Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Architect: Rastro Estudio / @rastro.estudio

Footprint: 1,830 square feet

Structural Engineer: Martin Suffern

Photographer: Albano García / @albano.foto

From the Architect: "The commission for D House began with the personal story of its owner: a childhood spent in the countryside, a move to the city, and a return to those rural origins. That narrative became the guiding thread behind every design decision. Located in the quiet landscape of San Antonio de Areco, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the house unfolds entirely on a single level through two elongated volumes that echo the horizontal character of the Pampas. Rather than competing with the landscape, the architecture embraces it. Crisp white planes contrast with exposed concrete slabs and walls that frame the north-facing gallery—a generous covered outdoor living space from which the house opens onto the surrounding fields. Far from being a secondary area, this sheltered terrace is arguably the home’s most intensely lived-in space.

"The strategic carving of the two volumes creates a sequence of courtyards that seamlessly connect interior and exterior. Entry is made through one of these patios: a restrained transitional space enclosed by white walls, where a pivoting timber door frames the arrival and offers a glimpse of the courtyard beyond. Inside, a long entrance hall is illuminated by a large circular skylight cut into the concrete slab, flooding the space with natural overhead light and reinforcing the idea that this house understands architecture as both a material and a sensory experience.

"The interiors are defined by the dialogue between two contrasting material languages: exposed concrete ceilings and columns set against white walls and polished concrete floors. This carefully calibrated restraint transforms every room into a potential gallery. Large-scale artworks inhabit the walls with complete ease, revealing a house conceived from the outset as a place where art and everyday life naturally coexist. The living room pushes this idea even further. Sunken below the main floor level, it accentuates the generosity of the ceiling height, while built-in masonry seating dissolves the boundary between architecture and furniture. In contrast, the primary bathroom becomes the house’s darkest and most introspective space. Finished entirely in black microcement, it features a hand-carved natural stone basin resting on a floating vanity—the only handcrafted object within a room that celebrates the raw expression of its materials.

"The construction system—a combination of autoclaved aerated concrete  and reinforced concrete—reflects one of the studio’s core principles: building better with less. The system minimizes waste, shortens construction time, and delivers superior thermal and acoustic performance. Together with the home’s orientation, generous roof overhangs, and high performance glazing, it forms a bioclimatic strategy that significantly reduces energy consumption. Finally, the arrangement of the volumes and courtyards anticipates future expansion with minimal intervention, allowing the house to grow, adapt, and evolve alongside the life of its inhabitants."

Paige Rien is an interior design consultant and former HGTV presenter whose life’s work has become encouraging people to repair the rupture—caused by the warped marketplace of home content on social media—between the way people want their houses to look and how they want to actually live. She’s made a name for herself pushing back against the taste regimes that have emerged from social media.

These taste regimes might vary in their specifics. A minimalist, "Scandinavian-chic" aesthetic has come to be associated with millennial decor from the 2010s through the early 2020s, but maximalism has its devotees too, as do "granny chic" and "cabincore" and myriad other niche aesthetics. The specifics, Rien told me, don’t really matter. Social media’s influence on home design is not about how it all looks but how it compels people to behave. It’s about an ability to replicate what you’ve seen, to conjure a legible and total "vibe" that’s easily identifiable in the midst of a hasty scroll.

Rien recalled the disillusionment she experienced when working with clients in the mid-2010s: "I’d meet a family, and I would ask, ‘What do you need for your home?’ And they’d say, ‘Well, we want Pottery Barn.’ But that’s not a need, or a desire, or even a function. That’s just a look. I found that the content of design media was becoming people’s desires, even though they have wide, varied, and interesting lives."

Rien told me that in her house’s current "season," as she put it, her four teenage sons have the run of the living room. She wanted them to feel like they could hang out with their friends and play video games and watch sports in the middle of the house. They’ve put up a football flag and LED lights, and although she doesn’t love any of it, she knows it’s not permanent.

To Rien, coexistence is one of the purposes of a home. The main influence of social media on interiors has been the siloing of spaces into discrete boxes—the nursery, where all the toys are allowed to live; the highly feminized living room (a trend that Rien is troubled to see on the rise, leading to the ongoing exile of heterosexual men and boys into "man caves"); the basement, where the teenagers can disappear into their devices. It was partly in response to the primary affordance of smartphones—the ability to disappear—that Rien became so keen on opening up her living room to her sons and their friends.

The decor might not be her first choice, but if they’re gathering in the center of the home, at least there’s less of a likelihood that anyone will fall down a rabbit hole of antisocial internet ideology or succumb to social isolation—conditions that are being flagged as epidemics among teenage boys especially. "A lot of the problems that young people are having—teens right now, in particular—might be rooted in part in the size of the American home getting bigger and bigger, because it allows people to have a totally separate life," Rien told me.

—

In Italian philosopher Emanuele Coccia’s 2021 book, Filosofia della casa, he argues for a radical blending—a rethinking of what Rien refers to as "siloing" of space—as a means of survival at the end of modernity. Social media has the effect of dividing a house’s purposes into compartments so that a space is more easily identifiable and can be used more readily as a staging ground. A clean visual field is essential for influencers, whose incomes rely on selling products inside their homes, with the interiors used as backdrops. To Coccia, this is anathema to happiness at home. Like Rien, he envisions the future home as a place that is porous and constantly changing, that is open to the world.

This starkly contrasts with the direction in which social media’s visual language is pushing home design. Beyond transforming private spaces into marketing showrooms, Instagram and Pinterest have encouraged people to think of their homes as display cases for their family brand. Consider the "back kitchen," which the New York Times identified as an emerging trend among wealthy homeowners in 2022—it is a space apart from the main kitchen, where actual cooking and mess and process happen. The back kitchen became a coveted feature of newly constructed homes on the market in the post-Covid years; influencers showed theirs off, along with their huge laundry rooms, as part of their remodels.

At this point, according to Rien, the pressures of the attention economy have forced most home influencers to renovate their homes every five years for as long as they plan to work. But this hasn’t always been the case.

In his book Building a Market, the geographer Richard Harris locates the origins of do-it-yourself home improvement in the 1950s; before this, people repaired their homes as needed, but such restoration was seen as a chore necessary for keeping a roof over one’s head, not a process by which one could broadcast taste and status.

"I can remember a time when not everyone was living in that space of constantly yearning and stretching for bigger and better in terms of houses," Rien told me. "Home Depot used to literally just be a hardware store. Now it’s become our hobby. It’s our life—it represents really deep desire."

To create a picture-perfect home that conveys skillful obedience to a given aesthetic—this is what Rien sees as the driving desire of many people who have the means to renovate and redecorate their home interiors. Social media is both the primary determinant of this desire and the rubric for the aesthetic itself. As Rien sees it, this desire has replaced other, more practical desires that people might harbor for their homes.

But those older, more emotional desires have not disappeared; they’ve just been pushed aside.

Excerpted from The Story of Your Life by Kathryn Jezer-Morton, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2026 by Kathryn Jezer-Morton.  

Buy the book

Top photo by Kilito Chan via Getty Images

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Two years ago year, to kick off our celebration of Dwell’s 25th anniversary, we brought back one of our most popular and memorable events: in-person home tours. Dwell Open House gave a small group of our readers the chance to tour Los Angeles homes we’ve featured and experience them firsthand.

