Interesting design

Here's a wider view of the exterior.

Dwell 24 alum Manny Rionda escaped to his family’s finca in Guatemala during Covid lockdowns and decided to stay, but he soon realized he couldn’t live with his parents forever. “I love my mom and dad,” Manny says, “but we’re not sharing a bathroom.” So the designer built a home of his own on the property, where he could live among the leaves. The living/dining room features heirlooms and a coffee table made of conacaste wood and unpolished granite.

The rooftop terrace has a kitchen and dining area with a table topped in pine wood finished by Manny’s father.

The cabin hovers over the site on stilts, giving it a floating effect.

The cabin's corrugated iron cladding (Colorbond steel in "Windspray") riffs on the quintessential Aussie beach shack's fibre cement sheeting. When not in use, it can be completely closed off with a sliding gate.

Arriving at the cabin is now a joyous ritual. “Every time we push the gates back and see the view it’s this sense of ‘we’ve arrived’,” Matt says.

“Where we let loose was on the window,” Matt says. “It’s an aluminium window frame, which is bushfire compliant and easy to install, but the way that we detailed it was about hiding the frame so that the eye is drawn into the space.”

The house is partially off-grid, with all water collected on site and all sewage treated and disposed of on site.

Glass doors connect each bedroom to its own small patio space, covered by thatched pergolas.

The outdoor patios are a big hit with everyone in the family, including the dog!