31 Days of Cozy: Day 9

Photo by Emily Minton Redfield

Location: Genesee, Colorado Cozy Factor: This tiny cottage—built in 1931 on a foundation of old telephone poles and recently remodeled by TKP Architects and Old Greenwich Builders—packs a lot of personality into its 450 square feet. Its owners, Dan and Barbara Watson, had been intrigued by the architecture of several stone U.S. Park Service buildings they’d seen during a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota, a vernacular they hoped to incorporate in the new design. “We appreciated the timeless quality of those old buildings, with heavy boulders at the base tapering upward, and we envisioned a cottage that would seem to grow out of the rock outcroppings that surround it,” Dan says. To recreate the look of those historic structures, massive stones were used to build the cottage’s exterior walls. “Each stone was carefully chosen to fit,” general contractor Cress Carter says. “Imagine trying to delicately place a several-ton boulder with a crane. None of us had ever done anything quite like that before.” Learn more (and see the inside) here: http://www.mountainliving.com/article/450-square-foot-cottage