The first two events were such a success that we’re doing it again. The three-hour event on Saturday, October 17th, 2026, includes tours of three architecturally amazing houses that represent new thinking about residential design rooted in the city’s famed spirit of experimentation—plus a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, L.A.’s only UNESCO World Heritage site and a harbinger of California modernism.

Read on to learn about each home, and order your tickets today.

Bernardi House

Silver Lake

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Glenties, Ireland

Architect: Pasparakis Friel / @pasparakisfrielarchitects

Footprint: 1,400 square feet

Builder: Patsy Harkin

Structural Engineer: DSM Consulting Engineers

Photographer: Peter Molloy / @_peter_molloy_

From the Architect: "At the end of a narrow bog road in County Donegal, life and work have long been inseparable. This cluster of buildings was once the operational heart of a farm: the house flanked by a byre on one side and outhouses on the other. Humans and livestock lived in close proximity, sharing space and routine, with the south-facing yard serving as the central outdoor room. Over time, these structures adapted. The byre was absorbed into the domestic realm, while the outhouses became the hub of a small-batch jam and chutney enterprise. For more than 35 years, art has occupied every available corner—made, stored, and curated throughout the farmstead. These blurred boundaries between living, making, and working have fostered a distinctive richness in both the food and artistic output.

"The latest evolution of the site builds on this legacy. The house now operates as much as a gallery and studio as a home, and the new extension reflects these overlapping roles. Its volumes are shaped by the demands of display and making: north light for painting, borrowed light to soften transitions, restrained detailing, and generous, quiet walls for the curation of work. A sense of continuity is carefully maintained. The original farmhouse remains discreetly positioned at the end of the lane, while the extension is set back at the far edge of the house. This measured approach preserves the character of the existing yard and reinforces the building’s sense of belonging within the wider rural setting. In form and material, the extension draws from the language of the surrounding agricultural buildings, achieving a quiet harmony.

"The project unfolds as a sequence of spaces closely connected to the surrounding garden, offering places to pause, sit, and look outward. Within the existing farmhouse, intimate warren-like rooms and their telltale draughts remain part of the building’s character, while the extension introduces volumes that are light-filled, warm, and open, creating a gentle dialogue between old and new.

"The interior palette is grounded in clay-toned micro-cement, raw timber ceilings, and oiled plywood furniture, set against soft neutral walls that allow the gallery spaces to feel calm, tactile, and atmospheric. Functional antiques and decorative collectibles are layered throughout, bringing a sense of history and lived character to the contemporary spaces. The calmness of the interior allows the art to define the experience, inviting the visitor to move through the sequence with a sense of discovery and to seek out further work as it reveals itself gradually throughout the house."

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

When Zoltan Pali saw his house for the first time, he had two words: no way. In 2016, Pali and his wife, Judit Fekete-Pali—cofounders of L.A.-based architecture firm SPF:architects— were looking to relocate from their convenient live/work space in Culver City to a house in the Santa Monica Mountains. They had spent around a decade looking for the perfect property, when Fekete-Pali stumbled upon a 17-acre plot on the ridgeline, with views of the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. The scenery was beautiful, but the house itself was an eyesore, and it was in a "very high" fire-risk zone, surrounded by dry, flammable brush. Tearing the house down wouldn’t be possible, because it was in a protected area. They would have to work with what was there.

"It was so ugly," says Pali. "It looked like the house from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with fake Corinthian columns." Built in the 1980s by its former owners, the white stucco house was shaped like an elongated octagon which was, says Pali, "their interpretation of the Parthenon."

"The building was atrocious," Fekete-Pali agrees, conscious that walkers and horseback riders could see it from the trails. More than just looks, safety was a concern too. "The neighbors are pretty far away, so it’s a goner if a fire starts," she continues. "Those were our main concerns: How do we make the house kind of disappear? And at the same time, how can we make the building fire-resistant?"

The couple were better equipped to deal with the challenge than most. Resilient, fireproof design, says Pali, has always been "part and parcel" of SPF:a’s practice, before the 2017 wildfires, or the Palisades and Eaton fires last year. "Whether you’re by the beach, in Malibu, or in the Bird Streets up in Los Angeles, it’s always a concern."

So how, then, do you create a home which is both tough against fire and beautiful? 

How they pulled it off: Turning a 1980s "eyesore" in a fire-risk zone into a serene, fireproof home 

• Get rid of those eaves: Not long after moving in, L.A.’s 2017 wildfires had come within half a mile of the property. The priority, says Pali, was to stop fire getting into the house: "We figured if it’s in, it’s over." The fire department had advised that fires usually start under a building’s dry eaves so the eaves were dutifully removed, and the roof was covered with a naturally fire-resistant asphalt shingle.
• Add asphalt cladding: The plan had just been to apply that charcoal-colored shingle—"ubiquitous" in tract homes across the country—to the roof. But, says Fekete-Pali, "we started the roof, and we just didn’t stop." They opted for a thicker, more robust hexagonal shape, giving the house a distinctive, streamlined look and ensuring that it will not catch fire. "Among the trees, it’s like a shadow. The people walking in the mountains and on the horse trails don’t see the building anymore," she says. "No more eyesore, just the beautiful nature."

Location: La Jolla, California

First Renovation Architect: Kendrick Bangs Kellogg

Second Renovation Architect: Yum Kee Fu

Price: Upon Request

Footprint: 2,172 Square Feet (3 Beds / 3 Baths)

Lot Size: 0.12 Acres

From the Agent: "Located on Neptune Place in La Jolla, the Kravis Residence is comprised of 2,172 square feet of living space set upon a 5,403-square foot parcel just across the street from Windansea Beach. The residence enjoys panoramic ocean and sunset views throughout its three bedrooms and three bathrooms. The primary suite, which could be a one-bed/one-bath apartment, is reached via an exterior stairway and enjoys its own rooftop deck. The nature-inspired details throughout the home were harmoniously crafted in 1998 following a two-year renovation by architect Yum Kee Fu and his wife, Susan, the parents of the current owner. The artistry of their design is beautifully showcased in the upstairs suite, where the artisan-crafted interior doors feature unique wood inlays inspired by Asian art."

In 1996, when I turned 16, my uncle mailed me a copy of the script for the Frasier Season 4 opening episode with every cast member’s signature on it, including the dog’s (Moose, as you likely already know). This is because my uncle, Joe Keenan, was a writer (and later, also an executive producer) of the show and had snuck my name into the script under two different characters: Daphne’s friend Megan [sic!] who was having a birthday, and Daphne’s ex-fiancé Clive Roddy, who suddenly resurfaced. This episode, "The Two Mrs. Cranes," is one of the most highly lauded of the show’s entire 11-season run, earning special nods from Variety, IMDb, and IndieWire. I have been riding that Must See TV! high for three decades.

Frasier had an incredible run with an unprecedented 37 Emmy wins, a record broken only by Game of Thrones. If I may brag for a moment on Joe’s behalf: he has five Emmy awards, two Writers Guild of America awards, and a GLAAD Media Award, just for his work on Frasier, not including any of his other accolades, and this is all before he even turned 45. So basically very, very similar to my own career as I write this article at age 45.

