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The color of the BlueStar range references the dining room.

The home’s exterior fittings, like the outdoor shower, offer modern comforts.

Shelly walks along the perimeter of the house, near the central living area. The design of the house, with its many rooms, nooks, and open family spaces, "was so ahead of its time," Shelly says, "that, to young people coming here, it still feels contemporary."

Fed up with flashy, environmentally insensitive beach homes, architect Gerald Parsonson and his wife, Kate, designed a humble hideaway nestled behind sand dunes along the New Zealand coastline. Crafted in the image of a modest Kiwi bach, their 1,670-square-foot retreat consists of a group of small buildings clad in black-stained pine weatherboards and fiber-cement sheets.

The bach’s beachfront site is nestled behind sand dunes with views toward Kapiti Island, a nature sanctuary.

The open-plan living-kitchen-dining area is a repository of design icons, both classic and contemporary. There’s a Louis Poulsen pendant lamp over the Eero Saarinen dining table; Mirror Ball pendants by Tom Dixon over the kitchen counter; and Tab F1 floor lamps from Flos behind the Edward Wormley–designed Dunbar sofa. In the living room, chairs modeled on Jens Risom’s swivel design enable people to face either the sofa or to spin 180 degrees toward the kitchen.

"A lot of people thought we were crazy to put in a fireplace in a Florida home, but the biggest surprise for my wife and me has been how much we use it,

The rear garden is filled with ferns, sedges, lowbush blueberry, and a poplar tree growing out of a rock face. “The request for grasses and the directive for a soothing green landscape dictated that the gardens be wildish in nature,” Edmonson further explains.

Using exclusively native plants, landscape designer Karin Ursula Edmondson created a layered garden of creeping sedges, ornamental grasses, bee balm, mountain mint, shrubby St. John’s wort, fragrant sumac, and more. “The eco-system of the site was so spectacular, it was all I needed for inspiration,” she says.

Delighted with the result, they requested additional structures, including a pool house with a dining area that opens to the outdoors. Rising from the edge of the pool deck, a planted overhang shelters a gym and sauna below.

At night, carefully orchestrated lighting illuminates the house like a lantern in nature.

The home’s great room can easily extend onto the outdoor deck thanks to glass walls that slide away.

A 40-foot pool finished in earth-colored plaster provides respite from the warm Arizona summers.

A large patio overlooks the 8.75-acre lot and backyard pool.

Beach days, park picnics, and backyard barbecues—wherever your Fourth of July weekend takes you, these products will elevate your event with ease.

The pool, lighting, and landscape frame dramatic views of sunsets over the Long Island Sound.