Long Lake Cottage: An Off-Grid Muskoka Forest Retreat
6 days ago
4 min read
On a secluded peninsula in the Ontario wilderness, where the lake is too still and too protected for motorboats to disturb it, a new kind of cottage has taken shape. It doesn't announce itself. It settles in, low against a ridge of exposed bedrock, before rising into the tree canopy on the other side. The effect is quietly dramatic: a home that seems to have grown out of its site rather than been placed on top of it.
This is Long Lake Cottage, designed by Toronto-based Dubbeldam Architecture + Design for an urban couple whose love of nature runs deep enough that they spent an entire year camping on the land before deciding what to build, or where to build it. What emerged from that patience is a fully off-grid, multigenerational retreat that treats accessibility, family gathering, and wilderness immersion as inseparable design problems, each one solved by the same instinct: keep the forest close.
Long Lake Cottage's most distinctive move is also its most practical one. Instead of stacking bedrooms above living space, as most cottages do, the architects flipped the sequence. The communal rooms sit on the upper level, reached by a bridge, while five bedrooms occupy the level below, tucked beneath the ridge and hidden from view on approach.
The logic wasn't stylistic. It was born from a full year of watching how the land actually worked, and from a family that needed every level to be reachable by everyone, including a member who uses a wheelchair. A sixth bedroom and fully accessible bathroom were placed upstairs specifically so no one would be excluded from the heart of the house.
"We designed the cottage with the living spaces upstairs and bedrooms below to preserve the natural contours of the site and ensure accessibility for the entire family. This slightly unorthodox arrangement emphasizes the retreat's connection to nature, with communal spaces in the tree canopy and private areas within the forest floor." - Heather Dubbeldam.
Long Lake Cottage. Photography by Riley Snelling
Long Lake Cottage. Photography by Riley Snelling
Cross that bridge, and the cottage opens up entirely. The upper floor is one continuous, open-plan living, dining, and kitchen area, wrapped in windows that pull the lake and forest into every sightline. It's designed so that no matter where a guest stands, a window or door is never far off. The architects describe it: the living room floats above the forest floor.
A cast concrete hearth grounds the room, generous seating gathered around it the way people naturally cluster near warmth. Running the length of one wall, a 17-foot built-in bench with hidden storage turns the window itself into a place to linger, not just a view to admire. Overhead, a ceiling of continuous western hemlock boards softens the acoustics of the open plan while wrapping the entire space in warmth and texture.
The kitchen carries that same restrained materiality: white oak millwork, engineered stone counters and backsplash, and a long island anchored by a bar sink that gently separates cooking from gathering without ever closing the room off. Sliding doors lead out to a wraparound deck with west and south exposures, complete with retractable bug screens and an outdoor wood-burning fireplace that mirrors the one inside, stretching the living season well past summer.
Long Lake Cottage. Photography by Riley Snelling
Long Lake Cottage. Photography by Riley Snelling
Downstairs, the mood shifts from gathering to retreat. Five bedrooms line a hallway that terminates, fittingly, in a view of the lake. Each room opens directly to the forest through floor-to-ceiling glass and its own private exterior entrance, giving guests a sense of seclusion that a shared hallway rarely allows.
The primary suite takes the west-facing corner, opening fully to the outdoors to catch the last light of every sunset filtering through the trees. Its ensuite goes a step further, with an outdoor shower that nods directly to the family's history of camping on this very land before the cottage existed. It's a small detail, but one that keeps the building's origin story present in daily life.
Outside, two decks, offset along the building's length, extend that same philosophy. The lower deck sits shaded beneath the floor above, pressed against the bedrock outcropping that keeps it naturally cool through summer, cross-breezes drifting in off the lake. A pair of teak swings turns one corner of it into a quiet spot for conversation, nestled right against the rock.
Long Lake Cottage. Photography by Riley Snelling
Long Lake Cottage. Photography by Riley Snelling
None of this comfort comes at the environment's expense. Long Lake Cottage runs entirely off-grid, powered by a large solar array, and built from sustainably harvested wood, some of it milled nearby. Greyed cedar and charcoal-stained spruce clad the exterior, colours chosen deliberately so the building recedes into the treeline rather than competing with it. Inside, brush-finished oak floors and oil-rubbed hemlock keep the palette warm and unfussy, the hemlock ceiling boards running uninterrupted from interior to exterior to blur the line between the two even further.
Fully winterized, the cottage isn't a fair-weather escape. It's built to be lived in through every season, a place where the light, the sounds of the lake, and the rhythm of the forest are meant to be felt year-round, not just glimpsed on a summer weekend.
Long Lake Cottage stands as proof that a year spent camping on a piece of land can produce a more thoughtful building than any amount of drawing board speculation. By listening to the site first and letting accessibility, family, and material honesty guide every decision after, Dubbeldam Architecture + Design has created something rarer than a beautiful cottage: a home that feels inevitable, as though the forest had been waiting for it all along.
Dubbeldam Architecture + Design is a multi-disciplinary design studio committed to creating thoughtful projects that embody sustainable approaches. With a diverse portfolio incorporating a wide variety of project types, their work ranges from homes, multi-unit residential projects, workspaces, hospitality, and mixed-use buildings to landscape design and architectural installations.
Along with over 120 design awards and wide recognition in national and international publications, Dubbeldam is the recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts Professional Prix de Rome and the 2024 Architectural Practice Award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, two of the highest honours for architectural practices in Canada. With a commitment to design excellence and a focus on sustainability and wellness in architecture, Dubbeldam is recognized for creating innovative, unique, and environmentally responsible design solutions for live, work and play.
