Tour a Norwegian Heritage-Inspired Hideaway in Northeast Iowa

To understand how Gail and Larry Larson ended up here, you have to dig down to their roots. Larry grew up in Wisconsin, Gail in Iowa. They met, married and made a life out West. Then, in the early 2000s, Gail inherited her parents' home. The Larsons didn't want to leave Montana, but cutting all Iowa ties felt wrong. ("It's nice to always have a place to come back to in the Midwest," Gail says.) So they sold her parents' house to buy a condo in the college town of Decorah.

Like many people in the upper Midwest, Larry and Gail can trace their ancestry to Norway (he fully, she half). Gail joined the board at Decorah's Vesterheim, the National Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School. During visits to Iowa from Montana, she spent a lot of time in meetings, and Larry went driving. That's how he found 30 acres for sale in a scenic valley 8 miles outside of town.

An idea flickered—to collaborate with their daughter-in-law Jill Porter, an architect, to design a unique project they could all be proud of. Not quite a third home, but a retreat, drawn from their heritage.

"In Norway and Sweden, the farmsteads had a number of buildings," Larry explains, "and each had a purpose. They were built by the farmers that lived there, so they were a small size." With that vision, Porter designed three little cabins. Built from locally sourced timbers, wood and stone, the deep red structures sit like uncut gems on the landscape. Their hue mimics Falu red, a paint made from copper mine tailings and commonly used in Nordic countries.

Inside, the Larson retreat is simplicity itself. No massive great room, no souped-up kitchen. Just what they really want and nothing more. One building houses the kitchen, a bedroom, bathroom and a combined living/dining space; another contains a garage, sauna and fold-out bed for guests; the third is a flex space with a porch (but no plumbing). "If we had a piano, this is where we'd put it," Larry says. "For someone else, it might be a home office."

Gail, a veteran quilter, spends much of her time there. "It's my favorite place," she says. "It's so light and bright, with windows on three sides, and from the porch, you look at a hillside of flowers."

"One of the things we found over the years," Larry adds, "is that we like to have our own spaces. Not that we don't like to spend time together, but in every house, we've had our own spaces where we can retreat and do our own things." For him, that's a woodshop tucked under the main cabin: "I have a long history of puttering."

During the several months they spend in Decorah each year, Larry and Gail move fluidly between town and country. In spring, they cherish the birds that flock to the property. By summer, the tall grasses are at their beautiful best. And on cool fall nights, the prospect of a warming fire often encourages the couple to stay put after dinner. "Even if we come for only a few hours," says Larry, "it's an otherworldly experience. It is so quiet, so peaceful. You really don't want to leave."