Favorites

Front Entry Door & Privacy Screen

The Alexandria House uses a material palette of polished concrete floors, ruddy hardwood accents, and smooth white plaster. Black covers entire walls in the living room and kitchen and threads throughout the home, popping up everywhere from the iron railing outside to the decorative picture frames inside.

In Chicago’s Buena Park, dSPACE Studio transformed a disorganized 1978 home into a bright retreat that revolves around an expanded atrium. SoCo pendant lights by Tech Lighting draw the eye up to the double-height light well.

Clad in white HardiePlank siding, the duplex was designed to mimic the industrial look of the shipping container extensions.

“When you’re doing a second home, a lot of the character of the design is defined by what it isn’t,” says architect Greg Howe, as a way of explaining the minimalistic approach that was taken on this Michigan weekend home. “If you think of it as cold, you have to remember, the setting, and accessing nature, is the point.”

Long before he moved into the historic building, Dutch architect Felix Claus admired 51 rue Raynouard, an apartment block in the Passy district of Paris designed and built in 1932 by Auguste Perret. One of the seminal architects of the 20th century, Perret is renowned for high-profile commissions like the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the post–Second World War rebuild of Le Havre, and for his pioneering use of reinforced concrete. He constructed 51 rue Raynouard to house the design firm he ran with his two brothers and created a 1,830-square-foot apartment on the seventh floor for himself and his wife. Here, the apartment’s balcony offers an impressive view of rue Raynouard.

The 1967 beach house—which underwent a meticulous renovation by Bates Masi, the original architect’s firm—is listed as an exclusive holiday rental along the coast of Long Island in New York.

Street view of the double gable

A bridge spans the home’s steep site for street access.

Jessica Helgerson Interior Design, with project manager and lead designer Emily Kudsen Leland at the helm, remade a Portland abode with a crisp paint palette: Benjamin Moore’s Wrought Iron for the cladding and Venetian Gold for the front door. The home was originally designed by Saul Zaik in Southwest Portland, complete with a wood-clad exterior, in 1956. As part of the renovation, landscape design was completed by Lilyvilla Gardens.