Nestled in the heart of the Rockies, Ellis Cabin, a modern mountain cabin in Twin Lakes, Colorado blends thoughtful design with breathtaking views. Built using DEN Outdoors’ Modern Alpine Cabin plan, the project is both a personal retreat and a successful Colorado Airbnb cabin rental.

From a basement-level residence to a lofted Airbnb unit, this cabin showcases how smart design and customization can maximize space, comfort, and return on investment in a challenging mountain environment.

See Ellis Cabin's Airbnb page here, and their IG here. 

1. Intro + Why Gray Chose a Colorado Mountain Cabin

Mike: So for folks who are now tuning in to DEN's podcast, We are here with a new person who has built a DEN in a new place. We've spent a bunch of time catching up ahead of this interview. And I think that I found my soulmate across a number of different things.

First of all; he likes blue. The same color blue that I like, and also super ultralight hiking. And has done some pretty long distance tracks throughout the globe. Which I'm in deep admiration of. So please tell us who you are, where you've built a DEN, and which DEN design did you build?  

Gray: Wow. What an intro, man. I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me. My name is Gray Houser. I built a DEN with my father in Twin Lakes, Colorado. And we built the Modern Alpine Cabin.  

Mike: Amazing.  

Gray: Yeah.  

Mike: And, yeah, tell us a little bit of the background of this project. Because getting to Twin Lakes was a bit of a meandering path. Is that right?  

Gray: Yeah, totally. So my dad and I had love Twin Lakes. We kind of wanted to have some land there. But what got us going on the project to start was my grandfather actually bought five acres of land in South Colorado, close to Fort Garland and the Great Sand Dunes National Park. And when he passed away, he passed that land down to my dad. And me and my dad had gone and, like, camped on the land a number of times. Super raw in the middle of nowhere. Really quite hard to get to, like five and a half hour drive from Denver Airport. So it didn't seem super. Didn't seem like the best place to build a cabin for us to visit - we're not living full time in Colorado, but also for, you know, people to be able to Airbnb.

So we over a number of years we're looking for the right lot of land and finally found one with some help of some agents out in Leadville in Twin Lakes, and so we locked down a couple acres. That's bordering national forest land, which is lovely. It has a nice little view of the mosquito range. And yeah, so we are there in Twin Lakes, Colorado. Now.  

Mike: Amazing. And presumably you camped out on the Twin Lakes property a few times before you put shovel to soil. Yeah.  

Gray: Of course. My dad, he had a pop-up camper that he'd had since I was a kid. He probably got it in, like, 1985, and he still has it. Well, no - he actually just sold it, like, two weeks ago because its purpose had been served for this project. But he drove it out from Atlanta, Georgia, to Twin Lakes. The Pop Up Camper. He set it up on our property, and he lived in that thing. For a very long time. And through, like, brutal Twin Lakes winters. We had a day this past January that was like, negative 8. And, you know, it's just pure snow everywhere. And he's living in this pop up camper, you know, for a couple weeks at a time out of every month and taking showers outside like a maniac. So, yes, we did camp on the property.  

Mike: I see where you get your backcountry resilience from. That is amazing. Well, tell us - you're a designer, right?  

Gray: Yes.  

Mike: And we talked a little bit about the power of good design, right? Tell us what attracted you to DEN initially and what attracted you to this specific design?  

2. Designing a Modern Mountain Cabin with DEN Outdoors

Gray: Like you said, I'm a brand designer. And so I initially saw DEN when you guys launched. There was this graphic designer that you mentioned from Berlin who did your initial logo and branding, and I'd seen that on a design blog, so DEN caught my eye far before it was the Instagram famous architecture account that it is now. And I kind of always knew. I had this project in the back of my mind from my granddad having this land, and I was like, you know, if one day we were able to do this, we're going to do a DEN build. So I kind of knew from the beginning. Given just the design forward approach.

