Tiny dwellings are all the rage, but finding sanctuary in small places is nothing new

I TENSED MY MUSCLES and pushed hard against the timber frame, struggling to erect the skeleton of a wall against the determined pull of gravity. My friend (and fellow Utne contributing editor) Joseph Hart pushed too, then let go and jammed a board against the upright as a brace. We mopped our brows and admired our work: The wall was nearly perpendicular. A 12-foot-by-12-foot hut was in the making. All it needed now were three more walls, a roof, a floor -- and Joe as its thoughtful inhabitant.

Joe is a serious seeker of peace and quiet. An independent-minded freelance journalist, he recently abandoned Minneapolis for Viroqua, Wisconsin, a town of about 5,000 souls. Now even Viroqua has proved too urban for Joe, and soon he and his family will move onto eight wooded acres of land a few miles outside of town, where they will build a house and a freestanding home office.

But even on this peaceful homestead, Joe needs a place of retreat, so the first thing he's constructing is a tiny cabin for himself -- to give him, as he puts it, "a chance to withdraw from my family and social obligations, and go inside my head to figure out what I think about things."

Joe believes that while a calm outdoor landscape may provide a great respite from life's cares, you're not really away from the world until you're in a small indoor space of your own, one that fits around you: a cocoon, a nest that you get to define, furnish, decorate, or even, as in this case, build yourself. And he's not alone -- I know a lot of people who dream of the hermit hut.

While you can make such a nest practically anywhere -- I have a particular fondness for little old motel rooms with rickety desks and for the spartan rooms in Catholic retreat houses -- there's something special about a freestanding structure, a tiny house with windows. "Sure I want a hole to crawl into," says Joe, " a place where I can practically reach out and touch the walls. But it won't be claustrophobic, because I'll have windows on all four sides, and I'll be able to see in all directions." In other words, a womb with a view.