Original subtitles

We wanted to give the cabin a name.

Marcelo reached out to our daughter.

And she off the bat told me, Casa Loon.

The loon is the Minnesota bird,

and it has this most amazing song.

And so we love going to sleep with the sound of the loon.

So Casa Loon is perfect name for this house.

My name is Marcelo Valdes.

And I'm from Uruguay.

And I'm an architect, and I was part of the design

team of the cabin.

I am Silvia Perez.

They say I was born in Uruguay, raised in Brazil,

and matured in the US.

And so our joke is that we became US citizens in 2011

and Minnesota citizens in 2012 when

we bought this property with the cabin that was here before.

It all started when we were visiting

and discovered that this was this lot for sale.

And the lot had an old shack.

It was abandoned, but the structure is very good.

It had good bones.

It was a 700-square feet.

It had one bathroom, but we hosted

up to 15 people in that cabin.

And it was a great run, but we couldn't come in the winter.

And we couldn't have as many family members

and friends as we liked.

So we decided to go for remodel.

The biggest challenge was how to build up

without becoming a huge wall in front of the lake.

We came up with a scheme in which we--

we'll call it a 1 and 1/2 story.

We start with one story, which is the main one.

We add a cable and, within the cable, [inaudible],,

which is less intrusive visually than to have

two stories and a roof above.

The original cabin had only one story.

And so you had to go up the goat path,

so we had to tackle that problem somehow.

The way we did that is by doing a walkway

that connects the driveway with the second story of the house.

It gave the house much more functionality,

and it's also interesting to enter a house through a bridge.

You have all the trees and the leaves above you.

And I think that's a great feeling to get into a cabin.

When you come in, you see a stairway going down

and two bedrooms.

Once you go down the stairs, you got the light at the end

of the tunnel, right?

And then you see the lake.

The most important thing here, since this is a small space,

was to have it be really open.

When you come in, you really see the whole space.

I cook a lot.

What I love about this kitchen is that you're cooking

and looking at the lake.

And you just feel like you're on a boat.

For us, it was very important to have a big table so

that we could have everybody.

So we went for a farm table, which is skinny and long.

And we can have a lot of people gather around that table.

The cabin has a very special character.

It was designed in a way that it had personality,

and it expressed who we are.

If you go to a farm in Uruguay, you

may still see a silo being made on the ground and the fire.

And I guess we're going back to the roots.

Yeah.

You let the embers come down, and then you spread the embers.

And that is what cooks the meat.

We just eat under the trees.

We wouldn't be sharing the cabin with you

if we didn't have a meal under the trees.

You could say that the outside of the cabin

replicates the inside.

You gather around the fire, and you cook on the fire.

Then you have these trees, which you put a table under.

They're perfectly shaped for that.

All that's a dining room.

So you could say that the outdoor spaces are

outdoor rooms that replicate the type

of life you make in the cabin.

Minnesota is beautiful.

You definitely have all four seasons.

Yellows, and oranges, and bright reds

mixed in with the evergreens-- it's just lovely.

And I love how Marcelo, in building this cabin,

has been able to bring nature inside, you know.

You feel like you're outdoors when you're indoors.

My favorite, favorite is the screen porch,

because I sit on the swing and just read a book,

enjoy the breeze, and the smells, and the birds.

It's just lovely.

I really like the fireplace

and, mostly in the winter, sitting around

it with all the silence--

read or play a game.

But being in front of our stove is my favorite part.

We're not born and raised here.

But our kids are everything to us,

and their lives is going to be here in the United States.

So this is really the sense of a place

where we will gather as a family for many years to come.

This is our place to make memories with our kids

and hopefully our grandkids.

Cabin, for me, is a big magnet.

It's a magnet of friends, a magnet of family.

And so making it nice, making it cozy, making it welcoming

is what makes that magnet stronger.

Casa-- home, house.

Having your own piece of place to be safe and be comfortable--

Cozy.

and cozy inside.

And Casa brings all those memories.

Yeah

Casa Loon.