And also being a designer, I know the value of design, and so I know what it's worth. And I know that when people are looking, even if they're not really cognizant of it or not, when they're looking for a place to stay, a well designed place is what they're going to most often choose if the price isn't too different.

So I think there's also, obviously, just personal taste and what I would want, but then also the ROI on something that's designed well is there too. So it was kind of a no brainer to go with DEN for me.

And then in terms of the actual plan that we chose, we did the Modern Alpine Cabin. There were a lot less plans when we started this project. Now there's like way more. I'm like, 'oh, man, that one would have been so...' 

But we went with that one and we were between... I wanted to do the A-Frame. And I forget which A-Frame it was, but it was the bigger one you had at the time. And our land has a bit of a slope, so I thought the roof going all the way to the ground and sloping down and - we wanted to do a basement level - just felt kind of awkward with the actual lay of the land. So we decided to go with the Modern Alpine Cabin that had the flat sides. That could more seamlessly kind of blend into the slope we had on the property.  

Mike: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. The Modern Alpine Cabin has actually been one of our most popular designs and has birthed like an entire kind of Modern Alpine serie. So we have the Modern Alpine, the one that you built. We also have the recently released one, The Modern Alpine 2025.  

Gray: Yeah. Yep.  

Mike: So you had this really interesting and kind of dramatic topography right? And you're telling me that you added, like, a whole other level to this design?  

Gray: Yes.  

Mike: Right. And what I'm curious about is, you know, knowing the floor plan of this building is so intimate, like how do you access that second level?  

3. Building a Cabin with Loft and Basement

Gray: Yeah. That's a good question. And we haven't actually talked about this yet. So, man, that was a freaking process because we initially...

There were a lot of things we had to be compliant with in the county. It ended up helping us in the end because - this is a segue or a sidetrack - but it ended up helping us in the end because to just kind of be grandfathered into a short term rental permit in our county, you have to provide a permanent residence as well.

So, yeah, the basement floor that we built into our DEN is that permanent residence. And then the upstairs with the loft, which is the from the plans, is the Airbnb unit. But to add that second floor, we had to obviously add stairs, like you're saying. So we had to add a staircase in the back of the cabin, that goes down and up from both floors, and we had to enclose it, so we added eight extra feet onto the house, to make it longer. And that actually made the loft really big, which was awesome. Like, it makes it feel like a living room and an office, and we have the beds in there. It was really great. With adding even more space into the loft to add that staircase into the back of the house.  

Mike: Awesome. Yeah. I was so curious how you guys pulled that off. But what a cool workaround to achieve a short term rental. Also folks who are reading, you know, you'll probably see the images of Gray's Modern Alpine on the post itself, but I'm, like, looking at the photos right now on the Airbnb, and the build out looks great, man, the build looks really beautiful.  

What did you guys think as you were putting the project together? Like, what was your  favorite part? You know, tell us if there were any challenging parts that came up, you know? Give us your hot take on building this.  

4. Overcoming Challenges of Colorado Cabin Construction

Gray: Man. There's too many challenging parts to mention.

My dad would have even more stories than I do. Because he was on that side of it more than me. One of the major things was we ended up going all electric. Which our GC recommended to us. And then we got to the end, and basically the county was saying, like, 'you have to have gas'. And we had already built in everything. And all the other contractors we talked to were like, 'you shouldn't do electric in this environment, this is the wrong choice.' Blah, blah.

So that was a challenge. Lots of freakouts. We ended up staying with the All Electric, and it's worked so far. It's worked pretty well. So, I'm glad we we trusted our gc, who had a lot of experience in our neighborhood.

Another one was just getting approvals from our county. You know, there's a lot of issues with affordability in the Rockies right now. Especially for full time residents that are, you know, locally employed. Because of things like Airbnb popping up. So there's a lot of, you know, rightful rules around being able to build and, like, when and where you can, etc. So there were so many things that came up, we just had to really, like, dig in and honestly get to know the local government. And my dad was, you know, on. They had different court hearings that he went to to get things approved. So, you know, it's like... We're in. It. 

