If so, would you do it again? Pros and cons beside obvious things like no snow buildup on the roof?

Don't own one , but many times while growing up we rented a huge one for 3-day weekend trips spent snowmobiling with our family and 2 others. A few of the cons:

The 2nd story was hotter than Hades to make ground level comfortable

Lots of dead space behind dressers, etc. on the sloped side since something 30" tall couldn't be against baseboard.

Not me, but my b-i-l built one and regretted it.

As tatortodd said, the second floor was uninhabitable in summer.

In winter, the windows that made up the entire front of the house froze over.

One caveat: My b-i-l had the house built. He was notoriously cheap, so the issues he had could very well have been due to his buying cheap materials and otherwise cutting corners.

I grew up in a cape cod style house. Like the others have said the second floor was hot. There was also lots of wasted space. You could only walk halfway into a room.

I would not do it again as a primary residence. Lake house, cabin in the woods, sure.

We have had a family cabin on a lake that is an A-frame for 30 years now. It's awesome as a cabin but I don't think it's the best use of space, especially as you get older. Most of them (ours) have the bedrooms upstairs and the stairs are very steep. I'm sure they have become better by being more creative over the years.

One side benefit is that the roof still looks like new. I guess because of the steep pitch it doesn't take much abuse and snow definitely doesn't stick.

With ours the main floor is basically divided into two. When you walk in you are basically in the kitchen. Then there are two doors on your left one is a bathroom and one is a storage room. That half has a normal height ceiling.

After the first half it is open all the way up and that entire space is living quarters. Then looking back towards the kitchen there is a loft above the first half of the structure with bedrooms above.

It works good for a hunting cabin or if one family is there to hang out at the lake. It's really only good for one family or a bunch of guys because you're not going to have much privacy as everything is in the open other than a door to the bathroom.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 1s1k,

Horrible waste of space .

My parents had an A-Frame house. Hot as hell in the summer and not space efficient at all. They bought it for the property and mountain view but were very happy when they moved out and into a custom ranch.

Looked at one to buy, passed for a lot of the previously mentioned reasons.

If you have to have an odd shaped house, there's always the geodesic dome. Or a yurt.