Joe’s office is a treasure trove of artifacts, from photographs to set props, documenting this period in his career. These days, he is working on a new series of books, but in the absence of Frasier’s famed production designer, the late Roy Christopher, he took a break to let me ask him questions about the show’s set production, occasionally reminding me that he is not a set designer, but a writer.

Location: 731 Kendor Drive, Point Roberts, Washington

Price: $1,577,000

Footprint: 2,730 Square Feet (3 Beds, 3 Baths)

Year Built: 1982

Architect: Mark Ankenman

From the Agent: "This is a stunning waterfront living and vacationing opportunity on the South Beach side in the seaside community of Point Roberts in a wildlife sanctuary. The beach house showcases classic Pacific Northwest character with vaulted ceilings and exposed cedar posts and beams. There are also two new heat pumps for efficient year-round comfort. This custom-built home offers three bedrooms and three full bathrooms with a den/flex room on the main floor. The open living space is exceptionally bright with skylights and ocean-facing wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling windows. The main floor provides full views of the ocean and the Gulf and San Juan Islands. Expansive cedar decks bring the living space outdoors and are ideal for entertaining, with front-row seats to nature views."

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Ligurian Riviera, Italy

Architect: Llabb / @llabb_architects

Builder: Edilizia Arjan Fejza

Footprint: 1,120 square feet

Photographer: Anna Positano | Studio Campo

From the Architect: "Located in Levanto, a seaside town on the Ligurian coast near Cinque Terre in Italy, Surf House is a compact renovation by Llabb that transforms a 1930s villa apartment into a permanent family home. Purchased by a U.S. family, the roughly 1,100-square-foot residence occupies the raised ground floor of the historic Blondet House, part of the urban frontage facing the beach and the sea.

"The existing structure, including load-bearing partitions and the original room layout, shaped Llabb’s approach: rather than radically altering the apartment, the studio recovered its spatial logic while improving its functionality. The new layout accommodates three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a study, a generous kitchen, and a living area oriented toward the sea. The main intervention is a continuous custom millwork system in oak and deep blue, which runs through the apartment as both an organizing element and a piece of furniture.

"Developed by Llabb from its background in carpentry, the system integrates kitchen, storage, seating, bookshelves, beds, desks, and wardrobes into a single architectural device. Wood plays a central role throughout the home: in the shared spaces it defines essential volumes, while in the children’s rooms it takes on softer, curved forms inspired by nautical design and surf culture. Carefully positioned openings and visual connections enhance the sense of space while respecting the character of the original villa. Surf House reflects Llabb’s ability to translate craftsmanship into architecture, creating a highly functional and expressive home within a compact footprint and maintaining a strong connection with the surrounding maritime landscape."

A single overhead light leaves rooms feeling flat and one-dimensional. The so-called "big light," as it is known among its most vocal critics, has become synonymous with sterile-feeling spaces. Somehow, this remains the default setup in most homes—despite the fact that a singular ceiling fixture does little to enhance architecture, create visual interest, or adapt to how we actually use our spaces. There’s more to life, after all, than sufficient brightness. 

The solution to unwelcoming spaces like these is layered lighting: a design approach that treats illumination as a multi-dimensional tool, not a binary, on-off function. By combining three distinct layers—ambient, task, and accent—you create depth, flexibility, and visual sophistication. Each layer serves a specific purpose, and together they transform how a space feels and functions.

A beginner’s guide to lighting layers 

Ambient lighting provides general illumination. This is the foundational light layer (typically the ceiling fixture) that makes a room usable. Think of it as the baseline brightness that allows you to move through a space safely. 

Task lighting, meanwhile, focuses light where you actually need it, whether that’s over a desk for work, above a kitchen counter for cooking, or beside a bed for reading. Task lighting eliminates shadows and allows activities to happen comfortably. 

And then there’s accent lighting, which highlights architectural details, artwork, or specific focal points. This is where you add drama, depth, and personality. Accent lighting is the secret-weapon layer that transforms a functional room into a designed one.

How to execute layered lighting, room by room 

Since 2017, Govee has been transforming everyday spaces with its smart lighting solutions. Guided by its mantra, "Life is Colorful," Govee’s innovative lights are designed to transform everyday moments into personalized lighting experiences. Let’s look at how this three-layer lighting approach can come to life in various spaces using their intuitive technology: 

Living room 

The living room absorbs a wide range of activity over the course of a day—reading, working, hosting, watching television, doing nothing in particular—and most overhead lighting isn’t built to flex with all of it. Layering solves this by giving each function its own source.

The Govee 21-Inch Smart Ceiling Light Ultra sets a soft, adjustable base that becomes the room's ambient foundation. A Govee TV Backlight 3 extends color beyond the screen’s edges, softening the contrast between a bright display and a dark room and reducing eye strain during longer viewing. A Govee Lantern Floor Lamp, ideally placed near the seating area, offers a lower, warmer glow for reading.

Together, the three layers let the room shift registers—bright and functional, dim and cinematic, or somewhere in between—without anyone touching a dimmer switch mid-movie.

Bedroom 

Bedrooms are asked to do two contradictory things: energize in the morning, and quiet down at night. A single overhead fixture usually fails at both. 

Govee BR30 Smart Bulbs installed in existing fixtures cover the ambient layer, creating illumination that’s bright enough for daily use but adjustable enough to dial back at night. A Govee Lantern Floor Lamp placed in the corner acts as a warm, decorative accent piece, creating a cozy atmosphere for unwinding before bed. A Govee Table Lamp 2 on the nightstand provides focused task lighting for reading in bed (and is contained enough that it won't disturb a partner already asleep). Behind the headboard, a Govee Strip Light 2 Pro adds a subtle accent, tracing the wall’s architecture and giving the room definition even when the primary lights are off.

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Kitchen 

Kitchens are functional by necessity, but that doesn’t mean they need to feel clinical. A single overhead light tends to cast shadows exactly where precision matters most (over the cutting board, or along the counter) while offering little to soften the room once the cooking is done and the gathering begins.

A Govee 15-Inch Smart Ceiling Light Pro can be the key to the room’s general brightness. A Govee COB Strip Light Pro, installed under the cabinets, delivers direct task lighting over the countertop, eliminating shadows. Above the island, Govee ST19 Smart Edison Bulbs in pendant fixtures can add a warmer, more atmospheric layer. A kitchen, after all, should be just as functional for prepping as it is lingering. 

10 Hotz Avenue in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, is currently listed at $10,750,000 by Michael Tounge at Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty.

The Grayton House stands among the most significant homes in Grayton Beach. Rooted in the heart of the beach village, with origins dating to the 1890s and a thoughtful 2022 reconstruction, this storied residence has been reimagined for modern coastal living with architectural design by Gregory D. Jazayeri, interiors by Tami Owen of Owen Group Interiors, and reconstruction led by Daniel Brock.

The result is a rare blend of Grayton history, thoughtful design, and contemporary comfort. Historic materials and architectural elements from the original home were incorporated where appropriate to preserve its character, while the residence was completed with the craftsmanship, comfort, and everyday ease expected in a modern coastal home.

What makes the Grayton House especially compelling is the way it lives. Rather than relying on a single defining space, the home unfolds through a series of inviting indoor and outdoor living areas, allowing family and guests to gather naturally, enjoy real space, and move through the day with ease. 