Another challenging thing was the staircase. Because in between the two levels, we had to have a fireproof door. Which is a door that's like $1,500. And also weighs, like, 300 pounds or something, like, insane. And there's only one supplier for them in the U.S. I think, and it's in California, so we had to get it shipped. But basically, because we had the two levels, we had to change the door. We had to reframe it. There were all these extra kind of added complexities around having that second floor. But again, we really wanted to have it because we wanted to be able to have two units. But we also had to to be able to do short term rental. So it was like a lot of strings that were kind of, you know, being held very, very carefully. Everything relied on itself.  

Mike: Before we started this podcast, told me that you were a married man. Is that correct?  

Gray: Yes, yes, happily.  

Mike: Yes. This is great because I try to contextualize the number of dependencies and complexities. Like, you know, with regard to building a house, to folks that I talk with who are interested in DEN, I'm like, 'Imagine trying to plan a wedding, right? And execute like a wedding, right?' 

Gray: Yes.  

Mike: And that's impossible for today. There's this term bridezilla. There's all of this stuff because, like, weddings themselves are tricky to pull off, it's like the most complicated party that you might ever throw in your life, right?  

But a house is at least a hundred times more complicated than that, right?  

Gray: A thousand if you're building in the mountains.  

Mike: Like, just imagine that times 100, and, like, you'll be scratching the surface of what it means.  

Gray: Yes.  

Mike: I always like disclaimers. I'm like, 'but it's a really rewarding experience.' You know, and there you go. That's it. You get to the end, and then you're like, 'oh, totally worth it.'

5. Life in a Colorado Airbnb Cabin

Gray: Totally 100%, man. I mean, We won. Like, me and my wife go out for, you know, a couple months every year just to live there and enjoy it.

We love being in the mountains in every season. You know, it just gives you so much opportunity to enjoy the outdoors and be active, but also feel grounded and centered. And also, like, we've been able to give a lot of attention to detail, and just our care for how we're treating guests, like being super responsive and understanding of people... Like, we've gotten really great reviews, and, you know, Airbnb even boosted us a little bit. And so it's been really successful in that way so far, too. Now we're trying to build out another deck. And we're gonna put a hot tub and a sauna on it. You know, the whole thing.

So it's very rewarding, like you're saying. And, when I'm there, like, because I put so much effort into it, it's just like, the best feeling, it actually being done, you know, and then to share it is like another cherry on top for me. The other people get to take part in the thing that I was, like, excited about creating. It's just... it's priceless, you know? It's awesome.  

Mike: For sure. I built my first cabin largely by myself, right? Like, I did all the plumbing and all the finishing. Like, I did a lot. And at the time DEN was, like, just a twinkle in my eye, you know, I didn't even realize that first project would start this business, right?

But I'm like the experience driven person. And I was like, 'well, if I can build a house myself, like, should I be selling homes?', you know?  

But I remember, in the middle of that project, like, really hitting a point where I was like, 'did I bite off more than I could chew?' You know, like, I'm, like, sleeping in a construction pile. There was luckily, one, like, hipster hotel, like, down the road where I could get a whiskey.  

I got to know them so well that they would, like, also, like, hook me up with, like, really cheap, like, rooms if no one else had booked them.

And someone at the bar there, they were like, 'listen, the project will be done for a lot longer than it took to build, right?'  

Gray: Good perspective. Yeah.  

Mike: That one piece of, like, sage wisdom. Like, bar-side sage wisdom. That put so much gas in my tank to get the project done. To get me to the finish line, right? Which is just like, you know, super vibes. You're just like, 'yeah, I did it!'  

Gray: Yep. Yeah. Yep.  

Mike: It's a bucket list item for most people, right? You know?  

Gray: Yep. That's what I mean. When I was a kid, I was like to 'have a cabin in the mountains one day'.  

