Favorites

The living room’s wood-burning fireplace has a concrete hearth that wraps the chimney and runs under the windows, acting as seating, a plant ledge, and creating a spot to store logs, all of which are harvested from the site.

An open-air boardwalk carries the family west from the gathering spaces to their bedroom cabin.

The firm wanted the materiality of the cabin to be "in harmony with the site," says Shaw. "So, that over time, the building could weather gracefully and the site around it would change, and they would do so in tandem."

The outdoor shower is in constant use and was a request from the clients. It’s accessed through the indoor shower.

In the bathroom, a concrete sink basin and shelf cast by a local artisan sits over a birch vanity.

The door to the bathroom has a steel detail that recalls the exterior. "It's the only interior door in this little micro-building," says Shaw. "Therefore, we felt like it couldn't just be a door; it had to be, in a sense, like a piece of furniture."

The screened porch "added even more flexibility to how [the clients] would be spending time there," says Shaw, and immerses them in the forest setting with providing protection from the bugs, including Maine’s notorious black flies.

A pair of double doors leads to the large screened porch. At the ceiling, rafters underscore the skylight, casting shadows that mark the passage of the sun.

Streamlined birch plywood cabinetry and a maple butcher-block counter forms the kitchenette, which isn’t intended for extensive meal prep. The building is a blend of "a bedroom and camping," says Shaw, which means much of the cooking and cleaning happens outside.

The window seat can also double as a bed. "It's particularly long, which was so that an adult can sleep there, or two kids could comfortably cozy up and sleep there," says Shaw, noting that it’s tucked around the corner from the bed for privacy.

Inside, there’s similarly understated material palette with concrete floors, plaster walls, and exposed hemlock rafters at the ceiling.

The materials were kept simple: a foundation of board-formed concrete that reveals the wood grain of the boards used to make it, Cor-Ten steel siding that will develop a characterful patina, and rafters made of hemlock, a local species. "In terms of materials, we wanted the full exterior of the building to be something that would weather gracefully, that required very little maintenance, and that had a long life cycle," says Shaw.

Sited on a rock ledge, the Far Cabin’s screened porch cantilevers over the forest floor for a tree house effect.

The Far Cabin by Winkelman Architecture is set on the forested coast of Maine.

Winkelman Architecture delivers grown-up summer-camp vibes with this unassuming retreat on the coast of Maine.

When designing Camp on Long Lake, Winkelman Architecture was inspired by the oak grove the home is nestled into. A covered walkway with views of the lake lightly tethers the kitchen, living room, and dining area to the bedroom.

Screen Porch

Kitchen and Boardwalk exterior view