Aleksi Hautamäkia, Milla Selkimäki, and their son.
Onni Aaltonen
Designer Aleksi Hautamäki and his partner purchased an island in Finland they call Project Ö.
They designed everything themselves and now rent it out for between $1,800 and $2,400 a night.
The island’s luxury cabin has an indoor and outdoor kitchen, natural hot tub, and sauna.
In 2018, after a five-year search on Google Maps, designers Aleksi Hautamäki and Milla Selkimäk bought their own private island complete with a pine forest and three rocky peninsulas that jut out into the sea, which make it look like an animal’s claw from above.
“As soon as I arrive on the island from my home in Helsinki, I feel my pulse lower and breathing slow down,” Hautamäki told Insider.
Set on the edge of Finland’s Archipelago National Park, the rocky island the couple bought now houses an off-the-grid luxury cabin, which they rent out to guests for between $1,800 and $2,400 a night. In total, the purchase and build-out, the couple reported, cost 1 million euros.
Here’s how they found the island and turned it into a peaceful escape for themselves and visitors.
Finding an island for sale on Google Maps
The outdoor jacuzzi.
Mike Kelley Archmospheres
When he was younger, Hautamäki said, he would often take his father’s boat around the 2,000 islands in the Archipelago National Park. It was a hobby that he continued when he met Selkimäki six years ago. For three or four weeks at a time, the couple would cruise around the islands, dropping anchor to view the wildlife or picnic.
It wasn’t long before they felt the urge to purchase an island to live on permanently. They started by contacting property agencies, but as islands for sale are few and far between, Hautamäki decided to turn to Google Maps to find one himself.
Project Ö.
Mike Kelley Archmospheres
He scoured the Archipelago online for uninhabited islands. “We tried property agencies as well, but the market for buying islands is not huge, so I just started looking for empty islands on Google Maps and would contact the owners to see if they’d be interested in selling,” Hautamäkia said. “It was a long, slow process because after I found an island that looked uninhabited I would then need to go through documents at the local town hall to find out who owned it.”
He eventually found the five-acre island of Skjulskäret. “As soon as we saw the island, we immediately fell in love with it,” Hautamäki said.
The previous owners had bought a neighboring island and received Skjulskäret as part of their parcel of land, and were more than happy to part with it. Hautamäki and Selkimäki put in an offer, sold their apartment in Helsinki to pay for the project, and moved into a rental apartment in the city. They closed on the property within a few months, and in April 2018, they started work on the site.
A modern cabin inspired by Finnish tradition
The terrace at Project Ö.
Mike Kelley Archmospheres
Hautamäki, a spacial designer for bars and restaurants, and Selkimäki, a graphic designer, knew they wanted to create a cabin that would blend into the landscape. “I looked at the buildings around the archipelago, and I took inspiration from the traditional design, while trying to make it look as streamlined as possible,” Hautamäki said. Since the shoreline in the archipelago is very unique, they didn’t want the cabin to fight with the natural landscape. They also chose materials such as timber that would help camouflage the building.
They started with sketches and by placing tape on the floor of their rented home to see what the space could look like. Neither of them had designed a home before, so Hautamäki decided to start the project in the same way as he would for any of his clients. “At work I always think, ‘How can you serve the customer best?'” Hautamäki said. “We treated ourselves as the customers and thought about how we live and what functions the cabin needs to have.”
The outdoor lounge area at Project Ö.
Mike Kelley Archmospheres
Project Ö (meaning “island” in Swedish), as they called it, included a main cabin and guest house linked by wooden walkways, an indoor and outdoor kitchen, and a sauna. The façade of the building is thermal pine, which will turn gray and almost become the same color as the rocks. “The island life is all about spending time outdoors. This is why we wanted to have a fully-working outdoor kitchen,” Hautamäkia said.
Creating a home that’s off-the-grid
The dining pavilion.
Mike Kelley Archmospheres
Hautamäkia and Selkimäki finished renovations in five months. They worked quickly, so they could finish before the fall, when the weather becomes unpredictable and the sun sets at 3 p.m. They hired contractors to install the wooden frame and windows, and Hautamäki took a three-and-a-half month sabbatical from his day job to build the walkways, railings, terraces, and building interiors. “I had some background in woodwork, but nothing major,” Hautamäki said. “So it was a case of asking friends for tips or using YouTube.”
The sauna stove.
Mike Kelley Archmospheres
They also installed solar panels, and the drinking water is filtered from the Baltic Sea. The sauna stove was designed to heat the water for the cabin and act as the source of underfloor heating, and they used peat for wall insulation — it’s a 100% natural material that’s great for soundproofing.
As the cabin sits on the edge of the archipelago, all materials had to be delivered by boat. “I had maybe 10 different crafts arriving with material. If anything is missing from the order, you have to wait for the next ferry,” Hautamäki said. The pair also had to install a pier so the builders could easily come ashore.
Building off the original design
While the bulk of Project Ö was finished by August 2018, the couple has continued to add to the original design.
Wanting to have some fun with the natural landscape, they shipped 50 tons of sand to the island and turned the bay between two of the peninsulas into a private beach. When they found a mud-filled hollow on the clifftop, they scooped out the earth and created a natural hot tub with the help of a wood-powered stove. “The natural hot tub was just good luck. There was this little pond near the house, which was deep enough to become a hot tub. After a lot of try and error, we managed to get the water to circulate in the right way and heat up the tub,” Hautamäkia said.
And because they have permission from the local municipality to build another house on the middle peninsular, they’ve started to whip up plans for another renovation.
At the moment, the couple bring food to the island from the mainland by boat a few times a week, but now that they’re not building full-time they plan to take a few fishing trips and cook what they’ve caught in their outdoor kitchen.
Monetizing the off-the-grid life
The kitchen at Project Ö.
Mike Kelley Archmospheres
In July 2022, Hautamäkia and Selkimäki decided to rent out Project Ö on the remote-homes platform Off Grid Hideways. When the island is rented, they return to their apartment in Helsinki. Guests have found them through Instagram, where they have 18,700 followers, and Facebook. Both Hautamäkia and Selkimäki run the accounts. “First we wanted to show the process of building in a remote destination like this. And as we are still adding to the site, we thought, ‘Why not keep the followers updated?'” Hautamäkia said.
They’ve already welcomed families from as far away as Switzerland and Australia.
The outdoor lounge area at Project Ö.
Mike Kelley Archmospheres
The success of Project Ö as a home and rental property has the couple considering a career in off-the-grid hoteling. “So far it has been very rewarding as all the guests said that they have enjoyed spending time on the island and it has even exceeded their expectations. So hopefully we will get more people in the future who appreciate what we have done here,” Hautamäkia said.
Until then, the former city slickers are embracing their new off-the-grid way of living. “Since I bought the island, I’ve seen sights and heard sounds I never expected,” Hautamäki said. “Only last week, when I was walking between the pine trees, I heard this strange cracking sound, which I realized was the pine cones opening.”
Correction: November 3, 2022 — An earlier version of this story misstated that Ö means “island” in Finnish. Ö means “island” in Swedish.