Mike: That you built, that you facilitated the construction of, right? 

Gray: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't build it with my hands like you, but I was the creative director.  

Mike: I mean, I... You know, I relegated myself to being the creative director of DEN. Leave the building to the professionals, right? But yes. I mean, like, that's so cool. That's so cool.  

Gray: Yeah, man. It's the best.  

Mike: So let's like actually just dive into the various phases of the project, right?

Was there one that really stuck out to you as being memorable? Like, imbuing you in the project with positivity? Like, where were you like, 'oh, man, we're really doing this.'  

6. The Rewards of Modern Mountain Living

Gray: I think I'll say two moments, I think, when the actual frame went up, and I could see the shape start to form. I was like, 'oh, my God, it's actually happening.' It's like just such a good feeling, even though there was so much work ahead - like, honestly two years. It took us a really freaking long time. Because the building window is really small because snow falls in October and then you're done until May, basically. So it took a really freaking long time.

But I would say at that moment and then this past January, when my wife and I went out. And it was nearing the finish line. We still had guys in there every day painting and doing the final electrical whatever, but I was just sleeping in the loft. And my wife and I drove all over Colorado sourcing vintage furniture that we furnished the cabin with. And I think that was like, 'wow, we're so close, and we're, like, putting the finishing touch on it'.

Like, the cherry on top is actually filling it with things that we love. And that have a story not just like Wayfaired in. It's like. No, we got this from a vintage design freak who has been collecting this. He's had this piece since the 60s, and now the story is getting to continue kind of through us. So I think filling the space with life at the end was also the moment that I was like, wow. It happened. I think the first moment is like, 'okay, it's happening.' I see it starting to happen, and then the end when it's like it actually happened, and we were able to put that final creative touch on it.  

Mike: Yeah. And now it's just, like, enjoyment, you know? You're just like barbecues, like, whatever, you know? Yeah. Like throwing up the movie projector, like, whatever it is.  

Gray: Yeah. Yep.  

Mike: That's so cool. Let me see... Are there any other kind of personal touches or customizations besides, I guess, the staircase and the really cool vintage furniture? Like what do you think is like, wholly your own? Like as part of this.  

Gray: It's a good question. I mean, in terms of the build, the main thing we changed was the size and the staircase so we could have that second floor. We did fully build out that basement floor to be its own apartment. So it has its own kitchen, it has its own laundry, obviously its own bathroom.

So that feels, like, pretty unique in terms of what other people have done with this model also. But I think what feels the most unique about our property on the whole is the lot itself. It's in this really rural neighborhood at the base of Mount Albert, and Mount Massive, which are the two highest peaks in Colorado. Number two and three in the continental US. And so it's like, the best outside of Whitney in California. You're, like, at the base of all the tallest mountains in the country.  

Mike: Fun fact. The founder of DEN summited Mount Rainier with an ice climbing expedition. It's the tallest, but I think it's actually... What do you call the delta between the summit and the base of a mountain?  Hold on. I gotta look this up. All right, Keep telling me the story.  

Gray: So, yeah, I think the setting. We're kind of at the base of these peaks. Like the trailheads are just literally, basically in our neighborhood. And our neighborhood is a bunch of dirt roads that feel like national forest roads. And there's some houses. There's probably 100 houses in the whole area. But they're really spaced out. And so we got our lot again, two acres, and it's at the dead end of a road surrounded by national forest. And it's on a slope that's overlooking the valley. So I think it was just like... Just the setting being so peaceful. It feels so set apart from everything else. And then being so close, too, to some of the best hikes in the country. That is what makes it so special to me. And I think the DEN build allowed us to really embrace the land. And customize it and do a lot of that grunt work for us so that we could kind of maximize the landscape.  

Mike: You'll appreciate this as a brand person. I would say, like, you know, in the early days of DEN and to some extent now, right?  

Gray: Yeah.  

