The Love Story

This love story began 2 years ago when Joyce Mattson and Dennis Wille met Dale Mulfinger at the Lake Home and Cabin Show in Minneapolis. They were looking for the right Architect to design their family cabin on Bean Lake, just south of Hayward WI.

Dale Mulfinger Bean Lake Sunrise
Morning sunrise over Bean Lake.

Dale Mulfinger and Sara Whicher have lead the way on this project which Joyce says, “has indeed brought Dennis and I even closer together”.  The photo below is a piece of the creative process the architect and client team visualized. This early schematic model of the cabin shows design where the loft overlooks the living area and the Wille-Mattson ‘head’ collection is displayed.

Dale Mulfinger Early Schematic

Deciding the placement of a structure on a site can be as significant as the design itself. The photos below show the new structure taking better advantage of the clients' wonderful lake view while placing the garage where the prior cabin used to be.

Dale Mulfinger New Cabin PlacementDale Mulfinger Prior Cabin
Existing structure on site.                                                                             New cabin placement on site.

Dennis and his friends took on the first project, the garage.

Dale Mulfinger Garage

Once the garage was up, the back of the bark siding needed to be stained. Joyce took good care of the team, keeping them full of cookies!

Dale Mulfinger Garage

Joyce’s Everyday CookiesDale Mulfinger Cookies
1 C white Sugar
1 C brown Sugar
1 C butter
1 C oil
1C oatmeal
1 C coconut
½ C nuts
1 egg
1t vanilla
1t salt
1t soda
1t cream of tarter
3 ½ c flour

Mix, drop by cookie scoop onto pan, press with sugar covered press bake at 375 until brown around the edges.

Here's a shot of what the cookies are helping produce, the garage siding about halfway done.

Dale Mulfinger Bark Sided Garage

Using very local materials, here are pine slabs from the two big pines that came down (for new structure placement pictured above) to make room for the new cabin. These are being used on the new cabin.

Dale Mulfinger Pine Slabs

Daughters Christa and Maren along with other family and friends gather rocks for the fireplace. This cabin has people on farms all across MN and WI looking for field stones, some rocks came as far away as Ireland!

Clients Rock Collecting for the Cabin

…and here's how their hard work paid off!

Dale Mulfinger Fireplace

Although Joyce and Dennis do not exactly have the same taste, or even agree on how much money should be spent, their cabin construction on Bean Lake has brought them closer together.

Client Family Photo

Dale Mulfinger Finished Cabin

Who knew that contruction photos could be so romantic! This project is another fine example of using bark siding. If you'd like to see more on this, Dale covers the topic in even more detail in his blog post Bark Siding is Back. For more on Dale's extensive catalogue of projects, visit his profile page.