All language subtitles for The.Cabin.Chronicles.S02E07.MetalLark.Tower.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb

I
grew up in the Midwest.

And some of my friends would go
to the cabins on the weekend.

And I thought, oh, that
sounds so fun to get away.

So Annie and I, we got
the itch to find a cabin,

and we did that.

With my generation, we often
go to school in one city,

and then get our first
job in another city.

And I don't really know
anybody in my generation

who actually owns a cabin.

And
the woods around here,

I call them "walk anywhere
woods" because they're just--

they're full of life and
there's not a lot of underbrush.

You can walk anywhere.

And it's beautiful here.

The rolling hills
and the glaciers

did us a huge favor, just
how they carved the land up.

We are in
Northwestern Wisconsin,

in one of our family's
cabins out in the middle

of a restored prairie.

My family immigrated
from Denmark

right after the
turn of the century,

from a farm much like this.

This is MetalLark Tower.

Not Meadowlark,
but MetalLark, given

the nature of the tower and all
the steel that holds it high.

Now that
my kids are out of car seats

and actually can handle
an hour and a half drive,

they love coming up
to visit MetalLark.

We pull in, and we drive
up to the top of the hill,

and we park.

And right there is an
entrance to a path that cuts

through the wildflower meadow.

Pretty much we open
the doors, they're off

and they're just running
through the meadows.

The idea for these cabins
started about five years ago.

I often go on canoe
rides with my dad.

And we were canoeing down the
river, coming around a turn,

and there's this
beautiful bluff.

I leaned over to my dad.

And I said, wouldn't
it be cool just

to have a little, tiny house
on the top of that bluff?

And he agreed.

And we started talking about it.

Coincidentally, around the
same time, one of my co-workers

came back from a weekend trip.

She showed me
pictures of this just

beautiful cabin that
was unlike a lot

of the cabins in the region.

And I said, I want
to stay there.

I looked up the
reservation calendar,

and they were booked for
almost two years out.

I kind of joked.

I said it would be
easier to build a cabin,

or faster to build
a cabin, than to get

a reservation at this place.

And that kind of
got the conversation

going more and more.

And we started writing letters
to different landowners

to see if they
would ever consider

selling a little plot of land.

There's no shortage of
cabins in this area.

But most of them are
kind of these 1920s

cabins with knotty pine
or the bearskin rugs.

We wanted, when we
built this, just

to build something
different, something that

was just more open, more airy.

We wanted a lot of
glass, a lot of wood.

That was the-- that dug
for the real warm tone.

And so that even in
the winter, you still

felt cozy, but surrounded.

When you arrive here,
you see the cabin

between a canopy of trees.

We have kind of an unusual
layout in that it's inverted.

When you walk in
on the lower level,

you're actually walking
in on the sleeping level.

We did that so that we could
get these big, tall ceilings.

It's cantilevered

so far that from the
south and the east,

it really looks like
it's levitating.

As the prairie grasses
grow up more and more,

you can't really
see the foundation.

And it's just kind of this box--

floating.

The whole cabin,

it kind of looks like kind
of an ice cube of glass

got wrapped in a little
wool sweater of steel.

Yeah.

Whoever thought rust
could be such a good thing?

Because I was raised to believe
that if something rusted,

that's a bad thing.

And now, actually,
it's a beautiful thing.

When designing this
cabin with all the glass

in this harsh, northern
climate, we had

to think about the nighttime.

Heat radiates through
glass rather quickly.

So we positioned
the cabin facing

south, southeast, to capture
that winter sun in the glass.

But the back side of the cabin
is 16 to 18 inches thick,

solid foam, way more
insulated than the cooler

you take camping.

The 140 acres here
at this property

is just a really
beautiful place.

And it's big enough to
have different people here

at the same time, enjoying it.

And having a cabin
that others can enjoy

is really special for us.

It helps bring people here to
Northwestern Wisconsin to kind

of experience
community and what it's

like being out in nature here.

For a long
time I've been interested

in tiny apartment design.

I found this Italian
made Murphy bunk bed

that folds up into a closet.

We were able to squeeze
this bed into a little desk

space next to the kitchen.

And boom, you can actually
sleep two people there.

Waking up to that view
is probably the best

view in the entire cabin.

In the process of
building MetalLark,

another dream of mine was
to build a second cabin.

So Longhouse is
like a grace gift.

I am a 10 year--

nearly a 10 year
cancer survivor.

And in the very worst of
the worst of the chemo

and the surgery and the
recovery from the surgery,

my sanctuary was our cabin.

It was just such a gift to
be able to go there and be

in a space that was
different from home,

that was different
from the hospital,

and just be and re-energize.

And so many cancer patients
don't have that opportunity.

So when we started
talking about this idea,

I said the one thing I
really, really wanted to do

was to build a cabin that
was accessible to a person

with a wheelchair or walker, or
somebody just facing a really

difficult time in their life.

One thing that's been
really fun about the process

of building these two cabins
has been the opportunity

to spend time with my parents.

Not many people
in their upper 30s

get to take a day
or two off work

and go up north and clear
trails with their dad,

or to do countless
things with their mom.

It's unusual to have

intergenerational
collaboration, in my experience.

And to work together
on something like that,

and to draw on the
strengths of each other,

has been such an
awesome experience.

You don't get that
opportunity very often.