Actor Josh Duhamel is spilling details about his “doomsday” cabin, which he uses to escape the busyness of Hollywood life. Duhamel shared that the cabin is up a dirt road in the woods and that “It’s an exhale whenever we get here.” Duhamel makes his home deep in the Minnesota woods “40 minutes from civilization” with his wife, Audra Mari, their one-year-old son Sheperd, and his 11-year-old son Axl, whom he shares with ex-wife Fergie. “Here my kids get to be kids, catching frogs, collecting sticks. They come home and they’re filthy, and I think that’s so good for them,” he reflected. “These days there’s so much anger in the world, and I think it’s because people are on their phones, getting caught up in whatever they’re being fed through their devices as opposed to being outside connecting with the world. Nature helps ground you to what’s important.”
The homestead has been a labor of love for Duhamel, who has been expanding the property over 15 years. “We were basically homesteading the first 12 years. For the longest time, we didn’t have plumbing. We were using outhouses and washing dishes in the lake,” shared Duhamel. The actor initially bought an empty parcel where he built a cabin, then added another parcel with a hunting shack before taking on a third parcel with a home. “I feel so connected to it—I didn’t just buy the place, I shaped this place. While we’ve made a lot of improvements, you still feel like you’re roughing it, and I love that,” he said.
The lifestyle was the perfect fit to shape him for his Ransom Canyon character, Staten Kirkland, a widowed rancher trying to hold onto his property from conflicting ranch dynasties. “I’ve spent 15 years cultivating our lakeside property—building on it, popping stumps, putting in wells, planting food plots—and Staten has a similar connection to his land as I do with mine,” said Duhamel. “He’s a simple guy. There’s not a lot of fluff, but he has taste, and if Staten’s gonna build it, he’s gonna build it right the first time.”
Despite the accessibility that a life in LA can offer, Duhamel previously told People he enjoys seeing the impact of his Minnesota home on his older boy, Axl. “Axl is really starting to love it,” he said. “He’s got some buddies who are out there. I’m able to teach him some of the things that I’ve learned, and I didn’t know much when I got the place, so it’s been good.”
The home has also helped him to expand his own skills. “I’ve become much more handy than I was before I started, and you have to be just out of necessity. You have to be able to fix stuff. And so all that, all around, it’s been great. Making a lot of great memories out there.”