Building "Delightful Surprise By Design"

Boyne’s the spot for design/build team SpotLab

By Ross Boissoneau | April 26, 2025

How do you design a bathroom and a kitchenette in a 400-square-foot dome, where there are no walls or straight lines? Apparently the same way you refurbish an aging farmhouse, or transform a house in Ann Arbor into a forever home that maintains a colorful, playful feeling: by hiring SpotLab.

The build/design firm is helmed by designer Tessa French and builder Zeb Burge. The couple worked together for a decade on a number of retail and hospitality projects for Equinox Fitness, an NYC luxury fitness company. Burge was the vice president of construction for the company, while French was the director of design.

Burge says those roles often cause friction. “Those two worlds collide,” he says. “There’s a lot of head-butting,” but the two found ways to work through those conflicts. “We worked together a lot of years as co-workers and friends,” says Burge, who calls himself “a designer in a contractor’s body,” before their partnership became more than just co-workers.

So when the pandemic struck, the twosome decided to leave their home in New York City for French’s home state of Michigan. She grew up in Ann Arbor, and they decamped to her family’s getaway in Gaylord, as did a number of other family members.

“We figured we’d just go to Gaylord for a week or two until everything opens back up,” says French. As the weeks grew into months and their jobs were put on pause, they decided to look for a place of their own. “We looked for a fixer-upper and found an A-frame.”

The shutdown meant not only did they have time to do a renovation, they couldn’t hire outside help if they wanted to. “We did all the work ourselves,” says Burge. That’s when something shifted. “We said, ‘Okay, this is what we were doing on a large scale. We can do it for ourselves.’”

The couple thought slowing down from their previous pace could allow them to decompress while finding a new direction. “I was flying 120,000 miles a year. Stepping back from the grind was a change of pace,” says Burge.

Thus Spotlab was born. After a six-month renovation on their own place in Boyne Falls, they figured they could do the same for other clients. “That success working together … we knew it was unique,” French tells us.

From Boyne to Chicago to New York

SpotLab’s sense of whimsy and playfulness is what attracted Lauren Blanford. She and her husband, Jason, own Lost Woods campground—okay, call it a glampground—in Boyne Falls. When they decided to add a geodesic dome to the site, such a specialized structure needed special attention. To provide some high-end design that would actually work in the curved and cozy confines of the dome, Blanford hired Burge and French. “We connected with SpotLab on Instagram,” says Blanford, who discovered they were only a couple miles apart.

French and Burge set about creating a separate bathroom and installing a kitchenette into a round space, one without any interior walls. (Or exterior walls, for that matter.) They were able to tack the kitchenette onto the exterior side of one of the walls of the new enclosed bathroom, leaving the rest of the dome’s space open. “We like small spaces,” says French. “We layer in a much greater amount of detail. That’s one of the reasons we love the dome.”

Another client purchased a small log home kit to put on Six Mile Lake outside East Jordan, part of the Elk River Chain of Lakes Watershed. He enlisted SpotLab to construct and design it. “We’d never done a log cabin before. We put our spin on it,” says Burge.

The SpotLab spin is one they hope will continue to make waves in northern Michigan. They’ve also got clients in Charlevoix, the Boyne area, and their own build-to-sell large A-frame near Nub’s Nob. While they’ve worked on projects far from their adopted home, including Chicago and back in New York, they like working in northern Michigan.

“We prefer to do work locally, special projects for special people,” says Burge. Special meaning those who aren’t afraid of some whimsy or some dramatic elements, including bold color choices, lots of curves, and unexpected materials.

“But a lot of people want something different, outside-the-box stuff,” French explains. “At the end of the day, it’s about creating spaces that are unique, fun, and unexpected.”

A Closer Look at Lost Woods

When readers of Dwell magazine opened the January issue, alongside the typical features on mid-century modern homes and furnishings was a piece on a campground in Boyne Falls: Lost Woods.

Lauren Blanford says the idea for the dome was to offer something unique, something people could rent year-round. “No one had one yet. They are popping up in Australia, in Canada where they have a really high snow load,” she says. “I loved how compared to a tiny home, it has an expansive feeling, yet it’s only 400 square feet.”

Blanford, husband Jason, and Jason’s father constructed the dome, which was actually easier than getting permission to build it. “It was an uphill battle. Getting zoning approval took a lot of permitting. No one in the area had built one with a bathroom inside,” Blanford says.

Blanford credits her travel background with providing her a unique perspective on purchasing and running a high-end campground. Her experiences ranged from living out of a backpack to staying in 5-star hotels and flying on private jets during her time working as a nanny. She brought all that experience to Boyne Falls when creating Lost Woods Farm + Forest.

The site was originally a dairy farm, and she and her family moved into the century-old farmhouse. The barn became an event center, and they constructed a small A-frame cabin and three bell tents, along with a bath house (none of the camping structures have a bathroom).

As a year-round rental, the dome had to have its own bathroom and some sort of kitchen facility. Drawn by the sense of creativity SpotLab’s previous work demonstrated, she decided they would be the perfect choice to take on the design for the space.

French and Burge were happy to take on the challenge. “It all feels super compact, because it has to,” Burge told Dwell. “With less than four-hundred square feet, you get jammed up quick.”

Despite its diminutive size, the 55-square-foot bathroom is outfitted with all the necessities, and the design reflects both SpotLab’s ethos, and the style, design, and practicality Blanford was looking for. “I’m very happy we did it,” she says.