28416 E Hardwood Ln

This is an A-frame cabin on five wooded acres on E Hardwood Lane, listed with a Brook Park address and standing in Peace Township, Kanabec County, Minnesota, about 90 minutes north of the Twin Cities. The listing files it as vacant land. The remarks describe a 600-square-foot A-frame on a hill above a 40-acre pond, with one bedroom, one bathroom, a loft, electric service, a wood stove, a deck, and 273 feet of water frontage, and they say it is a dry cabin whose next owner will install a well and a septic system. It was listed on September 16, 2026 at $109,900. The public record shows it sold for $10,000 in January 1997.

The cabin

The photos show a small A-frame with a dark metal roof and a glass door onto a deck, in a clearing of tall hardwoods on a hill. Inside, the main room has a wood stove on the floor, a ceiling fan, a refrigerator and a kitchen corner with white cabinets and a range, and a glass door with the pond through the trees beyond. The bedroom holds a mattress on the floor under a window. The bathroom has a composting toilet on a step, a black stock tank for a bath, a window and no plumbing. The loft sits under the peak with a window and a fan. An electrical panel with a circuit list hangs on a wall, and a canoe is stored under the deck.

The land and the pond

The aerials outline a four-sided parcel with the road along the south side and the marsh along the north, where the trees give way to reed beds and then open water with lily pads. The listing gives the lot as 425 by 630 by 273 by 616 feet, rolling, with 273 feet of water frontage on a pond and a waterfront elevation of 26 to 40 feet. The cabin sits on the high ground at the south end. One of the listing’s own photos is a screenshot of the county’s parcel map, which records the parcel as 12-03725-00 in Peace Township, Lot 25 of Block 4, 5.0 acres, class 151, non-commercial seasonal residential recreational. The lane in the photos is gravel, with the 28416 sign at the driveway.

The facts

What to know before you call

Kanabec County, with a Pine County address. Brook Park is a Pine County post office. The parcel is in Peace Township, Kanabec County, by the coordinates, the Census and the county’s own map in the listing photos. Kanabec issues the permits, sets the shoreland rules and collects the taxes. The Mille Lacs Band’s reservation lies well to the west, and the Census federal reservation and trust land layers return nothing within two kilometers of the coordinates, so this is fee land outside any reservation boundary.

Vacant land with a cabin on it. The listing files the property as a lot and unimproved land, gives no bedrooms, baths or square footage in its fields, and puts the cabin in the remarks. The county records a single-family A-frame of 595 square feet built in 1979 with two bedrooms and one bath. A lender will read the listing’s type before the remarks. Ask why it is listed as land, and expect a land loan or cash.

A bathroom with no water. The remarks say one bathroom and a dry cabin in the same breath. The photo shows a composting toilet on a step and a black stock tank for bathing, with no faucet, drain or pipe. There is no well and no septic, and the remarks say the next owner installs both. On five acres above a pond in a shoreland district, that means a well permit from the state, a septic design and permit from Kanabec County Environmental Services, and setbacks from the water for both. Get a septic site evaluation before you make an offer, because if the high ground will not perc or is too close to the water, the cabin stays dry.

A pond that is mostly marsh, and a shoreland district. The remarks call it a 40-acre pond. The national hydrography data shows an unnamed water body of about 37 acres within 200 meters of the coordinates, and the aerials show the parcel’s 273 feet of frontage on reed beds, with the open water beyond them. Minnesota’s shoreland rules apply within 1,000 feet of a lake of ten acres or more, and Kanabec County administers them: structure and septic setbacks of 150 feet on a natural environment lake, a minimum lot size and width, and limits on clearing and impervious surface. Ask the county which class the pond carries, whether the cabin and its deck meet the setback where they stand, and where a septic system can legally go.

Minnesota taxes on a cabin. The county classes the parcel as non-commercial seasonal residential recreational, the cabin class, which pays the state general tax and gets no homestead exclusion. The listing’s $1,140 is above the $1,002 the tax history shows for 2025, on an assessment that rose from $53,700 in 2020 to $102,300 in 2025. A buyer who lives here as a primary residence can apply for homestead, which removes 40 percent of the first $95,000 of value from the tax base and takes off the state general tax, but a cabin with no well and no septic is not a residence anyone lives in. A buyer who keeps it as a cabin inherits the seasonal class as it stands, and a $109,900 sale becomes evidence for the next valuation.

No forest programs to carry. At five acres the parcel is under the 20-acre minimum for 2c managed forest and for the Sustainable Forest Incentive Act, and the county’s class is seasonal recreational. There is no covenant and no payback.

A bunk house the county does not have. The listing’s structures field says bunk house. The county records one building on the parcel. No photo shows a second building. Ask where it is, what it is, and whether it was permitted, and ask the same about the deck.

Wall heat and central air on the county card, a wood stove in the cabin. The county’s record lists wall heat and central air conditioning. The remarks say a wood-burning stove for heat, and the photos show the stove, a ceiling fan and no ductwork. Ask what the county saw, because a county card that overstates a cabin’s systems is a county card that overstates its value.

A gravel lane and a Minnesota winter. The photos show a gravel lane with the address sign at the driveway. Nothing says whether E Hardwood Lane is a township road that Peace Township plows or a subdivision road that the lot owners keep, and Blackberry Acres is a platted subdivision. Ask the township and the neighbors, because a dry cabin heated by a wood stove is a cabin you reach in January or do not.

Electric service, and nothing else. The listing says electricity connected, and the photos show a breaker panel. Nothing says where the line comes from, whether it crosses a neighbor’s lot, or what the service is rated. Ask.

Sold for $10,000 in 1997. The public record’s only sale is $10,000 in January 1997, twenty-nine years ago. The seller’s mailing address on the county map is out of state. Ask when the cabin was last used and what has been done to it since the 1984 renovation the county records.

Thirty-one photos, the listing’s full set. Zillow and Redfin carry the same 31 in the same order and we used all of them, with the listing’s first photo as the cover. Ten of them are small frames of 640 pixels, and one is the county parcel map rather than a photograph. There is no photo of the bunk house, the loft stair, the deck from below, or the frontage from the water. Nothing is virtually staged.

You can see everything else we have listed on the properties page. This is our second Minnesota property, after a 560-square-foot cabin against the Chippewa National Forest near Deer River. For another cabin with no well and no septic we have a log cabin at 9,900 feet in Saguache County, Colorado.

To ask about this one, call Mark Nelson at Timber Ghost Realty on 651-983-7598, or Beret Nelson on 612-805-5787, and reference MLS 7144692. Tell them where you saw it.