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House Beautiful’s home tour features textile designer and artist Serena Dugan’s renovated Adirondack-style cottage on Shelter Island, New York. The project included major foundation work and rebuilding the original stone fireplace, while the expansive porch—with two hanging beds and rocking chairs—remains a defining feature.
House Beautiful has published a tour of textile designer and artist Serena Dugan’s renovated Adirondack-style cottage on Shelter Island, New York, describing a home shaped by extensive structural repairs and a design focused on preserving its character. The broad front porch, furnished with two hanging beds and rocking chairs, is among the project’s most prominent features.
Dugan, a California-based designer and cofounder of Serena & Lily, first spotted the cottage as a listing on Zillow while considering an East Coast vacation home. She asked a local friend to visit; after seeing the property, he urged her to come in person. Dugan told House Beautiful that she was drawn to the waterfront setting, large stone fireplace and sprawling porch.
The renovation proved more extensive than she initially expected. Dugan said the house needed major foundation repair, and the fireplace required a complete reconstruction. According to the magazine’s account, the rebuilt fireplace used local stone to match the original. The report does not provide a project budget, construction timeline or details about the contractors involved.
The porch was designed around its size and use: Dugan wanted to fit a hanging porch bed and ultimately installed two. The tour identifies rocking chairs from Hollywood at Home and hanging beds from Red Egg. Elsewhere, Dugan combined fabrics and wallcoverings from her own line with vintage textiles and furnishings, choosing performance fabric for living-room sofas because, she said, “The house is meant to be lived in.”
A Porch Designed for Gathering
The tour’s appeal is not just the porch’s scale but the way it fits Dugan’s stated goal for the property: creating a home where visitors could make memories. The hanging beds and rocking chairs turn the porch into usable living space, while the water view and sheltered setting give it a distinct role in the house. That makes the outdoor area central to the renovation story, rather than a decorative add-on.
The project also illustrates a practical tension in renovating an older home: preserving what gives it character while addressing structural needs. Dugan said she feared altering the house’s calm atmosphere, even as the foundation required substantial repair and the fireplace had to be rebuilt. The report presents the result as a blend of restoration and personal design choices, though it offers no independent assessment of the construction work.
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From Zillow Listing to Retreat
Dugan’s account begins with a small red marker on a Zillow map. She described driving along a narrow road at dusk toward Coecles Harbor, where the cottage’s stone fireplace, porch and reflection of the water made an immediate impression. A friend’s recommendation prompted her to travel from California to see it for herself.
After buying the property, she developed the interiors through a mix of custom, vintage and accessible choices. House Beautiful reports that she used a statement marble slab in the kitchen but also bought matchstick blinds online for about $29 per window, adding brass cleats. The magazine also describes a family room opened to the kitchen, a pantry with patterned tile flooring and customized lighting in several rooms. These details help explain the renovation’s broader design approach without changing the central fact: the cottage required significant repair before it could serve as a vacation home.
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Project Costs and Timing Unreported
The House Beautiful tour does not state when the renovation took place, how much it cost, how long construction lasted or which professionals completed the foundation and fireplace work. It also does not provide an engineering report or other independent evaluation of the repairs. Details about permits, the cottage’s age and its current use are not included in the supplied report.
The description of the porch as the “best” is a subjective framing in the source headline, not a measured ranking. The article documents its size and furnishings but does not compare it with other homes. The renovation details and Dugan’s comments are reported by House Beautiful; the source material does not include a separate response from builders or local officials.
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No Further Project Update Listed
The supplied House Beautiful report is a home tour, not an announcement of additional construction or a forthcoming project. It does not identify a planned next phase, a sale or another milestone. Readers seeking more detail on the home can consult the magazine’s original tour; any further information about the renovation’s timeline, cost or structural work remains unreported in the source material.
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Key Questions
Where is Serena Dugan’s cottage?
The home is an Adirondack-style cottage on Shelter Island, New York, in the Coecles Harbor area, according to House Beautiful.
What makes the porch a focus of the home tour?
The porch is broad enough for two hanging beds as well as rocking chairs. Dugan told House Beautiful that she first wondered whether one hanging bed would fit, then decided that two suited the porch’s proportions.
What major work did the cottage need?
Dugan said the house needed major foundation repair and a complete reconstruction of its stone fireplace. House Beautiful reports that local stone was used to rebuild the fireplace in a style matching the original.
How did Dugan approach the interior design?
The tour describes a combination of her own fabric and wallcovering designs, vintage furnishings and custom details. It also notes more budget-conscious decisions, including online matchstick blinds listed at about $29 per window.
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