Cottage built on a toboggan chute

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In the Laurentian Mountains, north of Montreal, quaint towns and little lakes lace between rolling, rocky hills. The sloping terrain is stunning, with many spots to ski and take in sweeping vistas. However, building can be difficult with a dearth of flat spots.

Elise Papillon and Quoc-Huy Ton-That, both emergency room doctors in Montreal, know the Laurentians’ tricky beauty well. They bought a vacant property in the region more than 10 years ago, in the community of Wentworth Nord. “The lot was right next to our friends’ family cottage,” Ms. Papillon says. “When we first visited them there, it was love at first sight for the lake, the view, and the calmness of the surrounding nature.”

The site itself had both charm – giant granite boulders and a thicket of pine and birch trees – and challenges. The slope drops a staggering 85 feet between the roadside and the lake’s edge. A virtual toboggan chute, something that gave their architect pause. “I was nervous at first with the steep slope,” says Andrew Curtis, co-founder of the Montreal architecture firm Robitaille Curtis.

Mr. Curtis started working on a master site plan in 2017 and had the grace of time to work out all the details. “We were told that building there would prove difficult given the steepness of the land,” Ms. Papillon says. “But we were not in a hurry. We enjoyed travelling, and we worked a lot.”

It wasn’t until the onset of the pandemic, when the lives of ER doctors everywhere became infinitely more stressful, infinitely more in need of cottagelike calm, that the homeowners started to feel a sense of urgency. “COVID coincided with a period when our children were in school, and travelling was more restricted,” Ms. Papillon says. “It was the perfect time to build.”

For the design, which was finally completed in the summer of 2023, the homeowners wanted something “minimalist and modern but warm at the same time,” Ms. Papillon says. They asked for rustic pine touches, reminiscent of many local cottages, and pops of “funky” colour.

For Mr. Curtis, designing a building appropriate for the landscape was essential. Aesthetically, he did so with an elegant, muted palette of eastern white cedar and a grey, standing-seam steel roof. Both materials recede into the green of the surrounding forest; the roof’s tall peak is a snow-repeller, smart in an area that regularly gets walloped with white stuff in the colder months.

Structurally, Mr. Curtis adapted to the terrain by working closely with his wife and business partner, Sophie Robitaille, a landscape architect. “We wanted to manipulate the landscape as little as possible and keep a very light touch,” he says. “I’m not sure I would have figured out the intricacies of the site without a landscape architect.”

Key to the strategy was to create a narrow home – a slight 15 feet wide – that could sit on the slope without having to rip up, regrade, or otherwise flatten the hillside. Another strategy was to position the house slightly down the hill, resting it on the existing rocky outcroppings. “Fortuitously, we were able to align the house with a granite escarpment,” says Mr. Curtis.

As a result, guests enter into the top floor through a foyer that acts as a bridge, connecting the driveway at the high point of the site to the main living spaces, including a sage green kitchen with bright brass door handles. Under a knotty pine ceiling, the kitchen flows into a living space with an adjoining patio below. The rooms are just under 14 feet wide inside but feel much more expansive, in part because they face a capacious vista across Lac Notre-Dame. “It’s a pinwheeled-shaped lake,” says Mr. Curtis. “The long view looks straight down the long arm of the lake.”

To make the slender footprint work, Mr. Curtis minimized the size of the four bedrooms, reducing them to their bare essentials. The principal bedroom, for example, doesn’t have an ensuite. The homeowners share a shower with the guests. The three other bedrooms – one for each of the three kids – have space for a bunk, a dresser and not much else. “The bedroom closets are in the hall,” says Mr. Curtis. “We were trying to be very efficient. The kids’ rooms are about 100 square feet.”

The diminutive sleeping quarters encourage everyone to spend more time together in the shared living areas, including two terraces. “We have had a few gatherings with many family members and many kids, and we never felt too crowded,” Ms. Papillon says. The big windows are imperative, especially in colder weather. “The snow-globe effect when it snowed last winter with all the windows was very peaceful and meditative,” says Elise. (“The windows are triple-pane from Austria,” adds Mr. Curtis. “Super high performance.”)

To Ms. Papillon and Mr. Ton-That, the home hits the sweet spot in terms of size and purpose. “Based on our friends’ family cottage, we wanted to provide our family with a cozy place,” Ms. Papillon says. “But we wanted it to be big enough to enjoy nature and nearby skiing and ensure that later on it would become the reunion place for all children and hopefully our grandchildren for gatherings. We could not be happier and have already created so many memories for the kids and our friends.”