There is concern that barn design may cause underutilization of isolated freestalls and, in turn, lead to overcrowding and decreased cow comfort. The objective of this study was to observe and describe cow utilization of isolated stalls in one pen of lactating dairy cattle. One pen of 67 Holstein cows, with lactations ranging from one to 7, was selected for observations because the pen was designed to include one row of 8 stalls (isolated stalls = IS) out of a total of 72 stalls that faced the northwest concrete wall of the barn. This design allowed cows within the IS to face a wall rather than other cows. All 67 cows were randomly assigned a study number and identified with fluorescent animal marking paint. Cow attendance in the IS was observed via 2 time-lapse cameras mounted on the northeast and southwest ceilings of the barn. Time-lapse images were captured at 20-s intervals over the course of 5 d. The scan sampling method was implemented to record the number of cows within the IS, cow study numbers, and cow behavior (standing or lying). Descriptive statistics and correlations were applied to analyze the data. A correlation was detected between time of day and the percentage of cows utilizing the IS (r = −0.53, P = 0.007), where maximum attendance (4.78 ± 0.19% of cows) occurred at 0300 h and 0500 h, and minimum attendance (0.30 ± 0.08% of cows) occurred at 1000 h. Throughout the study, most the cows within the IS preferred to lie down (95.25 ± 2.27% of cows) rather than stand (4.75 ± 2.27% of cows). Thirty-seven percent of the cows in the pen attended the IS at least once during the study, with 7.5% of the cows accounting for 64% of the visits to the IS. No correlation was detected between cow lactation and IS utilization (r = 0.007, P = 0.95). These results indicate that the IS in this study were utilized primarily for lying purposes by a small percentage of cows; however, additional research is needed to determine whether cow health or social status may explain the small number of cows that visited the isolated stalls throughout this study.