Container Cabin in the Catskills

The original of our four 4-season shipping container cabins on our land — with a wood stove, sofa bed, kitchenette, La Colombe coffee service, record player, patio, shower, fire ring, yoga platform, and a hammock. It is off-grid, with a compost toilet and a sauna. It sits on 20 acres and is two hours north of NYC. Woodstock, Kingston, Saugerties, Catskill, the Hudson River and dozens of hiking trails are 15 minutes away.

One of the best cabins we’ve rounded up from all across the U.S. - Architectural Digest, 2022

Top 12 in the Catskills - Time Out, 2018-2023

We love weekending in our original 20-foot shipping container! It is not like living in a house or a hotel room or a glamping tent. It is not like other tiny home compounds with dozens of units set 10 feet away from one another. This is a family operation with four units, each on their own 5-acre parcel. Staying here is like camping on a stunningly beautiful and isolated site, except that you are encased in high-efficiency insulated walls and low-energy windows—and sleeping on a comfortable queen-size (Ikea Friheten) sofa bed with EVERGREEN STITCHES organic percale linens. If it's cold outside (with the heater and wood stove it's always warm inside) we usually leave the bed out, lounge around drinking coffee and steam in our Finnish sauna (built in a 10-foot container). (Book multiple 120-minute private sauna sessions, no extra charge.) If it's warm, we leave the double doors open and lounge around the patio. Lots of lounging...

The kitchenette is fully equipped with a sink and a two-burner propane cooktop. There is no refrigerator; there is a cooler for your ice and perishables. There are enough pots/pans/basics to cook whatever you want. (Yes, we have a coffee grinder.) There is a grill for the fire and a propane grill, and we often cook there. The wood stove stays warm all night if you know how to build a fire. If you don't, you'll be up at 4am lighting it again. We leave you firestarter to make it a bit easier. In the summer, a breeze off 3,645-foot Kaaterskill High Peak keeps the container cool.

Staying in the cabin is an experience, not a simple overnight. There is something very special about it and this property. On a 20-degree night in the middle of a blizzard, it is 80 degrees and silent inside. Eight guests have gotten engaged here. (All said yes!) Another guest chopped his bundle of wood into 1,000 toothpick-sized pieces thinking that the fire would burn longer and hotter that way. (It does not.)

There is a 20-foot tall slate ridge encasing the cabin. The hammock is perfect for reading and sleeping. The horseshoe pit is fun as hell; the record player is the bomb. This place was built for two. Or two and an infant. Larger groups can inquire about three other container cabins on the property, including a 40-footer.

The cabin is set on a truly gorgeous 20-acre plot on the eastern edge of the Catskill Mountains. Our backyard is the flank of 3,645-foot Kaaterskill High Peak. It feels a bit like Maine, or Alaska. You can't see any neighbors from our property, but there are neighbors, great ones. (Please be courteous and respectful to them.) Listen for the owls at night!

All guests are left with potable drinking water. Use the foot pump and you have running water. There are two overhead lights in the cabin and two camping lights. A new, zero-maintenance compost toilet is set in a small outbuilding surrounded by trees, thirty feet from the cabin. There is a shower there as well, though we recommend using the sauna shower in the winter. (Warmer!) There is not a lot of storage space in the container, so we usually pack light and leave the bulk of our stuff in the car, parking is 10 feet away. Just bring in the essentials, keep the place orderly and it's more comfortable. No smoking inside, plenty of room to smoke around the campfire outside...

There is a Jackery battery pack/inverter for charging phones, etc. It's not enough juice to run a hairdryer, but plenty for your phones—and the record player! Cell service is pretty good across the property, but the steel walls of the container make it not so good indoors. (Put your phone by the window and use a headset or speakerphone.)

The other three containers are set on the opposite side of the property. The driveway divides them and each are completely private. (We designed it that way.)

Saugerties is a gem. Miss Lucy's (dinner), The Dutch (drinks), Circle W General Store (breakfast/lunch) Love Bites (breakfast) and Silvia or Good Night (fancy!). Walking to the lighthouse is a must, as is hiking to Kaaterskill Falls, Huckleberry Point and North and South Lakes. Hunter Mountain is also 30 minutes away. Food shopping and farm stands are 10-15 min away.

Other things to note

All guests bring ice and bundles of firewood. Firewood is available for purchase on the driveway. (Save your firewood for the wood stove inside; use wood from the forest for the campfire outside.)

The bathroom is a separate building about 30 feet away. It has tons of natural light, a translucent roof and walls, pine paneling, an open shower stall with a slate floor. The shower is a simple camping-style battery-operated shower that you fill with hot water. (Heat it on the stove.) It takes some work fetching water, heating it and setting it up, so don't arrive expecting to have a shower right out of the car. There is also a mini propane heater in the bathroom for showering if you need it.