This paper documents and describes a building typology that once dotted the shorelines of Lake Erie’s southern shore: the small, seasonal cottage. Known colloquially as the “worker’s cottage”, these modest structures are typically tiny, one-story light-framed buildings, uninsulated, built on piers, with stripped-down interior finishes. This humble spatial typology, which provides the most rudimentary, undressed type of interior spaces for a life that is lived largely outdoors, is found les...