Lakeside Vernacular: Curating "good funky" charm in a high-performance Hudson Valley retreat.

Perched on a rocky slope in Putnam Valley, "Burch Cottage" is a depression-era lake house with a distinct personality. Owned by a sculptor and a creative director, the home possessed a "Wes Anderson-esque" charm that the clients were intent on preserving. Our design mandate was to transition the home from "bad funky" to "good funky"—retaining the eccentric camp vernacular while rigorously upgrading the structure for year-round habitation.

To achieve this, we employed a preservation-through-inversion strategy: the cottage was carefully disassembled from the exterior inward. This allowing us to install a high-performance thermal envelope and fresh cedar siding without disturbing the original interior shiplap and exposed studs that defined the home's character.

The architectural volume was then manipulated to engage the landscape. We extended the roofline to create a sheltered porch that "telescopes" the living space toward the water, framing the view like a camera lens. The most radical intervention is the insertion of a massive 9’x13’ bi-folding door system, which dissolves the barrier between the living room and the porch. This aperture transforms the footprint for large gatherings and captures the lake breeze, turning a quirky historic cottage into a breathable, modern sanctuary that refuses to sacrifice its soul.