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In this episode, Rion Willard speaks with Caspar Schols, the designer behind Cabin ANNA, about how a deeply personal project grew into something with global reach. What begins as a conversation about making soon turns into something wider: craft, grief, nature, and the strange path from one handmade object to a living body of work.
You will hear how Caspar thinks about building, why small projects can hold big meaning, and what happens when growth starts to pull you away from the work you love most. He also shares how intuition, ritual, and careful iteration shaped both the design itself and the business that followed.
You will discover:
Why one quiet project struck a chord far beyond what anyone expected
The hidden tension between scale, structure, and staying close to the work itself
To learn more about Caspar, visit his website: https://www.cabin-anna.com/
00:00 Intro
02:30 Physicist, Artist, Builder: An Identity That Never Fit
05:15 Why Small Scale Beats Big Budgets Every Time
08:40 The Architect Skill Caspar Admits He Doesn’t Have
11:20 From Black Holes to Building: A Physicist’s Detour
14:45 The Year His Father Died Changed His Whole Worldview
18:10 Heidegger, Grief, and the Philosophy Behind a Cabin
21:30 Built for His Grieving Mother, Not for Business
25:00 The Robin That Visited Him Every Day on Site
28:15 One Photographer, One Favor, One Viral Moment
31:40 Hundreds of Emails a Day – With No Warning
34:20 The Phone Call: “Mom, Turn On the TV”
37:00 The Investor Who Said “Let’s Just Make It Happen”
39:45 Broke in Two Months – Built On Trust Alone
42:30 Nine Prototypes, Renters, and Everything That Broke
46:00 Why It Took Two Years to Ship to the US
48:50 The Real Reason Cabin ANNA Went Viral
51:20 Why He Never Wanted to Get Architecturally Licensed
54:00 Becoming a Manager Almost Killed His Craft
56:30 “You’re Never There”: Redefining Success
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