Architecture Wednesday: La Cabañita ... The Little Cabin

The fascinating thing about this gorgeous home in the woods outside Guatemala City is that when it was originally built in 1965 it was a one-bedroom hut and now it’s a 4500 square foot retreat of glass and steel in the wilderness.

But, after fifty years of rough living, the owners decided to renovate, creating a larger home, with more entertaining space, and more outdoor space to take in the surroundings. The architect, Alejandro Paz, extended that small cabin by flanking the existing structure with two additional volumes connected by a terrace and a glass walkway.

Two new volumes were built on either side of the original hut. One contains the master suite with its own bathroom and a walk-through closet, while the other, referred to as the "social module", includes a generous open-plan kitchen and dining room that overlook the landscape. The original bedroom is now a generous guest room with a view.

Paz took the original gable roof and inverted it—creating a ‘butterfly house—to allow more light into the interior spaces through high, operable clerestory windows beneath the eaves.

The three volumes that now make up the not-so-little cabin remain separate but are connected by a glass walkway that runs along the back of the property and serves as their main access point. On the opposite side of the home is a massive deck that juts out over the hillside and joins the various interior spaces.

Old and tiny becomes sleek and large and gorgeous; it was quite the facelift.

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