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A House Beautiful home tour features Serena Dugan’s renovated Adirondack-style cottage on Shelter Island, New York. The project required major foundation repairs and reconstruction of the original stone fireplace; its broad porch, fitted with two hanging beds and rocking chairs, became a defining gathering space.
House Beautiful has featured the renovation of an Adirondack-style cottage on Shelter Island, New York, where textile designer and artist Serena Dugan repaired the house’s foundation, rebuilt its stone fireplace and made its broad front porch a central place to gather. The tour offers a look at how Dugan adapted a vacation home while preserving the qualities that first drew her to it.
Dugan, a California-based designer and cofounder of Serena & Lily, first spotted the property as a small red mark on a Zillow map while considering an East Coast vacation home. A local friend visited the cottage near Coecles Harbor and urged her to see it. Dugan recalled arriving at dusk and noticing the water, fireplace and sprawling porch. “It felt like magic,” she said in the House Beautiful report.
The work proved more extensive than a cosmetic refresh. Dugan said the cottage needed major foundation repair, and the fireplace had to be completely reconstructed. The rebuilt fireplace uses local stone and was designed to match the original. In the report, she described worrying that renovation could damage the house’s calm character: “My greatest fear was that I was going to mangle it.”
The porch was planned around its generous scale. Dugan said she wondered whether the space could fit a hanging porch bed; the final design includes two hanging beds, along with rocking chairs. Elsewhere, the house combines fabrics and wallcoverings from Dugan’s own line with vintage furnishings and artwork. The shared family room was opened to the kitchen, while the living and dining areas retain the rebuilt fireplace as a prominent feature.
A Porch Designed for Gathering
The tour’s appeal lies not only in the porch’s unusual furnishings but in how it fits the broader renovation. Dugan said she wanted a home where visitors could make memories, and the porch’s hanging beds and rocking chairs support that purpose without turning the space into a display alone. Her selection of chairs for watching rain, noted in the report, also points to a room intended for regular use.
The project also illustrates the choices involved in updating an older vacation property. The house needed substantial structural work, yet Dugan sought to preserve its original feeling and rebuild a defining feature—the local-stone fireplace—to match what had been there. The home tour documents those decisions as design choices, not as evidence of a general renovation formula or a claim about costs and property value.
For readers considering a renovation, the most concrete takeaway is the contrast between investment and restraint in the design. Dugan said she spent on selected elements, including a marble slab and porch seating, while using online matchstick blinds priced at about $29 per window and adding brass cleats. That detail shows the mix of custom, vintage and lower-cost choices described in the report, though it does not provide a full project budget.
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From Zillow Listing to Restoration
The source report traces the project from Dugan’s search for an East Coast retreat to her decision to buy the cottage after a local friend saw it in person. The property sits in a quiet corner of Coecles Harbor on Shelter Island. Dugan’s account emphasizes that the setting and existing features influenced the renovation: the porch, water views and large stone fireplace were part of the house’s appeal before the work began.
Inside, the tour describes a palette and furnishing scheme built from several sources. Dugan used designs from her own studio alongside vintage textiles and furniture. The kitchen includes Calacatta Macchia Vecchia marble, which she chose despite the possibility of staining, saying she welcomed patina. A pantry floor uses a tile design inspired by textile patterns, and the pantry and kitchen colors were selected to relate to one another.
The report identifies Christian Harder as the photographer and lists products and makers for some furnishings and finishes. It does not give a construction timeline or itemized costs. The available account is a design-focused home tour, rather than a building-permit record or an independently reported assessment of the renovation.
Project Costs and Timeline Unreported
The House Beautiful report does not state when construction began or ended, how much the renovation cost, or whether the house is available for rental or public visits. It also does not provide detailed engineering or construction records for the foundation repair and fireplace reconstruction. Those details should not be inferred from the design tour.
The title’s description of the porch as the “best” is an editorial expression of enthusiasm, not a measured ranking. The source gives no comparison with other porches and does not establish that the home has received an award. What is documented is the design: two hanging beds and rocking chairs on a broad front porch.
The Home Tour Is the Latest Record
The source provides no announced follow-up, additional construction phase or upcoming event tied to the cottage. For now, House Beautiful’s published tour is the available account of the finished renovation and its design choices. Any later reporting would be needed to establish the project’s cost, schedule or subsequent changes to the property.
Key Questions
Who owns the Shelter Island cottage?
Serena Dugan, a California-based textile designer and artist and cofounder of Serena & Lily, is identified in House Beautiful’s report as the homeowner behind the renovation.
What was renovated?
The report says the cottage required major foundation repair and a complete reconstruction of its stone fireplace. The family room was also opened to the kitchen, and the interiors were updated with a mix of custom, vintage and other furnishings.
What makes the porch a focus of the design?
Dugan planned the broad porch around its scale, adding two hanging beds and rocking chairs. She told House Beautiful that she had wondered whether a hanging porch bed would fit the space.
How much did the renovation cost?
The total cost is not reported. Dugan discussed spending on selected finishes and also cited matchstick blinds that cost about $29 per window, but that figure is not a full renovation budget.
When was the cottage renovation completed?
The source does not give a construction or completion date. It presents a home tour of the renovated property but does not provide a project timeline.
Source: rss
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