In 1962, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect Arthur Witthoefft won the AIA's highest honor for a home he built in the lush woods of Westchester County. Having fended off a developer's wrecking ball, Todd Goddard and Andrew Mandolene went above and beyond to make this manse mint again.

Their creative confections may ruin our diets, but we’re happy to be their taste testers anytime.

"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."

The budget was nearly as tight as the space in this cheerful renovation of a 516-square-foot flat in Bratislava. The centerpiece of Lukáš Kordík’s new kitchen is the cabinetry surrounding the sink, a feat he managed by altering the facing and pulls of an off-the-rack Ikea system. The laminate offers a good punch of blue, and in modernist fashion, Kordík forwent door handles in favor of cutouts. “I wanted the kitchen to be one simple block of color without any additional design,” he says.

Across from the entrance is the main staircase, which leads to the bedrooms.

The property is comprised of a succession of buildings that extend from the street-facing entrance. The 1,215-square-foot main house is the last of the three.

“We really wanted to capture the ruinous quality of this old building rather than do something overtly new,” says Greg Blee, founding partner at Blee Halligan Architects. Before construction could begin, however, he and Halligan had to patch the remaining walls using stones found in the nearby river. Wherever a wall had collapsed, the designers inserted framing to create windows and doors. For the roof, they turned to the original tiles. “My father’s terrible at throwing things away,” Blee says. “We took the tiles off 30 years ago, as it was too dangerous to have them up there. They’ve been sitting in the fields ever since, and this was our last chance to use them.”

In the main bathroom, Art Deco crown molding reminds residents of the house’s past. New fixtures include white laminate cabinets and sinks and faucets by Roger Seller.

The renovated house is outfitted with a sauna.

Chicago architect Brad Lynch demolished the 1940s bungalow he’d been sharing with his family for nearly two decades, and in its place built a brick-clad structure that would function as a modern counterpoint to its more traditional neighbors.

In their concrete-walled courtyard, Yuka and Aaron watch as twins Emerson and Jasper, daughters Maude and Mirene, and Alfie the dog play. The house is painted in Black Bean Soup by Benjamin Moore, a color in keeping with the period of the original architecture. The garden was designed by Lauren Hall-Behrens of Lilyvilla Gardens.

The kitchen features a distinctive cantilevered countertop.

A new staircase turns a corner at the large stone chimney, an element of the original house that the designers were careful to preserve.

A clear railing follows the stairs to the second floor.

The architecture firm Open Form and the interior design firm Clairoux collaborated on this modern update of a 1950s-era house in Laval, Quebec, north of Montreal.

The bedroom—accessible via the living room—is where the couple will place a bassinet for their newborn.

Some 35 percent of the materials from the renovation were resurrected in the yard: Redwood panels became fencing. Blocks cut from original concrete patios form the snake wall. And Purdy plans to crochet colorful cozies over various branches and stumps.

The architects and interior designers did away with the home's cramped, darkened layout and recast the interior as an open space defined by clean lines.

This serene retreat by acclaimed Italian designers Ludovica+Roberto Palomba, carved out of a 17th-century oil mill in Salento, demonstrates the charm of historic Italy.

The building takes advantage of passive heating and cooling, thanks to Blee and Halligan's strategic design to capture the most sunlight in the winter and provide the most shade in the summer. The above-ground glass facade faces east and draws in the daylight, but when the sun proves too strong, whoever is staying in the structure can close the internal shutters to beat the heat.

Architects Anne Marie Lubrano and Lea Ciavarra limited the material selection in their renovation of a town house dating from 1899. The powder room on the first floor is located in a former waiting area (the previous resident used the level for his dental practice). It features a custom Alabastro marble sink and fixtures by California Faucets. The architects kept the original marble fireplace, paying homage to the structure’s history. Benjamin Moore’s Super White paint was applied to the ceiling and the White Dove hue to the walls. "Positioning the faucets on the side wall emphasizes the horizontal," Lubrano says. "Wall-mounted fixtures feel less grounded and materials can continue uninterrupted below. We wanted the spaces to feel light, spacious and light-filled."

Bathed in Light To help disperse light in the newly opened-up interior, the designers clad the roof over the guest bathroom with Danpalon, a translucent polycarbonate that brings in lots of softened natural light. The walls and door are frosted glass. Says Kyprianou: “You can’t see much through the glass—just silhouettes—so our guests don’t mind!” danpalon.com.au Hung Up With the budget running out toward the end of the project, Kyprianou wanted to avoid forking out for a custom-designed walk-in closet in the master bedroom. So he conceived of a simple and cheap storage solution: drilling holes through the wooden roof trusses and feeding inexpensive aluminum closet rods through. junolightinggroup.com

Margarita McGrath and Scott Oliver of Noroof Architects termed the 1,650-square-foot house in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, “Pushmi-Pullyu,” in reference to the interior-exterior flow they created. Resident Jill Magid, pictured on her front steps with son Linus, is a conceptual artist; she fabricated the neon house numbers.

An office nook and library can participate in the open plan or disappear behind pocket doors.

Visitors pass by a sentry wall of lamps from Design House Stockholm on their way to the airy living-dining room with its 52 windows. Photo by Wichmann + Bendtsen

Alex Gil and Claudia DeSimio created a duplex in an apartment building where they’d been renting for years in Brooklyn, New York, and set to work gutting the interior and adding a new rooftop addition clad in panels of Cor-Ten steel.

Lambert pours wine in the kitchen, which is defined by a low concrete-block wall and serves as the home’s central core. The seating-area chairs are from Herman Miller.

Though this kitchen fits in with its period surroundings, a few tweaks keep it current. “It’s functional in a way that doesn’t feel like the kitchen is in the living room,” says architect Rick Black. He explains, “One of the goals was to make the islands more like furniture than like heavy objects that go all the way to the floor.”

In the new powder room, Jill Malek wallpaper adds graphic punch to custom cabinetry.

The cooktop, refrigerator, and wall ovens are by Jenn-Air; the sink and faucet are by Kohler; and the countertops are from Caesarstone.

“The house was designed to complement the challenging triangular corner site and its context.” —George Bradley, architect.

Lighting in the bathroom is provided by San Francisco-based Aion LED’s modular fixture system. The linear lighting mimics the redwood siding.

At a fraction of the size of Ochre Barn, Stealth Barn is just one clear shot down the hall from the kitchen to the bedroom. OSB is an even stronger part of the interior here evoking bales of hay.

Heath Ceramics tile continues in the master bathroom.