When you picture a little cabin in the woods…it probably doesn’t look quite like this. For Montrealers Emilie and Antoine, architect Ravi Handa has crafted a contemporary take on the Québecois cabin that embraces oh-so Canadian forest views and Scandinavian minimalism in equal measure.

The white-cedar-clad, 1,500-square-foot chalet is just a few hours from the city, but on weekends or holidays, the couple (she’s in marketing; he’s in finance) and their little one step through the aspen trees into the bright, lofted living space and feel transported to another place.

With a wish list of three bedrooms, two baths, an open-concept living space and a sauna, Emilie and Antoine knew they were asking for a lot, but Handa was game to take the challenge and run with it. “We wanted it to be super functional, and beautiful, and integrated with the lot, and not too big, and to have a sauna, and to be on budget…we were really demanding,” laughs Emilie.

Handa sees it another way: “It was a challenging program, but not demanding. They were open minded, and precise, and had confidence. Good people make for great architecture.” The roof cladding alone took two months to select, with lots of back and forth (“I stopped being shy and was texting and calling all the time,” says Handa)—but thoughtful, considered choices like this are what brought the project together, according to the architect.

The building’s slim frame is accentuated by vertical cladding, and a long chimney draws the eye up, up, up. The windows are strategically placed to frame the most beautiful views: panes are oriented precisely along the double-height wall across from the loft bedroom to allow the morning sun and leafy branches to peek in. (Handa camped out on the site in the project’s early days to determine those carefully plotted viewpoints. He also watched the sun rise and set from his tent.)

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A recessed entrance leads to the more private spaces—the bathroom, that beautiful sauna, two of the bedrooms—and then opens up to cathedral-like ceilings over the kitchen, living, and dining area (and the loft bedroom, too). “It’s grand, it’s almost spiritual,” says Handa. A poplar-clad roof serves to further draw attention to the ceiling’s tall peak.

Compared to the bustle and hum of their life in the city, the Lac-Brome cabin may as well be at the end of the earth. “Here, you hear the silence,” says Emilie. “There’s a real feeling of being alone, of quietness.”

Handa points out that there are technical reasons for that—the site analysis identified a natural clearing in the forest that was able to enclose the building in a ring of trees that separate it from the world. Handa also selected triple-pane windows with high R-values and a highly efficient building envelope to ensure maximum insulation from both sound and cold Quebec winters.

“When you walk in, you just feel like you’re on vacation,” says Emilie. “We come in, drop our bags, and are in no rush to do whatever we feel like doing.”

More from Ravi Handa Architect:

This Charred-Cedar Waterfront Home Embraces the View From Every Angle

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Ravi Handa Architect / @rhaworks

Builder/General Contractor: Construction NH Blanchette / @nhconstruction.ca

Structural Engineer: Latéral Conseil / @lateralconseil

Lighting: Luminaire Authentik / @luminaire_authentik

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