Find primary suites on both living levels, additional bedroom suites, a dedicated bunk room, and a flexible guest wing with the comfort of its own living space and direct access to the pool terrace. Layered living spaces, a beautifully appointed kitchen, a wet bar, and multiple areas for gathering allow the home to host with ease. Mudroom space, generous storage, laundry on multiple levels, garage areas, elevator access from the garage level, and generous parking for a home with gulf views add practical ease that makes the home entirely functional. 

Expansive porches extend from bedrooms and common areas, framing immersive views across native dunes, coastal vegetation, and the gulf beyond. These outdoor spaces feel less like balconies and more like open-air rooms, creating a natural connection between the home and its setting at Grayton Beach. At the heart of the outdoor experience, the pool terrace, outdoor kitchen, dining area, and fireplace create a natural place to land after the beach and continue into the evening. 

Listing Details 

Bedrooms: 6 

Baths: 8 full, 1 partial

Year Built: 2022 

Square feet: 6,225 

Plot Size: 0.26 acres 

Architects Christiana Moss and Christopher Alt have lived in their 1953 ranch-style house in Phoenix since 2004. But when their daughter left the family nest for college two years ago, the Studio Ma principals reevaluated their home’s historic envelope with fresh eyes. "The original home had some good planning moves, but it was built in a time when a lot of housing was being put up very quickly," says Christiana. "Its performance needed to be addressed." Set in the Sonoran Desert, the structure is exposed to arid summers, crisp winters, and massive temperature swings from day to night.

Christiana and Christopher had renovated the home’s interior soon after they first moved in, removing several termite-devastated partitions to open the layout in the dining room, living room, and kitchen, and connect these spaces more naturally to the back patio. The couple refreshed the finishes, introducing new Douglas fir kitchen cabinetry and paneling to wrap the volume that houses a pair of bathrooms. They also vaulted the flat, eight-foot-tall ceilings to create brighter, more airy living spaces and added a series of rooftop solar panels to operate the household with net-zero energy.

In an ongoing effort to decarbonize their lives—a personal goal and professional standard for all Studio Ma projects—Christiana says they kept the most carbon-intensive materials in the house: all the masonry, all the concrete, the viable framing from the 1950s, and the windows. "But we always had this lingering desire to update the envelope," she says. Twenty years later, the homeowners’ second renovation is a direct response to the harsh desert climate, making the 2,282-square-foot home even more sustainable—and suited to their long-term lifestyle.

Location: van Beeverlaan 6-A1251 ES, Laren, the Netherlands

Price: €1,995,000 (approximately $2,298,379 USD)

Year: 1978

Renovation Year: 2008

Renovation Designer: Ineke Hilhorst

Renovation Architect: Paco Bunnik

Footprint: 2,820 Square Feet (5 Beds, 3 Baths)

Lot Size: 0.3 Acres

From the Listing: "This remarkable detached villa designed by interior decorator Ineke Hilhorst lies on quiet, dead-end lane that opens directly onto the moors in Laren, the Netherlands. Behind the antique French doors, a generous residence unfolds where light, space, and atmosphere come together in harmonious balance. During an extensive renovation carried out in collaboration with architect Paco Bunnik, the 1970s semi-bungalow received a contemporary update with large window walls, French doors wrapping around the home, and an atelier-style window at the front. The eat-in kitchen features antique schoolroom doors to the hall, which can be fully opened to garden views from all sides.The floor plan allows for single-story living. On the ground floor are the owners’ study rooms, both with views onto the lane. On the upper level is the primary bedroom with en-suite bathroom, equipped with a soaking tub, shower, vanity, and toilet. In all rooms, bespoke wardrobes are built in. Outside, multiple terraces, mature plantings, full privacy fencing, and an automatic irrigation system with its own well ensure comfort and privacy. The grounds also include a double garage with a large attic space."

After getting outbid on a series of houses, Sarah and Brant Barrah had all but given up on ever owning a home near the coast, when they were presented with an unexpected opportunity. Brant’s dad and stepmom proposed they build an ADU on their property in the Southern California beach community of Oceanside.

"I told my dad we were about to move out of state, and he pointed to their standalone garage," Brant recalls. "He said, ‘Let’s knock this thing down and build something. Build your dream home.’"

Sarah, an elementary school STEAM educator, small business owner, and inventor, and Brant, a water distribution operator for a local municipal district, began drawing up their wish list for themselves and their sons, age 10 and 13. Overwhelmed by the setback requirements and the puzzle of building on the irregularly shaped plot, they realized they’d need the right help. The solution was surprisingly close at hand: The bass player for their church’s worship band happened to be Owenn Geis, an architect with experience designing ADUs.

Welcome to In The Kitchen With, a visit to the home offices of the chefs you know and love.

The Carmel Valley, California-based Caroline Chambers—food content creator, newsletter writer, and bestselling author of What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking (2024)—had just finished renovating a house in early 2025 with her husband George when a pregnancy with a fourth child hurled them into a whirlwind plan B. They decided to find a bigger place (they closed on a 100-year-old farmhouse last May), renovate it all summer, welcome the baby in July, and move in by September.

That plan, with its aggressive timeline, didn’t come to fruition. Instead, the home chef, who’s best known for making fast and adaptable meals, had to somewhat take a step back and let the planning and building of her new kitchen take the appropriate time it required. In September 2025, the family temporarily moved into the new property’s two small cottages—each parent took a cottage with two kids. Although Chambers describes the experience as "complete chaos for two and a half months," she says it was kismet that their new farmhouse came with two liveable cottages with kitchens, which is uncommon for the area. Many of their family meals during that time were simplified and involved a lot of grilling. Chambers also slowed down her work pace with her pregnancy.

The family of six officially moved into the main farmhouse in late November. The house wasn’t fully renovated at that point (construction was ongoing through December), but the kitchen was complete, and Chambers could finally make use of the most important room for her line of work. Even though her self-imposed September deadline wasn’t met, Chambers still acknowledges that, all things considered, the kitchen wrapped in a flash.

"My best friend Lily Wick is my designer, and if it wasn’t my best friend working with me, we never could have renovated the kitchen that fast," says Chambers. She remembers "pleading with my contractor to at least have the kitchen finished by late October," so that photos could be included in her second cookbook, What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast, a new recipe collection out August 11, comprising of 15- and 30-minute meals and one chapter devoted to meals you can fully walk-away from. The book was written with busy parents in mind, who need to "make a lot of food fast for hungry children," says Chambers.

Speed was also the name of the game when it came to the kitchen renovation. Since it was the first major project, Chambers and Wick made important design decisions that invariably set the tone for the rest of the house. Inspiration emerged from Nancy Meyers’ It’s Complicated, Chambers’ Southern upbringing, the color green, and an appreciation for antiques and handcrafted items. There were parts of the new kitchen design that felt like an intentional departure from her previous kitchen. "I went against how I think a great kitchen should be designed for creating content," Chambers says. "My old kitchen was perfect for content—the stove was on the island so I could set up a camera on the other side of the island and shoot across it and demo really well whatever I was cooking."

