Calder & Stone
We build a handful of homes at a time, in places most developers pass by. Each one is made in our workshop, lifted onto slim posts and left with open ground around it, so the land stays the land.
The Hide
Front, side and rear. One room, a loft, six posts.
Front elevation
Side elevation
4.8 × 4.2 m
Footprint
25.2 m²
Inside, with the loft
6
Steel posts, no slab
1 day
To lift onto site
Featured developments
Three places, a handful of homes in each
Selected residences
Four homes left at Fernwood
Inside the Hide
Plywood from floor to ridge, with one tall window to the meadow.
a.
The window seat
b.
Living and kitchen under the loft
c.
The stove corner
d.
The ladder to the loft
(a)
(c)
(d)
(b)
In detail
The objects that make the room
Tube ladder
Powder-coated steel, Ochre 2004
Dining table
Solid birch, seats two
Box stove
Black steel, on a concrete plinth
Shower
Micro-cement and black steel
Sofa corner
Linen, wool and a candle
After dark
One lit window in a black field.
How it is made
Ten weeks in the workshop, one day on site
01
The shell
Cross-laminated spruce panels, cut and screwed on trestles.
02
The lining
Wood fibre insulation, then birch plywood, floor to ridge.
03
The cladding
Larch boards fixed by hand onto battens.
04
The posts
Six steel posts on ground screws. No concrete.
05
The lift
Craned onto its posts and closed up in a day.
Studio ethos
A home in the open should not cost the land. Everything we do starts there.
01
Leave space
Every plot is placed so the house stands on its own, with open meadow around it and the trees kept at the edges.
02
Build indoors
Made in our workshop in ten weeks, dry and to the millimetre, then lifted in on a single day.
03
Tread lightly
Six steel posts on ground screws, no concrete. The grass grows back underneath by spring.
Materials
Silver larch
Birch plywood
Blackened steel
Concrete hearth
Wool and linen
Scottish larch, laid vertically and left untreated. It greys evenly to silver in its second winter.
Cladding · Untreated · Weathers to silver
01 / 05
The site
Fernwood, twelve plots on a south-facing meadow
12
Homes on 4 hectares
80%
Left as meadow
8 min
Walk to the river
1 hr
To Newcastle
The meadow
Every plot keeps its wildflowers. Our beekeeper looks after six hives across the site, and every household gets a jar of Fernwood honey each September.
As featured in
Timberline Review
Northern Living
Plot & Place
The Small House Journal
Slow Homes
Timberline Review
Small Housing issue, 2026
“The rare development that leaves the land better than it found it, and homes that feel lighter than the meadow around them.”
