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House Beautiful featured Serena Dugan’s renovated Adirondack-style cottage on Shelter Island, focusing on its wide front porch, rebuilt stone fireplace and interiors shaped around gathering. The report describes major foundation repairs and a complete fireplace reconstruction, but does not provide the project’s cost, completion date or details of permits.
House Beautiful has featured Serena Dugan’s renovated cottage on Shelter Island, New York, describing a project that preserved the home’s character while addressing major foundation repairs and rebuilding its stone fireplace. The home’s broad front porch, fitted with two hanging porch beds and rocking chairs, is a central part of the design and the gathering space Dugan said she wanted to create.
Dugan, a California-based textile designer and artist and cofounder of Serena & Lily, first spotted the Adirondack-style cottage as a small marker on a Zillow map while considering a vacation home on the East Coast. She asked a local friend to look at it. After he urged her to visit, she flew to Shelter Island and saw the property at dusk, with its porch, stone fireplace and view of Coecles Harbor. She later described the setting as having a feeling of calm she wanted to retain.
The renovation was more extensive than Dugan initially expected. She told House Beautiful that the house needed substantial work to its foundation and that the fireplace had to be reconstructed. The replacement was built from local stone to match the original, according to the tour. Inside, the family room was opened to the kitchen to make a larger shared living area, while the design combines Dugan’s own fabrics and wallcoverings with vintage furniture and textiles.
The porch was planned around its generous proportions. Dugan said she wondered whether the space could fit a hanging porch bed; the finished design has two, alongside rocking chairs. House Beautiful’s captions also describe a dark-painted porch ceiling. Elsewhere, the project includes customized lighting, performance fabric sofas and a Calacatta Macchia Vecchia marble kitchen counter. Dugan said she accepted that the marble might stain, preferring materials that could show use over time.
A Porch Designed for Gathering
The renovation shows how the porch functions as part of the home’s everyday living space, rather than as a decorative feature alone. Two hanging beds and rocking chairs make room for relaxing and conversation, while the dark ceiling gives the covered area a distinct visual identity. Dugan told House Beautiful she wanted a home where visitors could make memories, making the porch one expression of that goal.
The project also illustrates a practical tension in renovating an older house: retaining what gives it character while making significant repairs. The fireplace Dugan admired on her first visit had to be rebuilt, and foundation work was needed. The tour documents the design choices and reported repairs, but does not independently assess the building work or provide an estimate of the renovation’s total cost.
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From Zillow Listing to Renovation
The cottage is in a quiet area of Coecles Harbor on Shelter Island. Dugan was considering an East Coast vacation home when she found the listing online, then relied on a local friend’s visit before deciding to travel there herself. Her account places the porch, water and fireplace at the center of her first impression of the property.
House Beautiful presents the renovation as a mix of preservation and personal design. Dugan used textiles and wallcoverings from her own work alongside vintage pieces, and described the house as a place to bring together what she had made and collected. Some choices were high-end, while others were more economical: the report says the matchstick blinds cost about $29 per window when purchased online, with brass cleats added separately.
Project Costs and Permits Unreported
House Beautiful’s home tour does not state when the renovation was completed, what it cost, who carried out the structural work or whether the project required specific permits. It also does not provide engineering reports or an independent inspection of the foundation repairs and rebuilt fireplace. Those details cannot be established from the published account.
The article presents Dugan’s descriptions and the publication’s photographs and captions as a design tour, not as a technical review. Its characterization of the home and porch is editorial, and there is no objective measure behind the headline’s praise of the porch. The source also gives no information about whether the property is available to rent or visit.
No Further Project Update Listed
The source material does not announce a new renovation phase, sale, public opening or follow-up event. The immediate development is the publication of House Beautiful’s tour, which documents the completed design as presented by Dugan and the magazine.
Readers seeking construction, cost or property details would need further information from Dugan, the project team or relevant local records. Until those details are available, the account supports conclusions about the design and reported scope of work, but not about the renovation’s budget, technical performance or regulatory history.
Key Questions
Who owns the Shelter Island cottage?
The House Beautiful report identifies Serena Dugan, a textile designer and artist and cofounder of Serena & Lily, as the person who bought and renovated the cottage. It does not provide additional property ownership records.
What makes the porch a feature of the renovation?
The wide front porch has two hanging porch beds and rocking chairs. Dugan told House Beautiful she wanted to fit a hanging bed into the space; the finished design uses two.
What major repairs did the cottage need?
Dugan told House Beautiful the house needed major foundation repair, and the stone fireplace had to be reconstructed. The report says the rebuilt fireplace used local stone to match the original.
How much did the renovation cost?
The report does not give a total renovation cost. It does mention some individual choices, including online matchstick blinds priced at about $29 per window, but that is not an estimate of the full project budget.
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