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Dubbed the “Dazey Desert House,” the two-bedroom, three-bath home offers the best of both worlds: it's nestled in a desert setting, yet only a five-minute drive from “bustling Palm Springs entertainment.”

Drought-tolerant plants create a lovely landscape which frames the home’s classic midcentury profile.

After: A commanding carport greets visitors at the entry point to the house.

Walter Gropius designed his residence in Lincoln, Massachusetts, after fleeing Germany’s Third Reich regime for a teaching position at Harvard.

Once owned by musician, producer, and DJ Moby, this midcentury dwelling in Pound Ridge, New York, was restored to preserve its original architectural elements by David Henken, a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright. Built in 1956, the two-story home was originally created by renowned local builder Vito Fosella to embrace the wooded landscape with an exterior clad in teak, mahogany, and stone. The roof is tar and gravel.

Built by Robert Marx for the inventor/founder of Tastee-Freez in Rancho Mirage, the Maranz Residence is one of the most iconic homes in Rancho Mirage, a desert resort just east of Palm Springs. Designed by Val Powelson, the plans were based the hyperbolic paraboloid roof, a principle that was at the peak of engineering innovation in the late 1950s.

This 1954 post-and-beam residence in Glendale, California, has undergone a considered renovation by Levitt Halsey Design and award-winning architect David Levitt.

When Austin-based firm Matt Fajkus Architecture was tasked with renovating this classic midcentury home, they sought to open up the interior—not only by unifying the common areas into an open-plan layout, but also by literally raising the home's roof. This strategy increased the ceiling height on three sides of the home, allowing for the insertion of clerestory windows to create a bright and airy open living space. "The raised ceiling maintains the original pitched roof geometry to stay harmonious with the existing gabled roof in the private zone," explain the architects in a statement.

The elongated midcentury facade of 946 W. Ceres Road is classic Palm Springs and features beautiful native landscaping by a local landscape architect.

Refugio 3 x 3 south elevation

Outside, a pair of moveable six-foot-square cedar decks also come with the sale and can be packed inside of the home for traveling. LED lights, various hookups, and an outdoor shower round out the exterior features.

"I wanted a simpler, more contemplative life," says Stephen Proctor, who left Nashville to continue work as a visual artist from the remote Pacific Northwest. But after being targeted by a hard-nosed permitting official, he faced too many unknowns, ultimately deciding to sell the home. "I didn't want to fight them or have to blaze a new trail—that’s not why I got into the tiny home thing," he says.

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.

“From the street, it appears as a rectangular building with sloping shed roofs, but this is actually an illusion,” Hutchison notes. “The floor plan is actually U-shaped, wrapping around an entry courtyard that is contained by the continuous west facade.” A standing seam metal roof by Custom Bilt Metals blends in with the cedar siding.

Poteet describes the space as “unbearably hot” before he used spray-foam insulation between the exterior walls and the interior bamboo. “Now it’s the equivalent of a steel ice chest,” he says.

A wooden home nestled amongst a cluster of Japanese larch trees offers a perfect sanctuary from nearby Tokyo. Chubu, Japan. By Koji Tsutsui & Associates from the book Rock the Shack, Copyright Gestalten 2013.

The steel-clad Rolling Huts designed by Olson Kundig Architects in Manzama, Washington, sit lightly on the land thanks to wheels that allow the tiny residences to "hover" above the site, optimizing views of the landscape. Photo by Derek Pirozzi.

A Rolling Hut. Photo by Tim Bies, Olson Kundig Architects.

On an island 20 miles off the coast of Maine, a writer, with the help of his daughter, built not only a room, but an entire green getaway of his own.