The Sheds Of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, Canada

The Sheds Of Charlotte County in New Brunswick

September 1, 2026

Architecture: Acre Architects

Location: New Brunswick, northeast Canada

Photos by Julian Parkinson

The Sheds of Charlotte County is a family summer home on the Bay of Fundy, conceived not simply for a family of five, but as a place designed to draw the family back for generations.

For the client, the project represented a return to the landscape of his childhood and an opportunity to create the same enduring connection to place for his own children. Boating, whale watching, seafood boils and shoreline fires are part of the rhythms of summer here. The architecture was deliberately designed to accommodate a growing and changing family—children becoming adults, returning with friends and partners, and eventually gathering with families of their own. The idea of creating a place where the home would feel full and where summer stories begin.

Inlets, weirs, sheds and rocky outcroppings characteristic of the region form the dramatic setting for the 4,500-square-foot home and guest cottage, which take their inspiration from the maritime vernacular of the fishing sheds that line the coast. Despite the extensive program and spatial requirements, the design strategy avoids the scale and presence of an oversized home. Instead, the house responds to the site through fractured massing and intersecting geometries, creating three elongated volumes and a series of protected outdoor coves nestled into the coastal landscape.

These gable-roofed components respond to the regional vernacular in form, scale and materiality, distributing the program across three structures clad in Western red cedar shakes that will weather naturally over time.

The considered placement of the building forms maximizes engagement with the landscape while creating distinct places for a large family to come together or retreat independently. Courtyards and outdoor gathering spaces are protected between the sheds, while carefully framed vistas extend toward the surrounding forest and Passamaquoddy Bay.

Designed as the social heart of the property, the primary shed contains the living, dining and kitchen spaces beneath 20-foot-high ceilings. A fireplace creates a literal hearth around which friends and family can gather after days spent on and around the water. The indoor kitchen is supplemented by an outdoor kitchen on the expansive south-facing stone patio. Inside, a dining table seats 18, with another table for 12 in the screened porch, allowing the house to easily expand beyond the immediate family to welcome extended family and friends.

That capacity was intentional. The home is an investment not only in a place, but in a way of living—creating reasons to return, spaces to reconnect and opportunities for relationships to be renewed despite the realities of distance and increasingly independent lives. Around the table, on the water and beside the fire, new memories and rituals can take hold alongside old ones. Rather than waiting for family connection to happen, the house creates a setting for the life the family wants to continue living together.

Intersecting with the primary volume is the Crow Island Shed, containing the primary suite, a guest suite and studio. Its more intimate scale provides a counterpoint to the communal spaces of the main shed, allowing family members and guests privacy while remaining connected to the activity of the house.

The third volume—the guest & kids ‘Shed’—stands independently from the other two. Its siting creates a second protected outdoor cove around a beloved cluster of trees while giving visiting family and guests a place of their own. The two-level structure includes a garage, additional guest suite and craft & sewing room on the main floor.

Upstairs, a casual cottage atmosphere prevails, with floors, walls and ceilings lined in knotty spruce and punctuated by bright colour. Generous play and recreation spaces occupy the upper level, where soaring roof planes and floor-to-ceiling glazing provide an exhilarating, uninterrupted view across the bay. Three individual sleeping bunkies, known as the Sky Rooms, are tucked beneath the roof, each with its own skylight framing the sky above—inviting daydreaming by day and stargazing at night.

Together, the three sheds create something larger than a summer house: a family gathering place designed to evolve with its occupants. Generous communal, play and recreation spaces encourage everyone to come together, while separate suites, Sky Rooms, buildings and outdoor coves provide opportunities for independence and retreat as the family grows and changes.

Rooted in one generation’s memories of summers on the Bay of Fundy, the house is ultimately an investment in continuity—in creating a place worth returning to, new traditions worth carrying forward, and a landscape that can become part of the next generation’s story