3rd Street Eco-Cottage

The 3rd Street Eco-Cottage is a new beautifully designed stand-alone guesthouse located in the best neighborhood in Helena - just blocks away from Helena's famous South Hills Trail system and within walking distance to downtown Helena and the State Capital complex! It is a thoughtfully designed passive house studio space, with a non-conforming sleeping loft, pull out sleeper sofa, in-floor radiant heating, passive cooling, and a full bathroom. The space This Eco-Cottage guesthouse is a small open concept studio space - approximately 400 square feet with a non-conforming loft space. There is an queen-sized American Leather sleeper sofa downstairs. It is easy to unfold and very comfortable. There is also a queen sized bed in the non-conforming (meaning not an official bedroom) loft space. This bed is low to the ground. The loft space is accessed by a ladder, with a hand rail. This ladder can be pulled out to access the loft, or it can be stored upright in cases where you do not intend to use the loft. Extra bedding and bedding for the sleeper sofa can be found inside the kitchen table benches. Important: We urge you to be CAREFUL in accessing the loft and using this ladder. If you are not comfortable using the ladder, please sleep in the downstairs sofa bed, and store the ladder in an upright position. Outdoor Space: is generally limited to the patio chairs and small table that is in front of the Cottage, as seen in the main image. To the left (when looking at the cover photo) is our neighbor's property, and to the right of the Cottage (through the black gate in the picture) is our backyard. We have two kids and a red-heeler dog that may be playing in the backyard and so it is not available to guests. The kitchen window in the Cottage looks into the backyard space, but has a blind that is easy to pull down for privacy. Also note that there is a small pocket park almost across the street from this unit if you'd like more outdoor space, or, simply start hiking in almost any direction to reach the endless trails! Guest access Parking for the Eco-Cottage is street parking only. To access the Cottage, simply walk up the driveway (which may have a car or small pop-up A-frame camper on it) on the side of our main house. There are no steps involved. Other things to note The Eco-Cottage was built in 2020 in as eco-friendly a way as possible. It is a “Passive House,” which is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building that reduces the building’s ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy building that requires little energy for space heating and cooling. The Cottage is extremely well insulated using ecologically friendly insulation and double paned windows. It also uses a decentralized ventilation system with heat recovery. Heating is entirely in-floor radiant heating from an on-demand hot water heater. We have also added solar panels to the roof, with net-metering for the Eco-Cottage and our main house. In addition, we re-purposed as much recovered wood from the original garage structure as possible for the loft flooring and other uses. We hope you appreciate the efforts we went to in creating this beautiful and earth friendly Cottage! And, as always, let us know if you have any questions.