No TV, cable or WiFi — by choice — at this northern Minnesota cabin

In Minnesota, where camping culture is as popular as cabin culture, one couple decided to combine the two.

“We like the ease of pitching a tent and living with what we brought,” Tom Liester said. “This is that, but way more comfortable.”

Their “permanent campsite” outside Ely is a 2025-26 winner of the American Institute of Architects-Minnesota Star Tribune Home of the Month honor.

The couple met at St. Scholastica in Duluth along the North Shore, where Naomi Liester grew up camping. Tom Liester became a convert after they married, and the Liesters continued the tradition with their three sons. They’d pack the car and take off from their Stillwater home to pitch a tent and explore.

But the outings became more complicated as the boys grew older, bigger and busier. Just the amount of food required for a weekend of camping filled half the car. That prompted Tom Liester in 2018 to start looking for land to build on — land, not lakeshore, which they thought would offer more variety.

In 2020, he found it online, a 10-acre, undeveloped property south of Ely.

“I drove up with our oldest son to take a look,” Tom Liester said. “It had woods, a ravine, wetlands and a reedy lake a quarter-mile hike away for fishing, canoes and kayaks. Perfect.”

Naomi Liesters’ grandfather was an architect who designed his own unique, midcentury home. The couple admired its clean lines and understood the skill and imagination required to make something simple beautiful. They also wanted a distinctive design.

Architect Jeremy Imhoff, a parent and friend at their children’s school, proved to be a good fit.

“Tom, Naomi and their kids have adventurous spirits,” Imhoff said. “So I thought about this like a permanent campsite.”

Imhoff’s tipped-triangle design is a cheeky riff on A-frame cabins and traditional tent shapes, grounded in the serious shelter requirements of a northern Minnesota landscape.

“Bringing the roof down to grade on the west side of the house acts as a shield from extreme weather,” he said, noting the other side of the roof still has enough pitch to shed snow.

Like the camping mantra “leave no trace,” Imhoff built the cabin to minimize disturbance to the site — perched atop bedrock in a clearing at the edge of the ravine. Keeping the footprint small also helps the cabin sit lightly in the setting and reduces house-cleaning and maintenance.

Energy-efficient windows and a tight thermal envelope minimize heat transfer and keep the cabin comfortable. A 24-gauge standing-seam metal roof, while splurgy, provides better protection and offers two to three times the longevity of a shingle roof. The roof, like hiring an architect, was an investment that made sense to the Liesters.

“We had to wait to build for a few years to save money, but we wanted to do this right,” Tom Liester said.

Much of the interior 1,100 square feet is devoted to the common room — a vaulted space with a kitchen, dining room, living room and sleeping/hangout loft — where the family spends most of its time. The high ceiling and white walls make the room feel spacious, while green accents and a few playful tile and wallpaper choices pay homage to the forest.

There’s also a wood stove, radiant floors, comfortable furnishings and a record player. But there’s no TV, cable or Wi-Fi, and that’s not because these services aren’t available in the area.

“The boys have to figure it out, and they do,” Naomi Liester said.

In the summer, that includes hiking, fishing, kayaking or building forts in the woods. In the winter, the family snowshoes, reads, cooks, listens to music and plays games. The Liesters also put a wood-fired hot tub outside, which they enjoy year-round.

“You have to chop wood, get the fire going and keep it going,” Naomi Liester said. “It keeps everyone busy and is a very hygge thing — all part of the slow living when we are up there.”

Designing firm: Imprint Architecture and Design, LLC

Project team: Jeremy Imhoff, AIA; Sara Imhoff, AIA; Patrick Moe, AIA

Project partners: Kyle Bruender, Mortarless Systems Engineering; Great Lakes Wood Company; CMG Metals

Photography: Jasper Lazor Photography