Lakeside Family Retreat Reorients Family Life Toward Lake and Forest
Lakeside Family Retreat sits in Canada, a house by Barbora Vokac Taylor Architect that steps with the Canadian Shield and gathers a large, multi-generational clan. The project spreads across three levels with a loft and a roofline that shelters cedar volumes while opening wide to the lake. Built for family life and long weekends, it balances rugged terrain with crafted detailing and a measured sequence from road to water.
A dark roof rides low over cedar, its edge catching sun before it drops to the lake. Underfoot, granite shelves and roots press close, guiding the approach along the slope.
This is a house in Canada by Barbora Vokac Taylor Architect, arranged as a cedar bar with an angled wing under a single, low-slung roof. The throughline is landscape calibration: every move reads the Canadian Shield, from embedded foundations to viewfinders that frame trees and water while managing light, shade, and breeze.
Set Into Shield
The building sidesteps blasting and rides the existing grade, holding level while the land falls from peak to lake. A strong datum lets visitors read elevation changes clearly as paths slide beneath overhangs and around rock.
Two cedar volumes sit beneath one black roof, the main dwelling parallel to the shoreline and a subtle bend housing a garage and an upper-level gym. Between them, a negative pocket becomes threshold and prospect, a compressed pause that releases into a framed lake view.
Roof and Overhangs
Deep eaves throw generous shade and create dry routes along the perimeter. At the ridge, the roof lifts for clerestory windows that pull daylight and breezes into the core, lighting cedar grain and exposed douglas fir joists with an even, high glow.
The sloped roof unites disparate programs while taming weather at the edge. Its protective reach sets a calm profile against trees and rock — a steady horizon over shifting ground.
Framed Approaches
Arrival is choreographed to conceal and reveal, starting with a glimpse of water held in the bend between volumes. A short bridge lands at the upper ground level, inviting guests to settle in before descending to shared rooms below.
Upstairs holds children’s rooms, a study, laundry, and a guest room, kept quiet along the contour for rest. Downstairs opens to kitchen, living, and dining aligned to the shoreline, with floor-to-ceiling glass setting the lake as daily companion.
Outdoor Rooms
A reinterpreted Muskoka room nests in the interstitial gap, open to two sides and closable with motorized screens during buggy seasons. It works as breezeway and outdoor living room, a shaded hinge between house and garage.
At the walkout level, poured concrete walls shape a protected onsen-inspired hot tub under an eight-foot cedar ceiling. The terrace extends outward, where a landscaped limestone stair drops to the shore with measured, tactile descent.
Materials With Time
Shou Sugi Ban cedar and black zinc create a crisp silhouette, with clear cedar tucked under eaves and within sheltered rooms. Inside, heated concrete floors, whitewashed knotty pine, and a hand-painted cement tile mix bring warmth against the stone chimney and structural concrete.
Bedrooms facing the lake step out to narrow balconies immersed in trees and light. After dark, a parametric pattern of tiny lights animates canted cedar panels in the double-height Muskoka room, turning the house into a quiet lantern across the water.
The closing movement returns to ground, where the stair meets rock and breeze moves through screened openings. Morning light washes the clerestory band, and the datum holds steady as the land drops away.
Here, weather writes on wood and zinc while family life traces softer marks within. The retreat reads the terrain with care, then lets the lake answer back.
Photography by Doublespace
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