P-05 / Outbuilding
Plattekill Cabin
Six hundred square feet on a rock ledge in a hemlock clove, reachable only on foot in winter.
Woodstock, NYCompleted 2023
The project
The hardest small building we have made. There is no vehicle access past the last three hundred feet, so every stick of it was carried in by hand or flown by a very expensive helicopter on one very well-planned Tuesday in September.
Because of that, the whole thing was designed around what two people can carry. Nothing in the building weighs more than about a hundred and forty pounds. The frame is a kit we cut in the shop and dry-fitted in the yard before a single piece went up the hill.
It sits on eight helical piers screwed into fractured bluestone, touching the ledge as little as we could manage. One window, oriented at the only view worth having, and a wood stove that will hold the place at sixty-eight degrees through a February night on four splits.
| Program | 1 room, sleeping loft, bath |
|---|---|
| Conditioned area | 610 sq ft |
| Structure | Shop-cut timber kit on helical piers |
| Envelope | Charred larch, mineral wool, standing seam |
| Heating | Wood stove, electric backup |
| Blower door | 0.72 ACH50 |
| Duration | 7 months |
One detail
The whole cabin was assembled once in our yard in Kingston, taken apart, numbered, and reassembled on the mountain. It went up in nine days.
Next project
Stockade Rowhouse
Next step
Tell us about the land.
Every project here started with a walk on someone's site and an honest conversation about what it could carry. Yours can start the same way.