When NYC-based architect Cary Tamarkin and his family bought an unheated 1960s shack on Shelter Island as a weekend retreat, they lived in the existing structure for three years before rebuilding. According to interior designer and Suzanne Shaker, a neighbor and frequent collaborator of Tamarkin's, "the family learned to understand the rhythms of the light, water, and sand intimately; more importantly, they discovered how they wanted to live within those rhythms."

The house they eventually built is an intimate response to the site; it's built primarily of giant reclaimed old-growth cypress logs (the favored material of many classic masters, Frank Lloyd Wright included). A Japanese influence is evident in the honesty of the detailing, which dominates but is never overbearing. There is no need for air-conditioning; the steady breeze from the water can be channeled and directed throughout the interiors via the many transom windows, each operated individually with tactile, stainless-steel sailboat cranks. "I love the action of cranking them open," Tamarkin says. viaRemodelista