Now, her stove sits against a wall, which is more typical. Early on, Chambers considered an island stove for shooting purposes, but ultimately opted for a huge island instead, seeing the potential for it to become a central gathering area: someplace for the kids to not only eat at but sit on top of, that they could throw their backpacks onto, or where friends and guests could spread out for dinner parties and cocktails. "A stove in the middle of the island would interrupt all that, so I’ve adjusted to shooting the stove from the side and it’s working out just fine," she says. For how much of a time-crunch they were in, Chambers is thrilled with how her kitchen turned out, which blends old farmhouse charms with industrial modernity.

Install a secret bar

The original kitchen had three small closets next to each other. They kept one closet to stash cleaning supplies, but knocked down the other two closets to rebuild them as a pantry-bar hybrid. The bar, which tucks away behind a set of doors, has its own ice maker and beverage fridge. "I don’t like when bars are on display, but when we have company, we can open this up and have a full bar moment, which has come in handy because we have people over a lot," says Chambers.

Lean into island life

Location: 63131 Rocking Chair Road, Joshua Tree, California

Price: $1,850,000

Year: 2007

Architect: Michael Rotondi

Footprint: 1,845 Square Feet (2 Beds, 3 Baths)

Lot Size: 5 Acres

From the Agent: "This organic architectural treasure is just a mile from the entrance of  Joshua Tree National Park, sitting between two large mounds of boulders enhanced by sunset vistas. The house was designed by architect Michael Rotondi in 2007 and renovated over the course of 10 years. The floor plan incorporates two stories across 1,845 square feet, with a 10-foot ceiling in the upstairs bedroom and 14-foot-high openings in the downstairs bedroom. Characterized by simple forms and open volumes, the main addition is a cube 25 feet on each side. The rugged exterior is wrapped in Cor-Ten steel. Mondo central air eases the extreme desert climate, offering comfort throughout the home."

• Opposition to data centers is intensifying. More than 530 U.S. cities and counties now have local laws restricting or banning new projects, and the surge of zoning changes has already killed dozens of proposed developments this year. (Heatmap)

• While many communities are fighting to block data centers from being built, the town of Jay, Maine, embraced one as a chance to create jobs after its paper mill exploded in 2020. The data center, which was actually planned to be built on land where the mill once stood, could have meant economic revival for residents—until it was put on indefinite hold. (The Atlantic)

• As millions of Japan’s traditional folk houses, known as kominka, sit abandoned or demolished, preservationists are giving them a second life by dismantling, shipping, and rebuilding them around the world. Here’s how these homes, some of their parts over 200 years old, are now being reimagined. (The New York Times)

• From Walter Gropius’s 1938 Bauhaus home in Massachusetts—where a new fieldstone restroom will replace an unsightly port-a-potty—to Philip Johnson’s Glass House and Luis Barragán’s Casa Pedregal, house museums are making an effort to become more welcoming and accessible to visitors while still preserving the original homes. (Dwell)

• The median U.S. home price has climbed to a record $440,600 after rising more than 50 percent in the last six years, widening the wealth gap between owners and renters as more Americans are priced out of buying. Here’s what the gap means for many young American delaying the milestone. (NPR)

Top photo by Thomas Simonetti / AFP via Getty Images

4809 Neyrey Drive in Metairie, Louisiana, is currently listed at $1,979,000 by Douglas Adams and David Smith at Crescent Sotheby’s International Realty.

There are very few addresses in the entire Metro New Orleans market where you can wake each morning to unobstructed, panoramic views of Lake Pontchartrain. Positioned directly on the water in Metairie’s most coveted lakefront corridor, this three-level contemporary estate offers interiors swathed in floor-to-ceiling glass, where every principal room frames a different chapter of the lake's ever-changing light.

A saltwater pool and heated spa anchor the outdoor living level, while a primary suite balcony and terraces extend the entertaining footprint from the water’s edge skyward across three stories of dramatic architecture. An in-residence heated sauna adds a layer of wellness amenity rarely found outside of true luxury compounds.

Inside, the interiors are appointed with designer-grade counters, stainless appliances, a wine cooler, gas fireplace, and the kind of generous natural light that only direct southern water exposure can deliver. Energy-efficient windows, water heater, and multi-zone climate control speak to the thoughtfulness of the home's systems.

The home sits just minutes from Lakeside Mall, New Orleans’ premier dining corridors, Louis Armstrong International Airport, and I-10 access, placing downtown New Orleans, the Northshore, Ochsner and Tulane medical centers, and the French Quarter all within a short drive. Perhaps most enticing is the offer for bond for deed financing for qualified buyers with negotiable down payment, competitive rate structure, and customized payment terms. Even the furniture is included. 

Listing Details 

Bedrooms: 4 

Baths: 3 full, 1 partial 

Year Built: 1986

Square feet: 4,431 

Plot Size: 0.2 acres 

Debates around housing development are often chicken-or-the-egg. To build more housing quickly we must have legislative changes that allow for more housing to be built; but in order to build public consensus around such legislation—to defeat the NIMBY class—we must demonstrate that density is not the enemy, and that new housing can be built without neglecting good design. In recent years, Los Angeles has had a perfect confluence of chickens and eggs: the state and city have begun to loosen restrictions that slow down new developments, while groups like CityLab-UCLA, an interdisciplinary urban development research hub, have been capitalizing on the changes by soliciting proposals from the design and development community to get new homes built across the city’s thousands of vacant lots.

Last year, as Dwell previously reported, CityLab-UCLA launched their Small Lots/Big Impact design competition, which sought plans for a variety of multifamily housing typologies using city-owned land. Winners were selected and announced last spring. But as many design competitions go, their award-winning ideas were just that—ideas. To actually bring new homes to life, CityLab-UCLA partnered with local community development financial institution Genesis LA to introduce a subsequent competition, a request for information from developers and architects looking to build new owner-occupied housing, between three and ten units, on privately-owned land smaller than half an acre. 

This week, they’ve announced three winners of their RFI that, with Genesis funding, will cover 95 percent of the development costs, according to CityLab-UCLA. On the smallest side, Stayner Architects will construct between five and seven units on a single lot in Echo Park; Holos Communities and Assemblage Works, which proposed a modular multifamily development, will target East Hollywood; and the team of codevelopers Six Peak Capital and Frolic Community, with architects West of West and Aero Collective, plan to build eight units on a single lot on the city’s west side.

Los Angeles, and California at large, have been leading the nation in overhauling their housing restrictions: Over the last five years, state and local governments have legalized ADUs statewide, streamlined multifamily permitting, and helped developers mitigate costly development fees. Very recently, California made it legal to subdivide individual lots to construct multiple homes on one parcel through SB 1123, which passed last year and went into effect last summer. Now, developers don’t need variances to add up to 10 homes on a lot, which saves time (and dollars) on development and construction. The CityLab RFI capitalizes on SB 1123, says Emmanuel Proussaloglou, CityLab codirector. "There wasn’t a particularly economically viable development path on a lot of these lots up until recently, and now there’s a sort of push to see what we can do with it," he says. 

Importantly, all of the lots that will be developed are privately owned—a departure from their original design competition that solicited ideas for the nearly 4,000 city-owned vacant lots. They decided to pivot their RFI to use privately-owned land as a way to avoid the lags of getting approvals from city officials. "We made sure that the winners of the design competition would be the most eligible and promising partners for any development deal—private or public," says Dana Cuff, CityLab’s director. In addition to the 4,000 city-owned parcels, there are around 24,000 privately-owned vacant parcels, she continues, many of which are ripe for housing development.

