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House Beautiful has published a tour of textile designer Serena Dugan’s renovated Adirondack-style cottage on Shelter Island, New York. The home’s spacious porch, fitted with two hanging beds and rocking chairs, is a featured gathering space; the project also included major foundation work and rebuilding the original stone fireplace.
House Beautiful has published a tour of textile designer and artist Serena Dugan’s renovated Adirondack-style cottage on Shelter Island, New York, drawing attention to a broad front porch furnished with two hanging beds and rocking chairs. The renovation also addressed major foundation repairs and rebuilt a large stone fireplace, preserving features that helped shape Dugan’s vision for the home.
Dugan, who is based in California and cofounded the homewares brand Serena & Lily, first noticed the cottage as a listing on a Zillow map while considering an East Coast vacation home. She asked a local friend to view it; after he urged her to come see it, she booked a flight. In House Beautiful’s account, Dugan recalls arriving at dusk and being struck by the porch, fireplace and water views.
The house needed more than cosmetic changes. Dugan told the magazine that the structure required substantial foundation work, and the fireplace had to be reconstructed. The replacement was built with local stone to match the original, according to the report. The renovation retained the cottage’s character while changing parts of its layout: the family room was opened to the kitchen to create a larger shared space.
The porch is arranged for extended use, with two hanging porch beds chosen to suit the room’s proportions and rocking chairs intended for looking out at the water or sitting through rain. Elsewhere, the design combines Dugan’s own fabrics and wallcoverings with vintage furnishings and selected new pieces. She used performance fabric on the living-room sofas and chose Calacatta Macchia Vecchia marble for the kitchen, saying she was comfortable with the possibility that the surface would stain and develop a patina.
A Porch Designed for Gathering
The porch is more than a striking feature in the published tour: it expresses Dugan’s stated aim of making the house a place where visitors could gather and make memories. Its hanging beds and rocking chairs give the outdoor space several uses, while its scale connects the interior to the harbor setting. That focus may be useful to readers considering how a vacation home can serve both as a personal retreat and as a place to host others.
The project also illustrates a practical distinction in renovation work. Some changes were aesthetic, but the foundation repairs and fireplace reconstruction involved the home’s underlying condition and a defining original feature. The magazine’s account describes Dugan balancing preservation with updates, rather than treating the cottage as a blank slate.
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From Zillow Listing to Renovation
The project began when Dugan was exploring the possibility of buying an East Coast vacation property. The cottage sits in a quiet area of Coecles Harbor on Shelter Island, according to House Beautiful. After her friend encouraged her to visit, Dugan saw the home in person and decided its atmosphere was worth preserving, even though significant repair work lay ahead.
Her design choices reflect both professional and personal interests: Dugan is an artist and textile designer, and the tour shows fabrics and wallcoverings from her own line alongside vintage textiles and furniture. She also described making budget-conscious choices where possible. For example, the magazine reports that she bought matchstick blinds online for about $29 per window and dressed them up with brass cleats. That detail sits alongside more costly decisions, including custom lighting and a statement marble slab.
Details the Tour Does Not Establish
The source is a design tour, not a full renovation record. It does not specify the cost, duration or exact timeline of the work, nor does it detail the engineering or construction methods used for the foundation repairs. The account says the fireplace was rebuilt to match the original but does not provide further technical information.
The article also does not establish whether the property is used only as a private vacation home or made available to guests. Its descriptions of the porch as inviting and the design as successful reflect the homeowner’s perspective and the magazine’s presentation; they are not independent measures of the home’s quality or value.
No Further Project Update Reported
House Beautiful’s article presents the cottage as a completed renovation and does not announce additional work, a sale or a new project milestone. No follow-up plans are included in the source. The immediate development is the publication of the home tour, which documents Dugan’s design choices and the repairs undertaken to restore the Shelter Island property.
Key Questions
Where is Serena Dugan’s cottage?
The cottage is on Shelter Island, New York, in the Coecles Harbor area, according to House Beautiful.
What is featured on the home’s porch?
The broad front porch has two hanging beds and rocking chairs. Dugan said she considered whether a hanging porch bed would fit and chose two to suit the porch’s proportions.
What major repairs did the cottage need?
Dugan told House Beautiful that the home needed major foundation repairs and a full reconstruction of its stone fireplace. The rebuilt fireplace used local stone and was made to match the original, the report says.
Who is Serena Dugan?
Dugan is a California-based textile designer and artist and a cofounder of Serena & Lily. The tour shows designs from her own fabric and wallcovering line throughout the cottage.
How much did the renovation cost?
House Beautiful’s report does not give a total renovation budget. It mentions individual design choices, including matchstick blinds that cost about $29 per window, but that figure is not the cost of the project as a whole.
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