A dramatic departure from your typical cabin on the lake, this unique retreat adds shades of black to a tiny island awash with local color. A modern brick outdoor fireplace, tall and slim, is flanked by Philippe Starck’s outdoor chairs for Kartell for cozy fireside seating.

Tigg Coll Architects took a new approach to a straightforward town house renovation and expansion in London. The home’s rear extension has its own personality, with with pivoting glass doors, sharp red support beams, and a wood-burning fireplace. The overhanging concrete plinth acts as a hearth or, as Tigg imagines it, a sort of contemporary inglenook. Wood piles neatly between the beam and wall. The fireplace, a Stovax Riva 2, is flanked by a Lampe Gras wall lamp; firewood is cleverly stored in the narrow space between the fireplace and the red support beam, creating a fun moment of practical texture in the room.

Jennifer and Mattias Segerholt renovated a five-bedroom, 2,400-square-foot post-and-beam house in Portland, Oregon. Though the house's features were a complete mess upon purchase, its form was perfectly preserved, including the brick wood-burning fireplace whose chimney rises up the walls to the ceiling.

Linda Taalman and Alan Koch built a home by Joshua Tree National Park, where temperatures can span from 32 degrees to over 100. The two opted for a glass enclosure with raw industrial style and green design that allowed them to live lightly on the land. iT House has floor-to-ceiling windows to take in the landscape, a suspended fireplace by Fire Orb for cold nights, and an abundance of spaces that open up to the outdoors.

To inform the color palette for this interior renovation in Stockholm, NOTE Design Studio began with three inspirational images. The sculptural fireplace, covered in plaster, contrasts with oak parquet floors.

The living room and dining room were originally separated by a central fireplace, which interior designer Nicole Hollis removed to create this great room. She installed a modern, custom eight-foot-long open gas fireplace in the living room, equipped with sensors that automatically turn it off when someone gets too near to the flames.

The open-plan home’s core is the towering chimney—clad in the same double-long, thin bricks that sheathe the Kolumba museum in Cologne, Germany. It holds three fireplaces, a conventional oven, and a pizza oven; all vent into three distinct flues, emerging from the chimney as their own kind of architectural statement. Inside, life revolves around the brick chimney, which the architect surrounded with a concrete counter that wraps from the kitchen to the living area. The stools are vintage.

Many home buyers are looking for some original or character-defining features.

The modern fireplace is located at the original chimney stack of the building. Robb Studio created a sculptural fireplace using exposed concrete, steel, and shou sugi ban wood for the hearth seat.

Architect Alex Gil and his wife, Claudia DeSimio, affixed a 750-square-foot addition to the roof of a 19th-century Williamsburg townhouse, transforming their cramped third-floor apartment into a modern duplex. The original fireplace remains, but has been stripped down to exposed brick, as have the surrounding walls, creating an almost wainscot-like design of exposed brick with flat white drywall above.

Architecture firm _naturehumaine designed a dream hideaway in eastern Quebec, complete with a centralized fireplace. The modern fireplace was built into a custom, multi-purpose cabinet welded from sheets of hot-rolled steel. It stores firewood on one end with an open shelve, holds a TV, and even acts as a guardrail for the staircase.

Three small pavilions connected by a deck form a summer retreat that balances privacy with a panoramic view—all in less than 900 square feet. Among the three pavilions are the standard comforts of any home: a kitchen, living space, and dining area are situated in an open floor plan in the main cabin, where a collection of vintage pieces—including leather lounge chairs from Belgium and a modern fireplace by Preway (whose chimney stretches into the tall ceilings)—mix with white Bertoia wire chairs and Noguchi table lamps.

Scandinavian architecture firm C.F. Møller designed a serene, zinc-clad home in Aarhus, Denmark. On the interior, a large, three-sided fireplace incorporated into a floating wall helps connect two spaces and warm up the home, and the wall also incorporates a purpose-designed niche filled with firewood for easy re-stoking.

PROD Architecture + Design created a farmhouse in Penafiel, Portugal to fuse the aesthetic of traditional homes in the region with contemporary, floor-to-ceiling windows that respond to the environment. Made up of four distinct structures, the home takes on the shape of an existing gabled-roof structure on the site. To complement the stone building, the home incorporates a series of muted materials including granite for the base, zinc for the roof, and Scandinavian pinewood for cladding.

Interior designer Anne Sophie Goneau gave an apartment in a former factory a bright makeover. The minimal gas fireplace is from Ortal, acting as a focal point in the room, complete with integrated shelving.

A brick fireplace feature creates a low window from the kitchen into the living room to keep a connection between the rooms without relying on a completely open floor plan. Energy-efficient MR16 halogen lights are recessed into the wood ceiling to further emphasize the clean lines throughout the interior spaces.

Armed with a keen eye for design and a yen for vintage furniture shopping, Glee star Jayma Mays and actor Adam Campbell revitalize a formerly jumbled Los Angeles house. On an outdoor deck space, the couple placed their fire engine red fireplace, found at the Rose Bowl Flea Market.