Though renderings are provided for each of the winning designs (two of the projects by Stayner and Six Peak/Frolic were included in the Small Lots ideas competition), they are not finalized, Proussaloglou says. Rather than the usual glossy imagery of many design competitions, he continues, the RFI jury looked for submitting teams that had completed previous work that aligned with their vision. 

Winners are responsible for selecting their lots and securing entitlements; only one, Stayner Architects, already owns the lot on which they’ll build. The others are now "targeting" specific areas: The codevelopment team of Six Peak Capital and Frolic Community is looking at sites in neighborhoods like Venice where land will be more expensive, but Proussaloglou says that they have experience in developing alternative homeownership models to separate expensive land costs from unit costs. Holos Communities and Assemblage Works are targeting East Hollywood, he continues, where they hope to show a proof of concept around modular construction technology’s efficiency. Finding an eligible parcel isn’t easy and securing entitlements can be a long process; CityLab has a set timeline, and in the case that the winning teams cannot secure land there are 11 "bench" winners who can step in.

"We will be able to work alongside the teams to make sure that the laws that are in place are ones that the planning department and all the different review agencies know how to deploy. Since they are kind of new laws, that will be a job for us to work with alongside the development and design team to make sure that it all goes smoothly and according to law," adds Cuff. 

They hope that these new homes will be completed by 2029. It seems far off, considering that there will only be around 20 new units added to Los Angeles’s housing landscape, but CityLab organizers believe that their transparent, open-source process will influence how other developers take advantage of the new pro-density laws. "We are going to share as much as we can about the winning submissions—the designs, the pro formas, the summary documents from all 30 submissions," says Proussaloglou. Considering the climate in the Los Angeles real estate market, those developers who own lots and are ready to hit the ground running might have a leg up once the 20 forthcoming units are completed, and landing a chance to whittle down that list of 24,000 empty lots and turn them into a group of new homes as soon as possible.

Top image courtesy of Six Peak Capital / West of West Architecture & Design

Related Reading: 

What the Backlash to Build-to-Rent Housing Says About America’s Single-Family Home Obsession

Can We Blame the Banks for the Dearth of American Starter Homes?

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:   

Location: Chuchot, India

Architect: Field Architects / @field_architects

Footprint: 3,225 square feet

Builder: Abrar Dar

Photographer: Pia Sodhi

Photographer: Suril Patel

From the Architect: "Ladakh is a high-altitude cold desert in the Trans-Himalayan region. With its rich history in anthropology and trade, vernacular of Ladakh has evolved over millennia. Our client, Gulzar Hussain, is a prominent naturalist and young conservationist from the Ladakh region of theWestern Himalayas. Along the banks of the Indus river, his land is situated in the village Chuchot, in a picturesque valley with a view of the majestic Thiksey monastery and the Stok range. The house is centered around a spacious living area, complemented by two primary bedrooms, a study, and a combined kitchen and dining space. The design thoughtfully deconstructs Ladakh’s traditional architectural elements, presenting them in a refined and minimalist style. Crafted with a contemporary aesthetic, the structure embraces locally sourced materials, ensuring harmony with its environment.

"The south-facing double-height living room features structural timber glazing, creating a dramatic space that invites stargazing at night. The traditional glass room ‘shelkhang’ situated in the southeast, features a striking timber structure with expansive glazing that offers uninterrupted views of the valley. The pinstriped external earthen plaster has been meticulously crafted by our team of artisans, and the entire house is finished with lime and earthen plasters, imparting a minimalist yet artisanal charm.

"The house is oriented to the solar south to gain more winter sun. It is constructed with a double-wall adobe system incorporating repurposed army mattresses for insulation. It rests on a broad and sturdy dry stone masonry foundation with earth berm on all sides to prevent heat loss from the foundation while enhancing the landscape design. At the core, this earthen house is designed with passive-solar-heating (PSH) and contemporary Ladakhi planning. It is designed to stay warm in winter and cool in summer; providing running water throughout the year, which is rare in Ladakh. Thus, keeping interiors at around 54 degrees Fahrenheit, while outdoors may be 10 degrees.

On any given weekday afternoon in the late 1970s, John Stallone’s grandmother could be found in the hallway of her Queens, New York, home, talking on the telephone. "The heavy black receiver would be wedged between her shoulder and ear while she stretched the coiled cord as far as it would go, holding court with friends and relatives from her corner of the house," he recalls. Stallone, who is a historian and curator at the Long Island Telephone Museum, says his grandmother kept a notepad and a thick phone directory on the wire shelf built into the pipe-legged bench where she sat for many of those phone calls. This was the gossip bench (also known as a telephone table), a quintessential product of postwar domestic life that transformed an everyday phone call into a ritual that had a dedicated place within the home.

The connected home

When telephones first entered American households in the late 19th century, they were status symbols as much as communication devices. Basic telephone service cost about $2.75 a month in the early 1880s, equivalent to roughly $90 today, making it a meaningful household expense. (Long-distance calls cost additional—and typically significant—fees billed by duration and distance.) As a result, people often displayed their phones in the entrance halls and parlors of their homes, where the devices signaled both wealth and a family’s embrace of modernity, Stallone says. From the beginning, early owners of the technology made spatial adjustments to accommodate the devices in their homes: According to historian Chris Wisniewski, when telegraph manufacturer Charles Williams Jr. installed the first residential telephone in his Massachusetts home in 1877, he mounted it on a shelf just outside the parlor at the perfect height for use from a nearby chair.

Over the following few decades as telephone service expanded, the device became less a novelty than an essential tool of domestic life. Calls to grocers, doctors, and delivery services extended household management beyond the home’s walls, responsibilities that often fell to women. By the 1930s, nearly 41 percent of American households subscribed to telephone service, and advertisements promoted the telephone as both a practical convenience and a "sightly ornament" worthy of display. People added small tables, wall shelves, and built-in hallway nooks to hold directories, message pads, and the increasingly indispensable household landline. But the heavy, corded receiver imposed its own constraints. Anyone who lingered on the line had to stand or crouch in the space nearby or pace within the cord’s limited reach. Furniture makers solved the problem by combining the storage components of the telephone station with a seat, creating a single piece of furniture called the gossip bench. "All good inventions are spawned from necessity," Stallone says.

The conversation piece

The gossip bench gave phone conversations a designated, permanent place in the home. Part telephone table, part chair, and part household command center, it typically paired a seat with built-in shelving or drawers for directories, message pads, and pencils. As telephones evolved into everyday items (eventually becoming available in a variety of colors), manufacturers quickly realized the humble phone bench could be as fashionable as it was functional. Some embraced the sculptural lines of midcentury modernism. Drexel Furniture Company incorporated its signature steam-bent wood detailing, while Lu Van produced a steel-framed version that echoed the clean utility of a school desk. Others leaned into Colonial Revival styling, proving there was a gossip bench for nearly every decorating taste.

