The View From the Top: Log Home Living Magazine Feature

The View From the Top: Reshared with permission from Log & Timber Home Living magazine
Written by Suzanna Logan | Photography by Brett Hosterman

In this West Virginia cabin retreat, weekends mean more than getting away from it all; they mean getting back to what really matters.

Five days a week, Kris and Emily Waite live in the hustle you’d expect of a young family residing in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Kris works as an engineer for Amazon, while Emily shuttles their 8- and 10-year-old daughters, Zoe and Amy, to a rotation of extracurricular activities. “We are suburbanites to the core,” Emily says with a laugh. But come Friday evening, the bustle fades as the family loads up the kids and their pair of Shih Tzus then heads two hours west to their slice of paradise: a log home set on 20 acres in the hills of West Virginia. There, time seems to melt away as million-dollar views come into focus accompanied by the scent of pine and a to-do list scrawled only with “together time.” It’s a realization of a dream Kris has carried since childhood.

“Growing up, we would visit my grandma in Colorado every summer,” he says. “She had three acres of land in nowheresville where we would spend all day exploring, catching toads and lizards. It has always been a lifelong dream of mine to have land of my own like that.”

But unlike some couples who set their sights on retirement, Kris and Emily wanted to give their daughters a place to create their own childhood memories of outdoor adventure. The family began looking for land in 2021. At first, their main criterion was staying within a two-hour radius of their primary home. But not long into their search, the parameters—and the priorities—shifted.

“While we were visiting one property, I was tromping through the woods with my daughters. We were having a great time, until my youngest daughter started crying, saying that a spider had landed on her,” Kris explains.

“Turns out, it was a tick, and so we rushed out of the forest … and between the three of us, found a total of 85 ticks.” From that point on, Kris adopted a “tick infestation test,” walking each property to ensure an all-clear. “That basically became number one on our priority list,” he says.

During a weekend visit to West Virginia, Kris discovered a gated community with 20-acre plots. The site they visited passed the “tick test” with flying colors, but it also offered so much more. “It was nice and flat, with hints of a view through the trees,” he says. Once the lot was cleared, the family was greeted with “one of the best views in the entire community,” he says.

Ensuring those jaw-dropping views were accessible throughout the home became the driving force behind the design for their new getaway. After touring a local log home by their builder Jason Hughes, the Waites were inspired by the structure’s minimalist aesthetic and, most importantly, features that put all eyes on the views. An elevated design placed the main living on the second floor, while wide-open interiors and a shed roof creating vaulted ceilings maximized interior views through a rear wall of glass. “We liked that there was this big space with lots of light,” says Kris. “But because it’s log, it still has that warmth from the wood.”

Another bonus of the raised layout was the opportunity to add a walk-out lower level—a factor that would significantly increase the main floor’s 1,800 square feet of living space and ensure the home would be accessible and comfortable for friends and family. “When we first started out, the idea was to have a small hunter’s cabin in the woods,” says Kris, with a chuckle. “But the more we talked, the more things changed. It started with, ‘We might want to have grandparents over for the holidays,’ and then we said, ‘The cousins would want to come, too.’ So we added another bedroom, then another and more living space. Things just kept getting bigger and bigger.”

The final tally includes two bedrooms and bathrooms on the main floor for Kris and Emily and their daughters, with an additional pair of bedrooms and a bunk room on the lower level for guests—an arrangement that’s ideal for all ages and physical abilities. In addition to the open kitchen, dining and living area on the main floor, the large recreation space on the lower level promises room for the whole crew.

The other go-to gathering area for the Waites and their visitors is the 2,000 square feet of outdoor living space, which include an open-air deck, covered patio and screened-in porch with stone fireplace. “It’s our favorite place to sit, make a fire and relax,” says Emily. The property itself also invites exploration. While Kris says his girls don’t hunt lizards like he did as a youth, they’ve found their own form of outdoor fun. Archery, paintball and exploring the miles of trails on their ATV all draw the family together every weekend. “This is where we go to escape suburbia,” Kris says. “You can’t see any neighbors. You have the views and the smell of the timber. It’s such a peaceful place.”

The View From the Top: Log & Timber Home Living Magazine Feature