Movable and space-saving design elements define this creative family home in San Francisco’s Mission District. A midcentury home was transformed, and through the renovation, the molding at the fireplace was taken down, as was the cast plaster mantle. The sleek, new, metal fireplace design features a white oak custom bench made by Zack, accented by a vintage carnation milk crate from his mother’s childhood.

The Irwin pool house designed by Landis Gores in 1957 boasts a central room with high ceilings and an unobstructed view of the landscape. In 2005, the Town of New Canaan purchased the property and added exhibition spaces, as well as rooms for lectures and events. The small pavilion also houses an oversized, monumental brick fireplace design that divides the main space from the kitchen area.

Inside the sleeping cabin, a fireplace built of local granite marks the midpoint between two bedrooms and a bathroom. The floors and walls are wrapped in warm-hued Douglas fir.

Blogger and stylist Annaleena Leino Karlsson has designed her 1950s farmhouse to have a mostly white interior. Her workspace is next to a rustic brick and stucco fireplace, which is adorned with cacti and decorative objects.

Metals broker S. J. Sherbanuk (left) and designer James Campbell (right) created a new home in Collingwood, Ontario, with old scrap. "Repurpose, refurbish, recycle" was the guiding principle for the project. The modern, metal fireplace becomes a sculptural feature of an outdoor deck.

In Los Angeles, homeowner Bill Thompson warmed up his otherwise dark living room with a series of Douglas fir slats applied above the fireplace, as well as other wood accents throughout the room; the slats provide both texture and pattern to the fireplace, acting as a focal point and emphasizing the space's vertical height.

On an agricultural estate in Portugal, Blaanc Studio designed a simple retreat that does its utmost not to interfere with the scenic backdrop. The home was built with rammed earth, which is known for its thermal properties that help maintain a mild temperature all year long. A large, open fireplace with plenty of wood storage is used to warm the living area in winter. The firewood storage's open shelving is carefully located on the side of the island that doesn't face the living room, making sure that it is only visible in certain locations.

Architects Anne Marie Lubrano and Lea Ciavarra limited the material selection in their renovation of a town house dating from 1899. The powder room on the first floor is located in a former waiting area (the previous resident used the level for his dental practice). It features a custom Alabastro marble sink and fixtures by California Faucets. The architects kept the original marble fireplace, paying homage to the structure’s history. Benjamin Moore’s Super White paint was applied to the ceiling and the White Dove hue to the walls. "Positioning the faucets on the side wall emphasizes the horizontal," Lubrano says. "Wall-mounted fixtures feel less grounded and materials can continue uninterrupted below. We wanted the spaces to feel light, spacious and light-filled."

A central wood-burning fireplace efficiently heats the whole home, minimizing the need for supplemental in-floor heating incorporated in the concrete floors. Natural cross-ventilation is achieved through the use of CO2 directed grills at the north and south of the home, an added green feature that further reduces the ecological footprint.

Architects Alice Fung and Michael Blatt designed their own home in Los Angeles, complete with a modern fireplace design clad in galvanized steel.

When JAC Interiors was commissioned to revive an old 1,200-square-foot Hollywood home, the clients—a young couple who the designers call "fun and quirky"—requested the firm find a way to transform the space with as little construction as possible. The fireplace is a custom-made, three-dimensional feature that stands in stark contrast to the soft woods and white walls that make up the rest of the room.

A 3,500-square-foot home in upstate New York was designed by the architecture firm Mapos with simple materials and passive design principles. The contemporary fireplace, which sits on buffed concrete flooring at the center of the ground floor, was custom-made by Mapos.

A husband-and-wife design team revived a 1940s home in East Los Angeles's Mt. Washington area for a single man. Bearing few tell-tale signs of bachelorhood, aside from a photography and music studio in the garage, the renovation retained the home's dual fireplaces and added an array of modern tiles. A transformed modern fireplace surrounded by Japanese tile flanks a custom banquette table in the dining/kitchen area.

Mitchell wanted to detail the solid oak staircase with that same sense of openness, even though its materials are heavy. “We used a lot of raw steel and wood on the interior of the home,” Mitchell said. “This carries the authenticity of real materials from the building exterior to the building interior.” A custom fireplace sits on the patio.

Wenes incorporated artful furnishings into the private spaces: In the living room, a leather chair by Maarten Van Severen is beneath a lamp by his son, Hannes Van Severen, of design duo Muller Van Severen.

Alexandra Young's Craftsman-style bungalow in Oakland testifies to the wisdom of patiently accumulating a collection over many years. An ornate masonry fireplace fits easily into the home's historical mood, but like other rooms in the house, it has been updated with a modern fire screen.

The lower living space on the ground floor of a Los Angeles, California, home features an EcoSmart fireplace fueled by denatured alcohol. Read the full article here.

The living room fireplace is tiled with military-issue dog tags.

Fireplace by ModFire.