Cottage

The winglike dips in the roofline situate and hold the house against the region’s brutal winds. As the outdoor chairs attest, lifestyles here pass easily between inside and out; a long hike and a good swim are always just steps away

Modeled after fishing huts, the cottages Hirtles, Gaff, LaHave, and Mosher provide two twin beds on the main floor and an open upstairs loft. Each building has a bathroom and shower as well as a fully equipped kitchen.

Two hours north of New York City, an unusual barn emerges from a hill just off a country road. Its black siding and bright-red window frames hint at the imaginative playground inside. This space, with its rope-railed catwalk and indoor tent, is just one element of the multifaceted getaway architecture and design firm BarlisWedlick Architects designed for fund manager Ian Hague.

Cabin Nordmarka, 2006.

The great room in the 2,800-square-foot house that architect Drew Lang designed for his family in the Hudson Woods development north of New York City features generous amounts of white oak, which he says is his favorite material.

An artist by trade, and gardener by passion, Allison Paschke commissioned Providence-based architecture firm 3SIXØ to build a modest cottage that would allow her to reconnect with nature. She landscaped the home’s lush gardens herself.

Seen from a distance, the farmhouse has a time-honored quality, though it’s still clearly a product of the 21st century.

"We did our best to tuck the buildings into the site—the goal was to get up high on a perch. It was a matter of setting that elevation and working back down with the topography," says architectural designer Riley Pratt.

Large sliding glass doors allow daylight to fill the living room. Smaller windows are placed in the kitchen area and the sleeping loft. The exterior is clad in heart pine which needs very little up-keep and is known for its strength and hardness.

Exterior of the backyard studio Riley McFerrin of Hinterland Design built for his client, a children's book illustrator.

The roofs of each of the three sections of the home are constructed of zinc and are insulated for added protection.

Tom Givone's current weekend abode, nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, is—so far—his capstone project, a synthesis of personal taste, material experimentation, and historically sensitive restoration: a living laboratory for how to bring the vernacular past into the present.

Known for their ability to combine the built and natural environments, Alric Galindez Arquitectos create refined homes in the epic landscape of Argentina. Located near the sea, Casa RM was built to handle the rough sea winds. The landscape where the house is located is untouched. This lets the house quietly exist among the isolated land. Photo by Albano García.

"It only cost about $48,000 to build, which was incredibly cheap," says Turner of the Stealth Barn. "We got the Timber Frame Company to supply the shell, then we clad it and fitted out the interior and windows ourselves. The idea was to take the archetypal black tar-painted agricultural building and make an almost childlike icon of that."

Dominic Houser's no-nonsense longhouse in the Hebrides of Scotland—an archipelago on the northwest coast—features a blue that mirrors the color of the ocean. The vaulted space and uncluttered interiors are perfect for Houser's regular meditation practice.

This "local prefab" home on the Isle of Skye is made mostly from materials sourced in northern Scotland. The timber-framed model, meant to evoke the simple agrarian barns of the area, can be constructed on-site in as little as a day and is designed for affordability.