Ridge on the Chimney: Gabled Cabins Framing Cape Breton’s Wild Coast
Ridge on the Chimney lands in Chimney Corner, Canada, as a quartet of rental cottages by Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects on Cape Breton’s western shore. Framed by cliffs and mountains, the house-scaled cabins draw from local barns and fish shacks while answering fierce coastal winds. The project works as hospitality, yes, but it also reads as a careful study of vernacular form, rugged climate, and the rituals of retreat.
Wind scrapes across the ridge and the gables hold. Light pours through tall glazing, catching wood grain and the pale line of beach beyond.
This is a cluster of four rental cottages on Cape Breton’s west coast, set in Chimney Corner and designed by Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects. The work orients simple, wood-clad volumes to landscape and weather, drawing on local barn and fish-shack precedents. Context drives each move—the siting, the taut skins, and the rooms that open wide to the strait.
Set On The Ridge
The cottages align along a north–south rise with cliffs tumbling to the Northumberland Strait. To the west lies open water, while the ground lifts eastward into low mountains, creating a tension that the buildings exploit with long views and a tight profile. Each gabled form reads clear and calm, its placement choosing both prospect and shelter.
Facing Les Suêtes
Local winds, the Les Suêtes, can sustain 100 km/h (62 mph) with gusts to 200 km/h (124 mph). The cabins answer with zero‑eaves detailing and a taut, wood-clad envelope that reduces turbulence and collects less snow, a practical stance amplified by the lean geometry. Doors tuck into recessed corner bites so arrival stays out of the gale.
Refuge And Prospect
Entry starts compressed, then releases into a vaulted living, kitchen, and dining room with broad glazing cut to the coastline. Bedrooms sit back and quiet, reading as protected cells that absorb the hush of the hill while the public rooms lean into view and light for longer days. That duality—tight refuge and open prospect—sets the daily rhythm.
Scaled For Staying
Two one‑bedroom bunkies measure 515 and 575 square feet, efficient and private. Two larger cabins reach 1,275 square feet with two bedrooms and a bunk, giving families room without losing the crisp outline that ties the group together. The shared DNA keeps the cluster coherent while the sizes tune to different itineraries and seasons.
Common Ground Downhill
Just below, a communal zone gathers the community around an outdoor kitchen, seating, a BBQ, and a firepit. Guests cook together in the salt air, then drift back uphill to their own porches and rooms, privacy restored yet softened by the memory of a shared meal. It’s social by design, but never crowded.
Vernacular, Made Crisp
Gabled profiles, minimal materials, and careful detailing anchor the work in regional building culture. The architecture takes the barn and the fish shack as cues, then pares them to strong lines and useful surfaces without ornament. Less material, more intent, and a landscape that does the rest.
Late light rakes the cladding, and the ridge reads as a clean horizon. Windows dim to mirrors as the strait darkens, while wind threads the eaves-less edges and moves on. The cabins keep their quiet, tuned to weather and view.
Photography by James Brittain
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