Building a dream cabin starts with the right cabin plans. For Kendra, that meant choosing DEN Outdoors' Nordic House, a design rooted in Scandinavian simplicity and perfect for year-round living. Nestled in the Western Maine mountains, her build blends modern design with cozy functionality, showing how the right cabin floor plans can transform raw land into a four-season sanctuary.
When Kendra set out to create her own retreat, she wanted more than just another getaway. She was searching for a home designed for winter retreats — a space that felt both modern and timeless. The Nordic House delivered: a striking design with expansive windows, natural finishes, and efficient modern cabin plans that turned her vision into reality.
From cozy mornings by the wood stove to natural cold plunges just steps from her deck, Kendra's Nordic House embodies everything people love about modern alpine cabins. With smartly designed cabin floor plans and Scandinavian-inspired details, her DEN build proves that great architecture can create both a personal retreat and a lasting investment.
Check out Nordic House's website, their Airbnb page, and follow along on Instagram @nordichouseglamping.
Meet Kendra: Turning Custom Cabin Floor Plans into a Year-Round Luxury Retreat
Mike: Kendra, please tell us who you are, where you built, which DEN designs you built, and tell us a little about the project overall.
Kendra: I'm Kendra. I built three custom DENs up in Maine, next to Sunday River in the Western Maine mountains on South Pond. The concept of Nordic House came from wanting to create a space that was everything you needed, but nothing more. We're in a huge ski area — 15 minutes from Sunday River and right next to Mount Abram, which is both a ski and mountain biking hub. We wanted something truly four seasons.
We're right on the water on 14 acres of land. When it came down to figuring out how to turn this dream into reality, we'd been following DEN for a while and that was just our gut reaction. I think we were actually one of the first customers you worked with to do a customization. I sent a note card drawing of what my dream DEN looked like — a combination of the Alpine Tiny House, the Tiny House 2.0, and the Modern Alpine Cabin. We took all three and made this perfect little concept we now call our likeum cabins.
From Event Planning to Cabin Floor Plan Execution: Designing Nordic House for Hospitality
Mike: What made you want to get into real estate investing, development, and hospitality in the first place?
Kendra: Honestly, I struggle to even call myself a developer. My background was luxury event planning — pre-COVID I was always geared toward creating experiences, whether for a bride and groom or a friend's 30th birthday party. It was always centered around: how is this going to be perceived and enjoyed?
Then COVID came along and my partner and I moved up to Maine from Boston. We'd both spent our early twenties sardined into apartments for an exorbitant amount of money in the city. We were ready for something more organic, more natural. We're huge ski bums with a big German Shepherd Husky mix — Maine was the perfect move. But we had a lot of friends who'd come visit from the city and they always said, "this is so cool." And every time we wanted to do something in the ski areas, you had to get a really big house. Eight bedrooms for two people — it was excessive. Or you got a hotel room that was outdated, didn't allow dogs, or just overpriced for the value.
That's kind of where the whole concept of Nordic House came from: being able to have everything you needed, all the luxuries of a high-end hotel, but with the space, the peace, and the immersion of being in the woods and mountains and on the water. We knew we wanted to do three of them — enough for one for us, and the others for friends and family. Outside of that, we just ran with it. It took off much sooner than we were prepared for, but in the most amazing way.
From Market Gap to Modern Cabin Plans: How Nordic House Was Born
Mike: Your insights around that area — finding a genuine gap in the market through lived experience — are so powerful. And separately, Boston's real estate prices are eye-watering.
Kendra: No square footage, no yard, no parking — they still want a million dollars for a 500 sq ft shed. So yes.
Mike: How many people do each of the cabins sleep?
Custom Cabin Plans in Detail: Beds, Loft, and Dog-Friendly Design
Kendra: Each cabin has a maximum capacity of four — two couples is the maximum. On the first floor, there's a king bed. I wanted everything to feel not like a tiny house. Everything in the cabins is full and luxurious: a king bed, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, an oversized shower with a rain head — everything you'd want from a private villa in the Maldives, put into a Nordic all-season landscape. That's what we created.
Upstairs in the loft, there's a queen bed directly underneath a beautiful skylight. We've actually seen the Northern Lights out of it twice since we opened. It's an intentional detail we're really proud of. And being dog-friendly has been a number one factor for us as human beings — and we've seen it in all our guests. Almost every single person who's come through has some form of furry friend with them.
Cozy Cabin Living: Comfort and Connection in a Nordic House Retreat
Mike: You and your partner have stayed in these cabins yourselves. Where's your favorite spot — the place that makes you think "this is exactly why we did this"?
Kendra: I have two. During the winter months, I love sitting right in front of the fireplace. Each cabin has its own wood stove and the glow of the fire in this cozy space makes you think, "I can't believe this is where I get to sit back and relax." It's so quiet out here.
Then during the summer months, the back porch is partially covered, so when it rains you can sit in your porch chair with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, watching the stars at night or listening to the rain on the metal roof. It's always the little details, the little moments. A lot of our guests have had similar experiences — seeing a blue jay for the first time since childhood. You don't see that in downtown Boston or New York City.
Mike: I noticed you guys picked up one of our specced wood stoves — the Morsø, right?
Kendra: Morsøs, yes.
Mike: I have one of those myself in the first cabin I ever built. The 6148, which I think is the exact model you have. And it's so crazy how true it is — a fire is camping's TV — even when you're in a cabin.
Kendra: Right. We don't have a TV in any of the cabins. We do have Wi-Fi if someone wants to watch a show, but I've noticed that people really do tend to enjoy the disconnection. It's not something we're going to force. But people instinctually want to disconnect. They just want to say, "this is my agenda for the morning — sitting by the fire."