Mike: Like, I always thought of DEN as an outdoor company, you know, not like a building company, right?

Gray: Yes. I still think about it like that.  

Mike: Yeah, yeah. I do too. I was like, the cabins are just vehicles to enjoy the outdoors. Like, we're not like, we're not a construction company, right?  

Gray: Absolutely.  

Mike: Like, I kind of wobbled from that manifesto a little bit after we raised $4 million. And I was like, now we're a company. I thought 'we're The Death Star of cool modern cabins in North America.' And then I was like, you know what? We should just go back to the basics, right? And, like, tell people, 'get access to the outdoors'. 

But you raise a really, really good point, right? And, you know, I think, for the designs that we sell, it's not like we're trying to help people build more housing at the end of a suburban cul de center, right? Though, like, some developers are now using DENs as, like, urban infill units, which is really cool to see, quite frankly, right?  

Gray: Right.  

Mike: But, like, you know, for people looking to develop property, like, yes, like the housing design and the housing assets, are really important, right? But, like, fundamentally it just comes down to the land itself.  

If you have, like, a beautiful parcel that has the right features, is in the right place... And, like, there's so much scarcity around that, right? It's like tokenized, right? It's like you can't get another one of the exact view and exact land that you have in this place in the world.  

Gray: Yes, and it's true. And that's what I say. That is the most important thing about it, and that's what everybody comments on after they stay. 'The view is amazing!' I

And that's why we chose the cabin that we did, because it has all the windows to look out on the view, watch the sunrise come up, all those things.

And two, talk about challenges. I forgot to mention this, actually. Where our house sits, there is totally raw land, so there were no utilities coming through the lot at all. So we had to pay a bunch of freaking money to get utilities brought down, like, a quarter of a mile on our road.  

Mike: Yeah.  

Gray: And we also couldn't dig our own water tanks or anything. We had to go from Community Water. So that was a whole 'nother challenge. And our road, everybody that came for the first time before it was ready was like, 'you guys are going to try to rent this? You're crazy', because our road is almost on a cliff. And we've done a lot of regrading work on it. But again, it's like the belief in this place, like, this setting in the natural environment is worth all of this stuff to, like, be able to really share. And to be able to use, so, yeah.  

Mike: Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well. Well done. Well done. And fun fact for for our listeners. The delta between the summit and the base of the mountain is known as its prominence. And I think Mount Rainier actually has the greatest prominence of all continental American Mountains.  

Gray: I believe it. I believe it. You can see it from Seattle. I mean, it's epic.  

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, but Mount Whitney is the tallest. Yeah.  

Gray: Yes. It sure is.  

Mike: But yes, that is a fun fact for everyone listening in.

Last question. You're the man. This project sounds incredible. I can't wait to stay there one day.

What advice would you give to, like, one of your friends or family members or someone listening in who wanted to, like, you know, pull off the same type of caper that you did?  

Gray: Heck, yeah.  

Great, great question.

So I would say, obviously, wait for the right thing and wait for the right lot. You don't want to shortchange that.

But then I would say once you're already in the build and you're working within a budget, it's probably tighter than you thought, and things are probably more expensive than you thought. Have things that you're willing to compromise on. This was something that I feel like I was doing every day when we were in the throes of choosing flooring or choosing finishes, et cetera. I feel like most people that are probably pulling this off are working within a budget that isn't endless. And so finding the things that are worth the splurge. And then the things you can cut costs that actually might be half as expensive but still give you pretty much all of the experience that you wanted to have. I say that would be my thing. Once you have the lot and the plan and everything, all the big things are chosen, be willing to make some compromises to make it feasible for you. I think that'd probably be my main throughout the build advice.  

Mike: Lovely thoughts. Don't let perfection stand in the way of progress, as they say.  

Gray: Bam. That's a great way to put it.  

Mike: There you go. Well, on behalf of the entire team here at DEN, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for sharing the story of this incredible build.  

Gray: Thank you so much!