Catherine Humblet started making regular drives from Seattle to Mazama along North Cascades Highway 10 years ago. Located in Washington’s Methow Valley, the small town is home to snow-crested mountain peaks, wildflower-dusted trails, and rivers teeming with fish. A mecca for outdoor enthusiasts and endurance athletes, it was the kind of place Catherine—who counts herself as both—could delight in cross-country skiing (the area has the largest trail system in North America), mountain biking, and trail running year-round.

After a decade of coming to Mazama, Catherine, who works in supply chain management, started looking for a vacation property where she could detach from her laptop and instead connect with the outdoors. “The opposite of being in front of a computer is going for a six hour run,” she says. While renting a cabin on one trip to the area, Lydia, Catherine’s dog, escaped on “a solo adventure.” During her four-hour search for Lydia, she stumbled across a piece of land surrounded by ponderosa pines that had mountain views and good sun exposure. By March 2016 she was the official owner of the four-acre parcel, eventually building a cabin on it.

For the design, Catherine approached architects Jon Gentry and Aimée O’Carroll, founding partners of Seattle firm GO’C. Originally she wanted a traditional two-bed, one-and-a-half bath home with a garage, but soon changed her mind. “I had a townhome in Seattle. I really didn’t need a full-size second home,” Catherine recalls. The team pivoted, creating a 330-square-foot space for Catherine and her dog, which serves as an outpost for adventures. Nicknamed Tinyleaf, the small home’s open plan includes a bed “nook,” kitchen, combined living/dining space, and a bathroom.

Catherine had spent time camping and hiking on the site before hiring GO’C, which gave her a distinct perspective, says Gentry. “She had a good sense of solar patterns and views through firsthand experience. She brought us rocks, sticks, and moths from the site early on. That impacted the weathering steel exterior, which picks up on some of the stones from the site.” The architects paired the metal facade with a concrete structure and foundation, materials chosen in part for how they’ll patina. Plus, compared with wood, they stand up better to wildfires, which are an inherent risk in the area.

The Methow Valley encounters snowy winters and dry, hot summers. To allow Catherine to use the cabin comfortably year-round, GO’C wedged its concrete structure into a hillside, which helps keep it cooler when temperatures rise, and warm when they drop. One of the unexpected advantages of positioning it that way is that she can easily climb onto the flat roof for views.

“We asked, How do we maximize every inch of space and design storage in a way that works with the flow of the house?”
—Catherine Humblet, resident

The combination of a small footprint and a not insubstantial amount of recreational gear meant Catherine would need smart storage solutions. “Storage was absolutely everything,” she asserts. “From the beginning we asked, How do we maximize every inch of space and design storage in a way that works with the flow of the house?”

Gentry and O’Carroll compare their strategy to a ship’s cabin, inserting cubbies and nooks for storage wherever they could, all in maple plywood. A unit dividing the bathroom and bedroom, for example, provides floor-to-ceiling storage space. A raised bed makes room for large pull-out drawers where Catherine keeps everyday items. Concealed behind the drawers, which are removable, is yet more space, which Catherine uses to store off-season gear. A thick wall between the kitchen and bathroom has pull-out side panels that function as a pantry and utility storage for the main living space, with bathroom storage on the opposite side.

In part, building a small, outpost-style home was a financially conservative decision, but it also meant Catherine could move in sooner than she would have had it been a large build. Ultimately it provides her with flexibility; down the road, she might build something bigger, she says, and make Tinyleaf an office, guesthouse, or yoga studio. But like a good run in the woods, perhaps, half the fun is not knowing exactly what’s around the bend.

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Project Credits:

Architect of Record: GO’C / @go_c_studio

Structural Engineer: J Welch Engineering

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She Built a 330-Square-Foot Cabin in One of Washington’s Biggest Outdoors Destinations