From Cabin Plans to Construction: Navigating Contractors and the Build Process
Mike: How did the DEN plans help you align with your general contractor and set the wheels in motion?
Kendra: Our DEN plans were a saving grace in a number of ways. One: I don't have a construction background. Having plans I could sit with, understand, and really know what I was going to accomplish through them was huge. It was awesome to see that on paper before going through the build.
We're also in a protected resource zone because we're right along the water, so we ended up using a unique foundation form called techno metal posts — just drilled directly into the ground to mitigate land disturbance. We built on top of these pillars without excavating. DEN was so willing to accommodate that and actually interested in it, which was really nice — a design team who could understand where our specific property needs were coming from.
We also switched general contractors mid-build. Having plans that were easy to comprehend and pass along to whoever the team member might be — our plumbers, our new GC — was huge. It made it easy to keep everyone on the same page. That's where timeline delays and expensive mistakes happen: when people aren't on the same wavelength. Having those DEN plans meant not only were we totally aligned on what we were shooting for, but everyone we hired was also fully aware of the end goal.
Mike: Did any of the DEN renders or Instagram content help paint a picture of the finishing and interiors?
Clean Lines and Scandinavian Design: Why the Nordic House Stands Out
Kendra: We were drawn to DEN before we'd even sketched our concept. DEN's clean lines and Scandinavian tones — it all felt very rooted in whatever environment surrounded the home, and never felt over the top, even in the larger designs. I didn't want something that felt like an overbearing McMansion. That Scandinavian simplicity is what really drew us in as a brand. We followed along for a couple of years, spoke with a few other DEN customers who raved about their experience, and then we knew exactly where we were going.
Nature-Inspired Luxury: Designing Guest Comfort in the Nordic House Retreat
Mike: The detailing in your project is really well executed and tasteful — the shower texture, the wood paneling on sidewalls, wood boards on the ceiling, the loft ladder carpentry, the hand wash basin. Tell us about some of those choices.
Kendra: At the base of it all, Nordic House was about bringing luxury, but rooting it in nature. When you go to brush your teeth, you're looking at a stone vessel sink that almost feels like you could have found it somewhere on the property. The showers are massive with river rock pebble. Everything we used in terms of materials was thoughtfully sourced — a lot of it locally. A lot of the interior walls are birchwood; we used Douglas fir and cedar, all things native to the area around us. I wanted it to feel like we were constantly bringing nature inside, that even though there might be glass between you and a negative-20-degree day, you still felt that earthy tone in everything around you.
Mike: How did you collaborate with your partner on those design choices?
Kendra: I'm the creative director on the design side. My partner and fiancé would happily wear a ripped t-shirt for the rest of his life and sleep in a hammock contentedly. I'm a little more on the bougie side — I love a down duvet. So I came from the angle of: what would I want in luxury-style camping? What do I not love about camping? I don't like sleeping on a pad, I don't like not washing my hair for 10 days. Those are the things I wanted to elevate while keeping the seclusion of being in the woods.
Unique Cabin Design Features: Spring-Fed Cold Plunge and Nature-Inspired Details
Mike: What's your favorite feature of the property?
Kendra: Honestly, my favorite feature is an accidental one. When we were installing water lines, the excavation team popped up a large rock and discovered we had an underground spring. I was like, "wait, this is so cool — I want to do something really unique with this." So we created a natural spring-fed cold plunge, tapping into it, just putting a pipe and following the natural flow of where that water was running. We could actually see where it had been coming out about a hundred yards down. We continued that flow and built the plunge right in.
Everyone in the wellness world knows cold plunge is huge right now, and it wasn't even on our radar. The second we saw the opportunity to use the resources the land was offering us, I was jazzed.
Mike: Are you a cold-plunge person?
Kendra: Nope. You won't find me in there. But I love a good sauna, and we have a glass-wall sauna directly next to it. I like my boot heaters and my hand warmers.
Mike: So it's naturally filtering itself — no maintenance.
Kendra: It's naturally filtering itself. And it is cold.
We tried not to create the biggest or the baddest. We were fortunate — or maybe naive — when we selected the land. It's built into a mountainside right on the water, tucked between mountains. Someone with a building background might have seen a headache. We just saw this beautiful corner of the world. Hindsight being 20/20, we might have been more timid taking it on. But I'm so glad we didn't. You've got to risk it.
"We knew we wanted to create a space that was everything you needed, but nothing more." — Kendra, Nordic House
From DEN Plans to Cabin Entrepreneurship: Why Local Partners Matter
Mike: Last question — if you had a friend endeavoring to do the same thing with a set of DEN designs, what advice would you give?
Kendra: It's not going to be geared toward DEN specifically — it's: start local. In terms of your contractors, the team members you hire, the advice you gather. Whether it's a neighbor who can tell you how deep their well was so you can budget accordingly, or contractors who know the area and can source local materials that aren't coming from a mainstream lumberyard.
Our GCs now — we call them our fairy god contractors — are both local, and they've been able to make things happen that no one else could. Like finding the right people willing to take a stab at something unique, like a spring-fed cold plunge. Nobody has that on their plumbing resume. But if you find people who are willing and you build real trust with them — that's where we hit our stride. Not just to get across the finish line of the build, but to continue enhancing the experience for guests now and into the future.
Mike: Build that local bench, everybody. Great advice, Kendra. On behalf of the whole team at DEN, thanks for spending time with me today. The project looks incredible and we're so happy you chose DEN.
Build your own Nordic-inspired retreat — start with a DEN custom cabin plan, just like Kendra did.
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