The Uhu A-Frame Takes Glamping to New Heights With 40ft Stilts

With The Uhu, glamping doesn't rule out a premium, luxury experience either, and it comes with a very unique twist. Call it high-end glamping, and you wouldn't be wrong. It's high glamping in the most literal sense because this A-frame cabin is suspended 40 feet (12.2 meters) in the air.

Glamping is camping's rich cousin from out of town, a sort of hybrid solution for those looking to get out of the city without leaving city-level comfort behind. It's a sort of "best of both worlds" solution to enjoy clean air, beautiful scenery, and outdoor activities while not having to rough it. Glamping takes on a variety of forms, be it with prefabs, modular units, tiny houses, or once-road-legal vehicles like buses and RVs, rendered stationary and home-like.

The Uhu is one of the latest glamping builds from Canada-based maker Repere Boreal, and it's perhaps the most striking yet. It started out as a typical A-frame cabin, but it now sits on steel stilts 40 feet (12.2 meters) in the air so that it resembles a very fancy and striking tree house. Located in Charlevoix, Quebec, it's a retreat in the middle of nature that makes no compromises in terms of comfort to offer a unique experience.

The Uhu favors a diamond shape for the exterior, but it is surprisingly all about curved surfaces inside, which help create a cozier, more inviting space. Since the total living footprint is just a little over 200 square feet (18.5 square meters), every trick in the book that would make this "home" feel like one helps.

Access is done through a steel and wood staircase inside a separate structure that also houses the water and electricity lines. The two buildings are connected by a bridge that doubles as a suspended terrace – just the place to be enjoying your morning coffee smack in the middle of the forest but shielded from it.

The Uhu holds every creature comfort from a shower room to a full kitchen and a bedroom, but minimalism is the key word. This was designed from the get-go as a rental unit, so minimalism works in keeping the space uncluttered. The design is truly striking, as the video tour below will show: every piece of furniture had to be custom-made to fit the angular walls and to create a curved interior.

You get the "mechanical room" on one side of the entrance, with a wardrobe and the toilet room on the other. Next up is the shower room, which is encased in glass and has the same diamond shape as the cabin itself. The queen-size bed with underneath storage faces the large glass wall at the opposite end but is also basked in light coming in through the two overhead skylights.

The glass wall holds a table for two built into the steel frame, so you can take in the extraordinary views while dining or getting some work done – if you're the kind who has to bring work on vacation. The opposite wall holds the single-block kitchen unit, with a two-burner cooktop, a granite sink, CNC-machined cabinets, and a steel countertop.

At the base of the cabin is another exterior lounge with a grill, a seating area, and a ski chair repurposed as a unique swing.

Like with most projects we cover here, The Uhu stands out for the beautiful details, like the two wine bottle holders on the wall, mood lighting, or even the unique placement of the dining table. It also stands out for being a gorgeous, unique project that defied the odds and challenges to become a reality.

The cabin is grounded in the rocky surface, with the stilts going 30 feet (9.1 meters) deep into the ground for stability. It's also fully insulated to withstand the differences in temperature between seasons in Canada and warmed with in-floor heating and a mini-split unit. It relies on the grid for power, water, and sewage because making it even partially off-grid would have rendered the project impossible.

This unique cabin promises guests "five-star comfort in a chalet perched high," with WiFi, in-wall speakers, and views you won't find anywhere else. For everyone else reading this not planning a trip to Canada anytime soon, The Uhu is a gorgeous example that glamping is yet to exhaust creative solutions to offer glampers a memorable experience in the great outdoors.

Sure, you might argue, you won't be getting to experience much of the great outdoors if you're inside such an amazing place or any other glamping unit, and you're absolutely right. Glamping isn't comparable to regular camping, overlanding, or boondocking, but it doesn't want to be. It's a fancy outing in nature for the fancier types. And The Uhu lives up to the fancy standards.