Restoring Charm: Sophie Burke’s Remote Howe Sound Island Cabin Makeover

Most days, if you’re lucky, a couple of chipmunks (named ChipA and ChipB) will come begging. They’re happy to wait while you fetch the peanuts.

From this cabin’s 800-square-foot deck, it’s easy to be drawn into the wider world. A network of boardwalks connects the main house to three tent platforms (where friends can sleep over), a bocce ball court, a basketball court and a sunbathing platform down by the water.

Then again, the shoreline is hard to miss. The property comprises an entire small island in Howe Sound, just northwest of Vancouver. A private coastline is quite literally in every direction. One can walk the perimeter in fifteen minutes.

All of which sounds rather grand. One would hardly guess that the house itself was verging on uninhabitable before a redesign by Sophie Burke. The original building was from the 1940s, and nothing had been done with it in the interim. Burke’s job was to turn that space into somewhere the owners could decompress, she says. The couple, looking for weekend breaks from their busy lives, wanted the chance to pile a couple of bags and their teenage sons into a boat, motor a few minutes out of town and enter a different (quieter) world. 

Burke took inspiration from the seaside cabins of Norway and Denmark—especially the white-washed wooden panels that make those Nordic homes at once rustic and modern. “There’s something about pale wood panelling that feels calm and relaxing,” she says. Nowhere is there drywall, which Burke calls “too city-ish.” The windows and doors, likewise, have no casings, which highlights the hand-hewn effect. And tones of pebble and pine throughout seem to echo the nearby beach.

The renovation was meant to provide her clients with a stopgap measure—a sweet place to stay while they built something larger. But Burke delivered a space with so much heart, and such a profound relationship to the surrounding island, that the humble home became permanent.

The 700-square-foot original cabin was given a modest 320-square-foot addition (by construction company Space Building), making room for a larger bedroom, a new primary bedroom and powder room, and a dining area. Then, space-maximizing tricks were employed everywhere: a pocket door for the powder room, for example, and storage under the dining area’s bench.

Every room is surrounded by those calming panels of whitewashed pine. And, against that subdued canvas, “not a lot of ornamentation,” says Burke. Instead there are simple, meaningful additions: in the nook produced by a jutting fireplace, for example, Burke designed a custom unit for a beloved record collection and sound system.

The family is happy to traipse in and out, using the home as a launchpad for wanderings across their private island. The pathways connecting each corner of the isle are bordered by native ferns and grasses thanks to thoughtful landscaping by Considered Design.

When night arrives and the wandering is done, the main living space lights up with a four-foot Noguchi pendant. Its paper-lantern glow is a light fixture’s complement to those whitewashed panels. Below, an ash Safari chair by Carl Hansen and a Little Petra lounge by &Tradition invite end-of-day confabs.

Things stay warm, meanwhile, thanks to two wood-burning fireplaces in the main living space. Burke added the second—a freestanding unit near the kitchen (backdropped by a swath of black-coated steel)—to ensure that visits during the winter remain cozy.

All year, this humble home can serve as a staging area for outdoor adventures—and a comforting light in the woods when that network of pathways leads you home again.