Along the wooded shoreline of Gull Lake in northern Minnesota, a modern-rustic new build sits hidden among the trees at the end of a nearly quartermile-long stretch. The approach is mostly flat until the driveway dips slightly, then rises again for a stunning reveal. All at once, the home’s cedar-and-stone façade appears between the branches—a cascading light fixture glowing in turreted stairwell windows.
“The sight of it is majestic,” says Charlie Beavers, who co-owns the real estate development company Lakewood Acres LLC with his wife Traci. The pair was pleasantly surprised to discover the vacant waterfront parcel they would eventually build upon. “To have three acres of land on Gull Lake is pretty unusual,” he adds. “We were able to start from scratch.”
The Beavers turned to the American West as a jumping-off point for the design. “We draw a lot of inspiration from homes in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Lake Tahoe,” Charlie explains. “We think of it as a modern mountain home.”
To channel this sensibility, the Beavers used strong architectural forms and a warm, natural material palette of cedar, pine, white oak, and Buechel Stone’s Fond du Lac Rustic. The stone’s variation in color—buffs, golds, tans, and soft grays— helps the architecture feel rooted in the lakefront setting while creating a material thread that continues from the exterior into the interior spaces.
Outside, warm cedar wraps most of the house, while the Fond du Lac Rustic makes a dramatic appearance on the windowed turret and base of the home. Inside, the stone climbes a soaring double-sided fireplace that anchors the 22-foot-high great room—an architectural focal point that quickly becomes the natural gathering spot for friends and family when they visit.
From the great room, the house unfolds in a gentle progression toward the lake. The dining room sits just beyond that soaring double-sided fireplace, opening to the kitchen, where the Fond du Lac Rustic appears as a backsplash—a more distinctive choice than typical tile, marble, or quartzite—and extends the home’s natural material palette into its very heart. “Using the stone in spaces such as the kitchen ensured the whole house spoke the same language,” Traci says.
