The Journal
Essays, sketches, and field notes from the design and build of Granitello. We're documenting the entire making of it - the land search, the philosophy, the work itself.
Granitello starts with a place. Before there were cabins, before there was an orchard, before there was even a name, there was a question: where do you build something that's meant to last? Here's why a few hundred acres of granite, pine, and quiet won the argument - and what the next eighteen months actually look like.
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Roughly one new entry a week. If you're following along on Instagram or YouTube, this is the long-form version - the thinking and second-guessing behind every clip.
Why four well-designed cabins outperform ten cheap ones on every meaningful axis - margin, exit value, regulatory friction, and the look of the place.
The criteria I'm scouting against in Southern New Hampshire: water, slope, soil, road access, zoning, southern exposure, and the elusive sixth thing I'll know when I see.
An Italian agrarian tradition I learned late: there is no virtue in building bigger than you need, and a great deal of virtue in building smaller than you can.
First renders, floor plans, and the four design decisions that everything else hangs on: thermal mass walls, south-facing glass, simple geometry, identical units.
A working list for a New England orchard built for both guests and a real harvest: heritage apples, sour cherries, plums, and the medlar nobody plants anymore.
The unglamorous infrastructure that makes a remote homestead actually work - sized for multiple cabins, a pavilion, a workshop, and the inevitable fifth thing I haven't thought of yet.
You don't remember the room you slept in. You remember the table you ate at, the sauna you slipped into, the morning yoga you almost skipped. The cabins are the product. The pavilion is the place.
Isaac French built a $7M micro-resort in 18 months and then sold it. The five lessons I'm taking from his playbook - and the two places I'm consciously diverging.
Themes
Designed & built by Eden & Dane
Granitello is the flagship of Eden & Dane - a regenerative design practice creating sustainable, self-reliant, beautiful landscapes.
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