Interior: Sleek modern cottage

Anne Sportun, Toronto-based jewellery designer extraordinaire, is surely telling tall tales. She’s gushing over how her family of five spent many years camping in two tiny bunkies on 10 remote acres in Haliburton, Ont. “We were so happy there,” says Anne. “We didn’t have electricity. We cooked and ate outside on a Coleman stove.”

As avid campers and canoe enthusiasts, Anne’s family had concerns about building a cottage. “We wanted to keep the intimacy with the land,” she says. “We still wanted that rustic feeling of being up north.”

Then, in 2008, Anne saw Dan Molenaar’s cottage in a magazine. His approach was exactly what they were looking for: minimal impact on the land, low profile and lots of windows. A carpenter by trade and the owner of Mafco House Architects, Dan has a business on the same street as Anne in downtown Toronto (her store is called Experimetal Jewellery). Anne saw the serendipity as a sign. She contacted him, and sure enough the two instantly got along.


Living room Walls of south-facing windows flood the living room with warm light. The cottage’s unobtrusive design creates the illusion of sitting right in the woods, keeping the family connected with the land.