Dream

Ringed by cafes and restaurants, vibrant Town Hall Square has been the center of public events, from executions to festivals, for centuries.

Once home to a shoe repairer and abandoned for the last two years, Central Hotel & Café received a much-needed makeover from owner Leif Thingtved, who is seen here peering out the one-roomed hotel located above the downstairs café. The single room comes with a bathroom, flat screen television, high-speed internet, Royal Eden bed, and mini bar. Photo by: Martin Kaufmann

Stable Cafe Architect: Malcolm Davis Architecture Location: San Francisco, California

When Studio Tack was brought on to revive the 1960s structure, they set out to showcase the history and charm of the property—but to do it through a modern lens. They preserved the eccentricities that make the property so special, but brought it into the modern world with fresh new furnishings, updated materials, and a relaxed, bohemian vibe.

Michèle Monory’s Chinon farmhouse is an idyllic getaway from her home basein Paris. After she inherited the property and centuries-old structure from her father, she hired Matali Crasset, who runs a cutting-edge architecture and design firm, to update the living spaces.

The dining room is dominated by large tables and booths meant to emulate a farmhouse aesthetic. The designers looked locally and found lounge tables at Roost in Sausalito; communal tables and dining table tops from reclaimed-wood furniture-maker The Wooden Duck in Berkeley; and dining table bases, booths, and banquettes at West Coast Industries in San Francisco.

Set in the Swedish summer retreat area of Österlen, this conversion of an abandoned farmhouse re-thinks and plays on the notion of "nostalgia and shelter by combining them with very contemporary desires for space, light and nature," say the architects. Photo by Thomas Ibsen.

In the kitchen of Floating Farmhouse in Eldred, New York, a custom-built wood-fired oven extends up to the ceiling, accentuating its steep pitch. Photo by Mark Mahaney.

“When you’re working on something inexpensive and then decide you don’t like it, fine. You’re not tearing down millions of kroners worth of work.” —Mette Lyng Hansen

Located in Springfield, Missouri, this modern farmhouse designed by Kansas-City based firm Hufft Projects exudes the traditional vernacular of Kansas with an updated take on the conventional form. The rolling hills and expansive land resemble the tone of quaint Marquette.

Geoff and Joanna Mouming’s compact modern farmhouse is the first permanent structure at Yum Yum Farm in Wellman, Iowa. On the field that stretches out before it, organic vegetables will soon make attentive farmers of the Moumings. The benches on their entry porch were built by Geoff using a design plan by Aldo Leopold, the pioneering Iowa-born conservationist and writer whose spirit and thoughts seem to preside over the house.