The last time I was in Cahuita, Costa Rica, on the quiet Caribbean coast, the main street was dirt, town was four blocks by two, and the bar started serving sweating beers at 11 a.m. The swankiest place to stay was a two-story whitewashed cinder block structure with mostly cold water and, if you were lucky, a ceiling fan in your room that worked. It was destroyed in a 7.4 Richter scale earthquake while I was there, but that’s another story. Eastern Costa Rica has recovered nicely over the years, and Cahuita is still relatively small and dusty, but today it’s home to this tropical writer’s retreat.

Called Casa Kike, the shelter is comprised of two roofed parallelograms, the larger of which holds the writer’s 17,000-volume library, the smaller of which hosts the simple, unadorned bedroom. The wings are oriented to catch the prevailing northern sea breeze, with care taken to ensure the library doesn’t shadow the living space. The two are connected by a raised walkway. Cost was approximately $109,000.

Architect: Gianni Botsford

Photos by Christian Richters

Weekend Cabin isn’t necessarily about the weekend, or cabins. It’s about the longing for a sense of place, for shelter set in a landscape…for something that speaks to refuge and distance from the everyday. Nostalgic and wistful, it’s about how people create structure in ways to consider the earth and sky and their place in them. It’s not concerned with ownership or real estate, but what people build to fulfill their dreams of escape. The very time-shortened notion of “weekend” reminds that it’s a temporary respite.