4 Vacation Homes Cook up a Rustic-Modern Fusion
Weekend retreats typically serve one of two purposes: to get away from it all (including all others) or to commune with both nature and companions. The following four projects—ranging from a bucolic Belgian barn to a New York beach cottage—fall decidedly into the latter camp, encouraging togetherness in settings at once rough-hewn and refined. Great-room kitchens abet interaction, while sybaritic bathrooms let inhabitants soak in the views. Talk about having it all.

1. Designer: T.W. Ryan Architecture
Site: Montauk, New York
Standout: The black-stained cedar exterior melds into the shadows while the interior by homeowner (and Parish fashion consultancy head) Maria McManus conveys ethereality, warmed by the relaxed vibe of cushy furs, an open kitchen, and nautical shiplap-and-rope bunkbeds.

2. Designers: Alison Damonte Design and Mattingly Thaler Architecture
Site: La Honda, California
Standout: Communal spaces are large, private ones small, in this weekend-house-in-the-woods. The décor deliberately eschews timber finishes in favor of clean-lined optimism—note the powder room’s tree-print wallpaper and the strokes of aqueous blue that distinguish the kitchen and a mudroomlike bath.

3. Designer: Kyo-Co Atelier
Site: Bioul, Belgium
Standout: Scaled-down train tracks ferry playful wagons across the garden of a 1920s bluestone stable—a former railway station—converted, with additions, into photographer duo Anne and Jean-Luc Laloux’s rustic-industrial holiday rental. Choo choo, er, tchoufff tchoufff!

4. Designer: AndrénFogelström
Site: Norrtälje, Sweden
Standout: Fabricated with an assist from builder-friend Erik Kolman Janouch, architect Tove Fogelström’s summer home centers on a 366-square-foot multitasking room clad entirely in waxed and oiled birch-veneer plywood—including kitchen cabinetry, the dining table, and a built-in banquette that serves as a bunk for the architect’s two boys.