Studio Caban has built its reputation on subtraction, designing rooms that hold their materials quietly and leave the view alone. It is a useful disposition to bring to Langmaid’s Island, where, working alongside Norm Architects, the Copenhagen design firm, has planned thirty-two residences for The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Muskoka, situated on the second-largest island on Lake of Bays in Muskoka.
The island runs to 147 acres with close to six kilometres of shoreline, and roughly a third of it is set aside permanently as protected natural landscape under the terms of the development’s approval. What remains is forest, granite and water. Each residence has been sited individually to work with the existing tree cover, the topography and the line of the shore rather than against them, which on an island without a road network is less a design flourish than a practical necessity.
The houses run from 4,000 to more than 10,000 square feet, with the option of a custom guesthouse or boathouse developed alongside the architects and build team. Interiors draw on local granite, river stone and wide-plank hardwood; walls of glass do the rest. The palette is deliberately of the place, and features broadly the materials you would find on the island if you walked it, establishing a meaningful connection.
What separates this from a private estate is the mainland Residents’ Club, which will carry the daily life of the community: a full-service restaurant and bar, a wellness spa and fitness centre, an outdoor pool, tennis and pickleball courts, a golf simulator, an owners’ lounge and private event space, with concierge and valet service throughout. The 24×7 concierge and amenities are managed under the legendary service standards of the Ritz-Carlton. It is the service infrastructure, more than the architecture, that the Ritz-Carlton name is doing the work of guaranteeing.
Density Group is developing the project with Geranium as lead builder, a firm with nearly five decades of construction behind it, in collaboration with Marriott International. “This is a project where execution matters as much as vision,” says Corey Elmaleh, Partner at Density Group. Approvals are in place, infrastructure is under way, and private showings have begun for Summer 2026.
