Alpine & Coastal

Sitting across from a deserted beach on a private plot surrounded by a pine forest is a large modernist vacation home that's ideal for families and large groups—and is just an hour drive away from Lisbon. Comprised of three conjoined rectilinear structures with generous glazing and full-height windows, Villa Caetana allows guests to comfortably enjoy everything about its tranquil natural surroundings, both indoors and out.

The upper levels of the six-bedroom, four-bathroom Mountain House feature large picture windows that offer sweeping valley views.

Architect Oliver Lang and his partner, Cindy Wilson, created Monad, a multiunit prefab prototype in Vancouver.

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Entry view with small concrete patio for bbq

This dwelling joins a number of structures—such as a boathouse and guesthouse—owned by one family and used for vacations. They needed a new house to accommodate new generations at the reatreat.

The home, clad in natural Australian timber, enjoys a sense of lightness thanks to slender columns that let it float over the dunes. The driveway and entry, at the rear of the building, have an understated design to build to the interior's magnificent ocean views. Firm director Phil Snowdon explains, “By creating an architectural form that draws your eye and leads you up the steep driveway, we could engage new visitors in a welcoming process that first reveals the object and then slowly reveals the main event, being the view."

“The home is quite small, but designed in such a way that you don’t feel it,” Herrin says. Lift-slide openings by Quantum Windows & Doors, which were fabricated fewer than 50 miles from the house, make the main living space seem larger.

“I wanted the buildings to be crisp, bold, and clean,” Coleman said. Exterior vertical siding is made from locally sourced cedar stained in a “hazelnut” shade by Sikkens Cetol SRD.

Located in California’s Sugar Bowl neighborhood, this shadowy lair by Mork-Ulnes Architects looks like something out of fairy tale. "We call the house Troll Hus, with a reference to the otherworldly beings in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore that are said to dwell in remote mountains," architect Casper Mork-Ulnes says.