Muskoka Modern Boathouse — exterior rendering, Corbin Patten Designs
Muskoka Lakes, ON ·
2022
Completed

Muskoka Modern Boathouse

Builder

Napier Valley Construction

Size

Bed

Bath

650 SF
1
2
Trades/Consultants:   DKG Muskoka, The Local Studio, Ted Smith Contracting, BayRoc, Brown Steel Docks, Lee Plumbing Muskoka, Alltech Climate, Chapple Galbraith Surveyors, Castellano Contracting, CJ Proofing Ltd., Hunter Carpentry, Ironwrights, United Lumber, Muskoka Timber Mills, Steenhof Stoneworks

Muskoka Modern Boathouse

Muskoka, Ontario
THE BOATHOUSE

A two-storey structure designed around the water.

Our clients needed more than a covered slip. They wanted a proper gathering space above the dock — somewhere the whole family could land at the end of a day on the lake. The program was compact: one boathouse slip below, an open living room above, and a rooftop deck facing the water. We designed it to sit quietly on the shoreline, dark-clad and timber-detailed, as if it had always been there.
INSPIRATION & MATERIALS

Dark timber, standing seam, and the treeline.

The reference point was simple: a working boathouse, refined. We looked to the traditional Muskoka boathouse — board and batten, boat slips, the rooftop sundeck — and asked how to reinterpret those elements in a contemporary material language. Dark-stained cedar cladding. Charcoal standing-seam steel roofing. Timber exposed at the eaves and the upper-level soffit. The palette recedes into the landscape and lets the lake do the work.
Dark-Stained Cedar
Standing-Seam Steel
Exposed Timber Eaves
Ink & Cream Interior
DESIGN PROCESS

From first concept to built form.

The design evolved through three phases: massing study, permit drawings, and final renderings. We modelled the structure against the shoreline setback, tested roofline heights relative to the treeline, and iterated the upper-level glazing to balance open water views with privacy from passing boats. The result is a building that reads as a single, disciplined move — one material, one roof pitch, one clear gesture toward the shoreline.
01 — Massing
02 — Renderings
03 — As Built

A site, a brief, a long conversation.

Tell us about your shoreline, your boathouse, and what you want from the water. We’ll take it from there.

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