clt house - hubertus, wisconsin
This small, unassuming house overlooking Amy Bell Lake marks a quiet milestone in Wisconsin’s architectural landscape: the state’s first private residence constructed using Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). The house is a linear, low-slung volume with a high degree of transparency and an unapologetically simple floor plan, one that prioritizes aesthetic clarity and functional efficiency over gratuitous square footage and formal exuberance.
CLT was chosen for three reasons: it offered a sustainable, resource-efficient alternative to conventional building methods; it allowed for a remarkably thin roof profile that emphasizes the building’s deliberate horizontality; and it condensed the project schedule, significantly reducing both labor costs and construction time.
The home’s visual porosity allows for lake views from within, across, and even through the structure, creating layered sightlines that amplify the sense of openness and immersion within the surrounding landscape. Visitors approach the CLT House from the south and arrive at a porte-cochère, a covered, transitional outdoor space bracketed by a small garage and workshop on one side and the main living quarters on the other. The porte-cochère marks the entrance, reveals glimpses of the shimmering lake beyond, and facilitates the effortless movement of kayaks and canoes from the front to the back of the property.
A glass door leads into the light-filled living hall, a generously glazed open space that integrates kitchen, dining, and casual lounging. Floor-to-ceiling sliding doors and windows connect the living area to the north-facing lakeside patio and a small, trellised green space facing south. At the rear of the home, two compact bedrooms share a single bathroom.
The architectural palette is deliberately restrained, emphasizing the warmth of the soft-toned timber and pairing it with the monochrome of the carefully detailed exterior siding and an exposed, polished concrete floor. Throughout the building, the exposed timber beams reveal the modular logic of the home’s structural system, forcefully articulating the interior ceiling plane and extending it outward to engage the exterior envelope. As they project beyond the building skin, the engineered timber beams generate dynamic patterns of light and shadow and animate both interior and exterior surfaces, emphasizing the building’s tectonic lucidity and the precision of its crafted assembly.