By the early 1950s, the gossip bench had become much more than a practical solution for a corded telephone. Designers including Raymond Loewy, Edward Wormley, and Kai Kristiansen elevated the humble telephone seat into an object of postwar modernism. Advertisements sold an ideal of modern domesticity. "It’s comfort on call," read a 1964 newspaper clip about "the latest telephone chairs" on display at that year’s London Furniture Show. Few manufacturers embraced the form more enthusiastically than the British furniture maker Chippy Heath, which between the late ’50s and early ’80s produced more than 38 models. Among its best-known was the 1960s Contour, with a kidney-shaped form that reflected the biomorphic curves that defined many midcentury-modern designs. "In 1958, the telephone seat was seen by some as a mere gimmick," Garry Heath, the company’s former marketing director and the founder’s son, remarked in archival footage. "That gimmick quickly became a desirable piece of furniture in many of our homes."

Line of duty

The gossip bench reflects the gendered assumptions that shaped domestic life at the time as much as it does the era’s optimism and ingenuity. Amid its rise in the midcentury, furniture manufacturers had identified women as the primary consumers furnishing the home. Designers, who were overwhelmingly men, projected their assumptions back into the domestic sphere. Even the bench’s name reveals those assumptions. "The gossip bench falls into what we call gendered furniture," says Michael Ausbon, curator at the North Carolina Museum of History, placing it alongside hope chests (the cedar trunks traditionally given to young women to prepare for marriage) and Victorian-era fainting couches. "It framed women’s most visible form of communication as idle chatter rather than legitimate exchange."

The gendering of the piece was particularly pronounced in the United States. Similar telephone tables appeared in U.K. and European homes, but they were more often treated as practical furniture rather than objects defined by women’s social habits. In the U.S., the "gossip bench" became a cultural shorthand, transforming a functional piece of telephone furniture into a symbol of feminine homekeeping. Emily M. Orr, curator at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, adds that the gossip bench’s nickname overlooked the practical work often carried out there: "Many of the conversations involved coordinating medical appointments, arranging deliveries, managing household finances, or maintaining family relationships, forms of labor rarely acknowledged as such."

Manufacturers reinforced that narrow image through design and advertising. Benches were often upholstered in floral prints, with modestly scaled seats, and marketed almost exclusively to women. One advertisement even prefilled the order form with the words "wife’s name" and described its upholstery as "washable virgin plastic." Telephone etiquette guides instructed women to avoid profanity and to keep the household phone line available should their husbands receive business calls, reinforcing the idea that domestic communication remained subordinate to men’s professional lives.

17851 SW 48th Place in Miami, Florida, is currently listed at $5,500,000 by Mark Chatburn at ONE Sotheby’s International Realty.

Nestled in Ponce-Davis neighborhood, one of Miami’s most sought-after residential enclaves, this move-in-ready residence blends modern sophistication with warmth, charm, and comfort. Filled with natural light, the residence features bespoke millwork, custom cabinetry, designer finishes, and high-end appliances throughout. 

The home offers 3,461 square feet of living space on a lushly landscaped 10,300-square-foot lot. The floor plan includes four bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms in the main house, each with en suite accommodations and generous closet space. A detached two-story guesthouse with a loft-style design and full bathroom adds exceptional versatility, ideal as a guest suite, home office, fitness studio, or creative retreat. 

Designed for Miami’s coveted indoor/outdoor lifestyle, the private backyard feels like a tropical oasis with mature landscaping surrounding a pool, while a built-in grill, lounge areas, and alfresco dining spaces create the perfect setting for relaxation and entertaining. 

Listing Details 

Bedrooms: 5 

Baths: 5 full, 1 partial   

Year Built: 2021

Square feet: 3,461 

Plot Size: 10,300 square feet

Location: 3130 Portage Bay Place E #C, Seattle, Washington

Price: $1,175,000

Year Built: 1958

Original Architect: Gerald Van Slyck

Footprint: 833 Square Feet (1 Bed, 1 Bath) 

From the Agent: "Come live in your custom floating home with 43-foot moorage, parking, and a well-managed HOA. Enjoy the perfect balance of lakeside tranquility and city convenience in this floating home by architect Gerald Van Slyck. Vaulted ceilings and expansive windows flood the home with natural light, while two outdoor spaces offer seamless indoor/outdoor living on the water. A rare and atypical 43-foot moorage offers exceptional flexibility to accommodate a wide range of vessels, including sailboats. A well-managed HOA covers utilities and supports long-term upkeep for easy ownership. Live on the lake with quick access to Seattle’s metropolitan neighborhoods, dining, cafes, and entertainment."

Although Davey McEathron had designed and built houses across Austin since founding his eponymous firm in 2014, there was one building material that the architect had never worked with: rammed earth. "It’s one of those materials that you dream about using," says McEathron, "but it’s expensive, so you need the right client and the right project." That dream client ended up being developer Kevin Yang.

"Kevin had a piece of land in Austin’s Holly neighborhood, and after talking about working together, he said, ‘How would you feel about doing rammed earth?’" recalls McEathron. He quickly said "yes," and he and Yang set about learning how to work with the material.

Because neither Yang nor the project’s builder, Rabb Construction, had worked with rammed earth, the entire team knew they’d need some instruction. Together, they signed up for a four-day crash course in the Arizona desert with expert Quentin Branch, leaving with a new skillset, as well as a vision for the Austin property.

Camp Wandawega looks every bit like your classic American summer camp. The forested Wisconsin property has a dusty lodge with antlers on the walls, a lake complete with canoes, hand-painted signs, old cars—Smokey Bear would live here. Peeking at the camp’s Instagram, the vibe is undeniably Wet Hot American Summer.

Only it’s never been a place to send your kids for capture the flag, archery class, or first crushes. Established in 1925 as a lakeside resort for Chicagoans, it was a Prohibition-era haunt and a Latvian Catholic camp before becoming a retreat again in the ’60s. In 2004 it was turned into a rentable resort and event space, and since, its owners have been laying the Americana on thick. They brought in cabins from an old Girl Scout camp, added an infirmary that looks plucked from the set of Moonrise Kingdom, and more recently, released a range of cottagecore home goods. Its latest accommodations, though, are a bucket of cold water on the campfire fantasy: a pair of aluminum-framed glass boxes originally built as custom office pods.

"Honestly, they found us," says Tereasa Surratt, who owns the camp with her partner, David Hernandez. "I spotted them on Facebook Marketplace and couldn’t quite figure out what I was looking at. They were these all-glass structures sitting outside a huge auto body shop in Lake County, Illinois. I drove down to take a look, and that’s when the story got interesting."

She discovered that the structures had been custom built by the owner of the auto-repair shop during the pandemic so that insurance adjusters stopping by would have a safe place to fill out paperwork and take calls. The proprietor also happened to own a commercial glazing company and so instead of ordering prefab pods he decided to build his own. As social distancing restrictions were lifted, they were no longer needed and moved outside.

They’d withstood at least two notoriously harsh Midwestern winters, which helped convince Surratt and Hernandez that they might be a good fit as lodgings at Wandawega. "One of my favorite details of the pods is that they were designed to move," Surratt adds. "Each one has integrated forklift pockets built into their base, so they could be picked up and relocated whenever the shop needed to be reconfigured." Of course, this was also ideal for getting them up to the camp.

2230 Nottingham Avenue in Los Angeles, California, is currently listed at $6,500,000 by Sonya Coke at Sotheby’s International Realty - Los Feliz Brokerage.

Tucked in a private, lushly landscaped setting beyond a verdant front garden, this grand Spanish-style home unfolds in a series of formal spaces layered in light, color, and texture.

