eventually we arrive at a cliff and can see our destination, a lush oasis at the bottom of a canyon that looks farther away than we want it to. A couple who’s on their way back fills us in. "Yeah it’s usually two hours in, three hours out," they say. Good to know. We should have done a little more homework.

It’s just one more mile down to the spring, but with loose dirt on a severe incline, is easily one of the most challenging trails the two of us have faced. (We could use some hiking poles.) We look at Lou, who’s now lying in the shade of a bush, legs fully outstretched, eyes closed tight, wishing he were anywhere else. This is the moment in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air when the zealous millionaires foolishly push to Everest’s summit in spite of a storm only to meet their and their sherpas’ deaths. But we have plans later for fajitas and a campfire at the cabin, so we choose life, cut our losses, and head back to the car.

Evening: The hike was thirsty work, so we stop for something ice cold before checking in at the cabin. There’s clearly one place to go on the way back, Hortencia’s at the Cliffhanger in Crestline. The cantina-style Mexican restaurant is suspended at cliff’s edge, and if you beat the crowd (we did), you can sit windowside for a perspective down the mountain. If the view gives you vertigo, the in-house prescription is a softball-sized margarita.

Find Sanctuary is just a 10-minute drive down the highway from the cantina. Like the pictures on its Instagram promises, the tiny cabin is perched on a thumb of land cradled in the center of a largely undeveloped canyon, save what looks to be a small farm across a ravine. With a lot of snow and rain this year, the chaparral is bursting in a range of greens. Stepping inside the cabin—effectively a timber-finished tiny home that’s a little larger than your $300-a-night hotel stay in New York, say—it lives surprisingly large with an efficient layout and giant windows expanding the space. We toss a few things on the bed, which is really the "wow" moment. A wall of glass against its foot frames the mountain across the ravine, and from a different angle, a triangle-shaped vignette of San Bernardino in the distance.

With daylight fading, we fill the tub positioned at the end of the deck to take in the plein air version of the view inside. A nip of tequila complements a synaesthetic cliffside soak, which combines the vista with heady whiffs of sticky shrubs that could go to bat with the skunkiest of terpenes, for you pot smokers.

Suddenly, there’s a whoosh. It’s coming from the other end of the cabin. Did we already break something? I throw on a robe and find a disconnected PVC joint outside the bathroom that’s spewing water. A nearby red valve looks promising, so I turn it, and phew, the bleeding stops. I knock the piece back into place with a log, and turn the water back on. Whoosh, it douses me. Good thing I’m already wet from the tub. I turn the valve off, wedge the log between the pipes, and turn the valve again. No whoosh. Things seem OK.

I text Charlie, Find Sanctuary’s founder and our contact for the weekend. Like an Airbnb superhost, he’s deeply apologetic and says he’ll get someone out to take a look ASAP. Since he’s exchanging a stay for my firsthand account of the cabin, I tell him no biggie, these things happen. A hiccup or two is expected with a test run like this.

Night: It’s all but dark, so we jump into dinner. The cabin’s kitchen has the basics to throw together a meal, but knowing we’d be traveling today, we kept things easy by putting bell peppers, onions, and steak into a marinade earlier. Tonight, we’re cooking with a cast iron over coals. I start a fire in the pit outside using starters and a stack of logs piled at one end of the cabin. Experience with an axe, like the one lodged into a nearby stump, isn’t necessary, but helps.

Every fire pit should come with a grate on a swivel. I swing it out of the way to tend the fire and get the coals situated, then swing it into place to put the steak on. The dinner a la parrilla—with fresh tortillas and avocados—is a success, made all the sweeter enjoyed next to a revived fire. It’s getting late, so we let the flames die down and wash the coals, as instructed. One last glimpse down the canyon at San Bernardino’s hazy, twinkling lights, and it’s time to get some sleep.

Monday

Morning: The bed has its massive window, but is also flanked with rectangular panes on either side. We left the blinds open overnight but opted for the complimentary branded eye masks so that when we removed them in the morning we’d feel the setting from first blink. Pulling off our masks, it is searingly bright, like how you might imagine the presence of god. We’re engulfed in a heavy, swirling fog—a total white out. With the blinds retracted, it feels like we’re floating. We can’t see the city in the distance, let alone five feet beyond the cabin. Waking up is harsh, but a quick process.

Given the conditions, in the chilly, socked-in 50s compared to our sunny 70s the day before, it’s an indoors kind of day. After pour-over coffee and a quick smoothie made with an appliance we brought, Margaret and I jump into work, our laptops side by side on a plywood desk built into the headboard facing the large window. I start by testing cell reception with a scheduled work call to Paris. No problem. The Wi-Fi is buff, too. So far so good. The cabin really is just remote enough: Highway 18, though out of sight and somehow a soft hush, is a stone’s throw up a small hill. San Bernardino is just down the mountain, on the other side of the fog. Our water pressure is in question, but we have the full power of the internet.

Monday is going as it usually does for this editor. I expected my mind to wander here, but the fog isn’t giving me the chance to test the theory, and it’s actually having the opposite effect. It’s a visual white noise machine, throttling external stimuli and making it easy to focus. I wonder what this story would be without it. Margaret, too, is benefiting from the weather, as she prefers diffused light over direct sun when editing one of her photo projects, as she is today.

After a smooth video call, I get a text from Charlie. A plumber can’t make it, but a handyman is on the way. I step outside to look at my handiwork from the night before—the log stuffed between the pipes that’s holding quite well—when I look up toward the highway to see a shape emerge from the mist looking like Obi-Wan Kenobi. It’s our handyman, in a zip hoodie with the hood up. I proudly show him my quick fix, and he seems unimpressed. I warn him removing the log will make the pipe gush water, and his grin tells me he’s the type to tempt fate. He pulls the log. Whoosh. Thirty minutes later and it’s resolved, at least until a plumber can come out in a day or two, he tells me.

Afternoon: Work continues into the afternoon apace. After leftovers for lunch, I climb the black metal rungs that lead to the lofted nook above the bathroom to work on an edit. The fog has lifted some, and a large skylight overhead casts a dreamy glow. The low-ceilinged space is cozy and warm—better for a nap than work—so, getting sleepy, I climb down, make another pour over, and plug away at the stool seating at the counter between the woodburning fireplace and the bathroom, which looks out a window facing the deck and the rest of the property. By now the hillside opposite is visible, the fog barrier cutting off the tops of the mountains, making them feel endless.

Evening: We wrap our work day and go for another soak in the tub. With all the moisture in the air, the cool breeze up the canyon is an earthy bouquet, even tangier and sweeter than the night before. This time, a sense of calm sets in deep. The fog is still blocking out the valley floor. My craving for isolation feels sated.

For dinner, it’s a one-pot meal of Japanese curry and rice by Margaret, which is just what we needed after a foggy, chilly day. As the daylight fades, I make another fire, which we enjoy with our meal. We sink into the set of Adirondacks and a small triangle of twinkling lights begins to appear in the distance; a reminder that come tomorrow, it’s work as usual.

Top photo by © Margaret Austin Photography.

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