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"Our guiding mantra was: space is the ultimate luxury. With this house it was of the utmost importance to feel serenity," explains Bailey Peace Design's Betsy Peace. "And so every choice was constantly filtered by asking the questions, ‘Is this necessary? Does this belong? Can it co-exist without distracting the eye?’"

The freestanding tub provides views of the forested land.

Now, a new flagstone walkway borders the preserved planter running alongside the wall. A custom pivot door with the semi-circular oak knob foreshadows the circular cut-out on the wall inside, and Berg added a quadrilateral-shaped window above the door that accentuates the ceiling angle.

Designed by Atelier Lina Bellovicova, House LO marks the country’s first residential project to use hempcrete, a sustainable and fire-and-mold-resistant materil.

The tiny cabin currently sits on a friend’s property, but it’s designed to be mobile, should the couple need to move it. “It can be dragged away with nothing more than a tractor,” says Nathalie.

On the north-facing facade, it’s easy to discern where the original glass doors used to open directly to the deck. In spring of 2012, Block Island contractor John Spier replaced the entire wall of glass panels.

Tom Givone's current weekend abode, nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, is—so far—his capstone project, a synthesis of personal taste, material experimentation, and historically sensitive restoration: a living laboratory for how to bring the vernacular past into the present.