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Floor plan of Pritchard Residence by Woodhull

“Friends can use the screened porch for the day, like a cabana,” the wife says. The couple are also planning for teachers from High Meadow Farm to hold practices here. “People will be able to use the porch and have access to the lake while our family is also using the house,” the husband adds.

A quick 20-minute boat ride from Helsinki, this cliffside A-frame can be rented for $35 a night. Designed to have a minimal footprint, the plywood-clad Nolla Cabin has a triangular polycarbonate window overlooking the water and is simply yet comfortably furnished.

Cedar slats mark the facade of Floating House, Doug and Becca Worple's lake house in Ontario. The architects, MOS, chose materials and shapes that wouldn’t stand out. “They’re really simple, almost Platonic forms,” principal Michael Meredith says. The modest cabin has boat, a gabled roof and a cladding of untreated cedar, a material that shows up on docks and homes along Georgian Bay. “Allowing the buildings to weather seems the right thing to do,” Sample says. And it’s ready for winter: Sliding barn doors seal the place up as an impenetrable box.

A rope ladder accesses the loft-style bedroom in the Ada model.

“The darker, midnight blue exterior paint color was used on all of the existing building elements to create more of a dynamic contrast with the new structure, which was painted white," says Ryan. Tomatoes, little gem lettuce, green beans, a tobacco plant, and a few strawberry bushes (tended by the kids) grow in the courtyard.

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