Our Story

Tamerlane Yurts started the way a lot of good things do - with curiosity and a slightly unreasonable idea. In the early days of the 2000’s before social media was really a thing, two brothers built a yurt in a basement and backyard in New Jersey. It wasn’t because anyone asked for one. It was because we were deep into living history, camping trips, ren faires, nomadic living, early woodworking projects, hand tools, and the kind of late-night conversations that spiral into, “You know what we should try?”

We were drawn to history - not the polished version about kings and queens, but the everyday efforts of how real people actually lived. What they built. How they stayed warm. Where they gathered. What shelters looked like when they needed to be comfortable and portable. The yurt checked every box, and building one sounded cool.

It turned out to be very cool. Our second one was even better… but we still had more ideas.

We brought along our structure to all sorts of events and spent many nights camping out, eating meals, and simply living in our yurt. We hung lanterns from the rafters. We rearranged furniture. We tested fabrics in heat, rain, and wind. And everywhere we went, we watched the same thing happen…. People stepped inside and instinctively slowed down.

The circular shape did something to them. Strangers sat a little closer. Discussions leaned inward. Furnishings, light, and decor came together in a way that felt bigger than the individual pieces. Again and again, someone would cross the threshold, look up, and say, “Whoa.” It didn’t take long to realize our yurt wasn’t just a shelter. It became the center of camp. The meeting point. The after-hours hangout. The place where stories got told and plans got made.

What began as one circular experiment turned into years of building, tweaking, refining, improving, and building again. Renaissance faires. Living history events. Art markets. Campgrounds. Backyard gatherings. Luxury installations. Scrappy little pop-ups and beautifully produced festivals across the Northeast. The circle encouraged gathering, and gathering brought people back. And slowly, without much ceremony, a few of those people started sticking around.

Friends joined in. Family joined in. The crew grew. What started as two brothers in a basement turned into a small but mighty team of makers, campers, reenactors, designers, and professional “let’s try it and see” types. As the crew grew, so did the yurts. We built more of them. We built them better. We built them differently. And we watched them become more than we ever imagined.

We love building something that could show up anywhere - a field, a deck, a gravel lot, a farm - and become a gallery, a shop, a studio, a dining space, or a zen retreat in a matter of hours. Watching artists, vendors, couples, and dreamers turn our blank circular canvas into something entirely their own became one of the best parts of the job. We would set up a yurt - and its new owner would see something we hadn’t thought of yet. That’s when the real shift happened. The yurt stopped being “our project” and started becoming a canvas for our customers’ ideas.

And we realized something important: we didn’t just love building yurts. We loved helping people figure out what theirs could become.

When someone reaches out to us, it usually starts with a vision - sometimes clear, sometimes half-formed. A mobile gallery. An outdoor living room. A vendor booth that finally feels like “home.” A place for family to gather or a backdrop for something meaningful. We don’t just drop a yurt off and disappear. We talk through layouts, about how you’ll hang your art, where your desk should sit, how the people will flow, what happens when the wind kicks up, how the light hits the walls at sunset.

We build every component ourselves, which means we can adjust, modify, rethink, and refine. Door height? No problem. Double entry? Let’s do it. Clear walls to watch the deer go by? Done. Multiple yurts linked together? We’ve done that too.

We are still very much the kind of people who will stay up late adjusting lights before an event opens, obsess over a structural detail, feel a sense of satisfaction about a perfectly placed yurt, and stay up late sketching ways to make the next one a little more magical than the last. That’s the part we actually love.

We do this because we think yurts are cool. Because gathering people in a round space feels both ancient and modern at the same time. Because we get to meet artists, farmers, vendors, families, event planners, and dreamers who are building something interesting. And because every time a yurt goes up somewhere new, it becomes something we never would’ve quite imagined on our own.

What can we build with you?