How SIPs Shaped a Curved Roofline for a Fantasy-Themed Tiny House
Guests come to Ancient Lore Village to feel like they’ve walked into a storybook, and a plain rectangular cottage with straight walls and a flat roofline was never going to sell that feeling. This tiny house needed a roof that curved, the kind of roofline you’d sketch before you thought about how anyone would actually build it.
That’s the fun part of this project. Structural insulated panels, SIPs, are wall and roof panels made from a foam core sandwiched between two structural facings, and they can be cut at precise angles before they ever leave the factory. That meant this cottage’s curved roof got engineered ahead of time, not improvised on-site board by board. ACME Panel supplied the walls and roof for the finished cottage, and the project went on to win a 2025 SIPA Building Excellence Award in the Classic category.
Quick Look
→ A themed guest cottage at Ancient Lore Village, a fantasy retreat in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains
→ A curved roofline, achieved with SIPs cut at precise angles to match a custom timber frame
→ SIP walls: 4 5/8″ total thickness, 3 3/4″ EPS core. SIP roof: 10 1/4″ total thickness, 9 3/8″ EPS core
→ Design professional: DK Levy Architecture + Design. Builder: Horner Building Company, with Hearthstone Homes as timber framer
→ Winner, 2025 SIPA Building Excellence Award, Classic category
The Project
Ancient Lore Village sits in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, about 15 minutes outside downtown Knoxville, and it is not trying to be a typical overnight stay. Guests come for a village of individually themed cottages, wrapped around dining, entertainment, and immersive activities that make a weekend feel like a trip somewhere else entirely. Every building on the property is part of the story, so a cottage that looked like every other rental cabin down the road simply would not do the job.
This unit’s design professional, DK Levy, drew a curved roofline into the timber frame to give the cottage its storybook shape. Horner Building Company served as builder, with Hearthstone Homes as timber framer, and ACME Panel supplied the structural insulated panels that filled in that frame and gave it its finished walls and roof.
Why SIPs Fit a Themed Tiny House Retreat
A guest cottage like this one has to pull off two things a lot of homes never have to worry about at the same time. It has to look like nothing else you’ve stayed in, and it has to run efficiently even though the person setting the thermostat isn’t the one paying the electric bill. Get the second part wrong, and a beautiful cottage turns into an expensive one to keep comfortable.
SIPs handled both. The panels arrived pre-cut and routed to spec, ready to go up, which meant less time spent building and more time for the crew to get the details right. Once installed, the SIP walls and roof form a tight, continuous envelope with none of the drafts you get from gaps between studs, so the cottage holds its temperature through a Tennessee winter without a guest ever thinking twice about it. See how SIP energy performance compares to stick frame. For the design itself, the curved roofline wasn’t bolted on as an afterthought. It was built into the timber frame from day one, and the panels were cut to match. Learn more about designing custom rooflines and details with SIPs.
How a Curved Roof Actually Gets Built
Here’s the part that’s easy to miss walking past the finished cottage: that smooth curve overhead isn’t one bent piece of roof. The timber frame uses a series of subtle angle changes that, once the finishing materials go on, read as a single graceful curve. To follow that shape, every SIP panel had to be cut to its own precise angle before it ever reached the job site.
That’s the advantage of doing the hard part in the factory instead of the field. A curved roof built with stick framing usually means custom bracing, a lot of extra labor, and plenty of trial and error up on the roof. Here, the geometry was solved before the truck arrived, so the crew was piecing together a puzzle that had already been cut to fit, not figuring it out as they went. It’s proof that SIPs aren’t just for boxy, conventional builds. When to use SIPs on a custom or architecturally complex project.
Sustainable From the Start
Every panel that went into this cottage came out of ACME Panel’s solar-powered facility in Radford, VA. Panel waste from all that custom angle-cutting gets recycled rather than thrown away, which matters more on a curved-roof project than it would on a standard rectangular build. It’s a small thing most guests will never notice while they’re sitting by the fire, but it means the retreat they came to disconnect at is a little lighter on the planet too. See the sustainability and carbon-savings behind SIP construction.
Recognition
This cottage picked up a 2025 SIPA Building Excellence Award in the Classic category, the kind of detail judges notice when a curved roof pulls off looking effortless. View the full project listing on SIPA’s site.
Project Details
| Location | Ancient Lore Village, Knoxville, TN |
| Project Type | Residential, Tiny House < 900 sq. ft. |
| Design Professional | DK Levy |
| Builder | Horner Building Company |
| Timber Framer | Hearthstone Homes |
| SIP Supplier | ACME Panel |
| Year Built | 2024 |
| SIP Walls | 4 5/8" total thickness with 3 3/4" EPS foam core |
| SIP Roof | 10 1/4" total thickness with 9 3/8" EPS foam core |
| Award | 2025 SIPA Building Excellence Award, Classic Winner |
Dreaming up something that doesn't fit a standard rectangle?
Curved roof, odd angle, unusual footprint, whatever it is, we're glad to walk through what it would take to build it in SIPs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can SIPs be used to build a curved roofline?
Yes. SIPs can be precision-cut at angles to follow a curved or custom timber frame, as long as the geometry is worked out during design and manufacturing rather than improvised on site. At Ancient Lore Village in Knoxville, TN, ACME Panel cut wall and roof panels at subtle angles to match a curved timber frame, giving the finished cottage a smooth rounded roofline without extra on-site framing labor.
How thick are the SIP panels used in tiny house construction?
Panel thickness depends on the climate and performance goals of the project, not the size of the building. On the Ancient Lore Village tiny house, ACME Panel used 4 5/8″ wall panels with a 3 3/4″ EPS core and 10 1/4″ roof panels with a 9 3/8″ EPS core, sized for the building’s location in East Tennessee.
Are SIPs a good fit for short-term rental or hospitality builds?
SIPs work well for rental and hospitality construction because the continuous insulated envelope keeps energy bills low and predictable, which matters when the owner covers utilities on a unit they don’t personally occupy. The tight envelope also helps units hold a consistent temperature between guest turnovers, without the HVAC system working overtime to catch up.
How long does SIP construction take compared to stick framing?
SIPs arrive pre-cut and routed to a project’s exact specifications, so crews are installing panels rather than measuring and cutting lumber on site. That typically shortens the framing phase significantly compared to conventional stick framing, particularly on projects with custom angles or details, where SIPs shift the precision work into the factory instead of the field.
Who manufactured the SIPs used at Ancient Lore Village?
ACME Panel, a family-owned structural insulated panel manufacturer based in Radford, VA, supplied the SIPs for this project. ACME manufactures panels at a facility powered by 360 solar panels and offers free shipping within 300 miles of Radford, covering Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and the surrounding region.
What is the SIPA Building Excellence Award?
The SIPA Building Excellence Award is given annually by the Structural Insulated Panel Association to recognize standout SIP construction projects across residential, commercial, and specialty categories. The Ancient Lore Village tiny house won the 2025 Classic category award. View the project listing on SIPA’s site.
Want to Learn More About SIPs?
→ When to Use SIPs: A breakdown of the project types, budgets, and design constraints where SIPs perform best.
→ Designing with SIPs: How to plan a custom roofline, angle, or architectural detail into a SIP structure before construction starts.
→ Sustainability & Carbon Savings: The specifics behind ACME Panel’s solar-powered manufacturing and the carbon math of a SIP building over its lifetime.