The living room, anchored by a wood-burning fireplace, holds space for either cozying up with a good book on the sofa in front of built-in shelves flanked by windows framing the greenery of the front garden or gathering under the dangling starburst chandelier with friends. A hand-painted abstract mural by Fromental of California's mountains sets a dramatic tone for the dining room. 

The kitchen is dressed in dusty lilac cabinets with a large island and stainless steel appliances, and flows into the breakfast area and the lounge-y den. The lower level features a family and screening room with a laundry room and bathroom. Upstairs holds the bedrooms, with the primary offering a walk-in closet, an ensuite bathroom, and distant views of downtown LA. 

Outside, lush rear gardens hold a swimmer's pool and a guest house currently used as a studio for a luxury collection of handmade vintage Moroccan rugs. Topping it off is a detached three-car garage.

Listing Details 

Bedrooms: 5 

Baths: 5 full, 1 partial

Year Built: 1923 

Square feet: 5,618

Plot Size: 0.35 acres 

Flip through any modern architecture magazine and you might notice a pattern: glass-walled living areas that dissolve boundaries, double-height volumes that create drama, and solaria flooding interiors with light. These types of spaces have come to define contemporary residential design—but historically, they’re all extraordinarily difficult to heat and cool. 

Floor-to-ceiling south-facing glass? Expect temperature swings and uncomfortable solar gain. Two-story living room? Accept that upstairs will be stuffy while downstairs stays cool. Solarium addition? Plan for it to be unusable most of the year. 

These limitations were never caused by a lack of architectural ambition but rather mechanical capability. Conventional HVAC systems often struggle with temperature fluctuations, tall ceilings that trap heat, and extensive glazing that gains heat in summer and loses it in winter. Modern heat pump technology—particularly variable-speed systems like those from Trane—is fundamentally changing what’s architecturally viable. 

Glass without compromise 

Contemporary architecture’s obsession with glass creates specific thermal challenges. South-facing walls deliver gorgeous natural light but create significant solar gain. North-facing glazing, meanwhile, provides even illumination but loses heat rapidly in winter. In response, traditional single-speed systems respond by cycling on and off, creating temperature swings. 

Variable-speed heat pumps solve for this by running continuously at precisely the output needed, adjusting gradually as conditions change throughout the day. Instead of blasting cold air when solar gain happens then shutting off completely, the system modulates to maintain consistent comfort. 

Reimagining volume and height 

Double-height spaces present a different challenge: heat stratification. Warm air rises, creating temperature differentials between levels. Traditional systems often compensate by overcooling or overheating, increasing energy output while working to achieve comfort. 

Modern heat pumps address this through sophisticated air distribution. Zoned systems allow for different treatment of upper and lower spaces, while variable-speed operation provides gentler, more consistent air movement that reduces stratification without creating drafts. 

The acoustic advantage matters too—continuous operation at lower speeds is significantly quieter than the on-off cycling of traditional systems, crucial in open-plan homes where mechanical noise travels freely. Trane's variable-speed systems, for example, operate at sound levels that become acoustic background rather than periodic intrusion. 

16 Street Road in New Hope, Pennsylvania, is currently listed at $16,500,000 by Douglas Pearson at Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty.

La Maison Noire is a private European-inspired wellness estate conceived as the personal residence of the founders of design and development studio, PASTELLA / BURNS. Hidden within the pastoral landscape of Bucks County, Pennsylvania—just seventy minutes from Manhattan and one hour from Center City in Philadelphia—the estate offers a rare opportunity to exchange the pace of the city for a world shaped by nature, craftsmanship, and the quiet rituals of everyday life. 

Rather than existing as a single residence, La Maison Noire unfolds as a thoughtfully curated collection of historic and contemporary buildings connected by gardens, meadows, and winding estate roads. Together, they create an experience more reminiscent of Europe’s great countryside retreats than a traditional American estate.

Designed around a single belief, that the greatest luxury is not excess, but the ability to slow down, the estate invites a more deliberate way of living. Days unfold between gardens and meadows, the private wellness spa and Finnish sauna, and evenings gather around wood-fired meals, exceptional wine, and conversations beneath the timber beams of the historic whiskey barn.

The contemporary main residence serves as the estate’s sanctuary for rest and wellness, while the restored eighteenth-century stone farmhouse offers guest accommodations, a wine cellar, and martini lounge inspired by European country inns. 

A contemporary garage pavilion provides a private office and creative studio, while the historic carriage house and stone well house preserve the property’s connection to the land. At the heart of the estate, the restored timber whiskey barn, outdoor fire kitchen, and sunken lounge create an unforgettable setting for gathering and hospitality.

Throughout La Maison Noire, architecture quietly gives way to materiality. Flamed basalt, Nero Marquina marble, hinoki cypress, natural steel, and hand-finished oak were selected for their authenticity and ability to grow more beautiful with age. Nearly every interior element including kitchens, furnishings, lighting, millwork, doors, vanities, and architectural details, was conceived exclusively for the estate in collaboration with REVERIE.

Technology intentionally recedes into the background, allowing nature to become the estate’s greatest luxury. Here, changing seasons, birdsong, gardens, firelight, and open skies shape a slower, more mindful way of living.

Listing Details 

Bedrooms: 6 

Baths: 6 full, 3 partial

Year Built: 2026 

Square Feet: 15,460

Plot Size: 7.4 acres 

René Petersson grew up in Silver Lake. He remembers a time when the Los Angeles enclave was a secluded and tight-knit community, long before it became synonymous with trendsetting cool. When René and his husband, Michael Castagnetto, started looking at homes to buy on the east side, they both hoped to find a place that had retained its original character and felt tied to the past. 

Before: Front Exterior

After: Front Exterior

"We had been feeling pretty worn down and uninspired by the sterility of the modern world, and we wanted a space with personality and a story," Michael says.

They found it in a Spanish-style home located in El Sereno, roughly 10 miles northeast of downtown, and they bought the property in February 2024. The pair of eye-catching arches at the front and the terra-cotta roof tiles gave the home a storybook quality, but the landscaping wasn’t as appealing. An expanse of concrete covered much of the generous plot, riddled with cracks that showed its age. The surrounding plants were overgrown and largely surviving off rain—a forecast that’s hard to come by in Southern California. René and Michael longed for their home to be a serene retreat, so they decided to address the site itself. 

Before: Backyard

Location: 3rd Arrondissement, Paris, France

Price: €1,135,000 (Approximately $1,308,115 USD)

Year: 2024

Architect: Jules Brisson

Footprint: 732 Square Feet (2 Beds, 1 Bath)

From the Agent: "Conceived as a total work of art, this project was designed by architect and designer Jules Brisson in 2024. Its layout stands out for its meticulous attention to material selection and treatment, creating a warm and intimate atmosphere. Located on the fourth and top floor with an elevator, the apartment is laid out in a T-shaped floor plan. The spacious living area, with over 13 feet of ceiling height and exposed beams, features a living room with a woodburning stove and a dining area. A fully equipped kitchen in brushed stainless steel completes the living spaces. The night area includes two bedrooms, a bathroom, separate toilet, and built-in storage. Two cellars and an attic provide additional storage space. This property enjoys a prime location just steps from Place des Vosges, in the highly sought-after 3rd arrondissement of Paris."