“Unprepossessing” is an apt way to describe the 1920s colonial revival house that Ted Porter found in 1999 in Sag Harbor, Long Island, and finished renovating for himself and his partner, Steve Godeke, last year. The New York–based architect with his own practice wanted a weekend home in this picturesque former whaling village, and the location, within walking distance of Main Street, was ideal.

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But its small rooms and low ceilings (7 feet, 11 inches high) were constraining, and local codes and guidelines restricted how much could be made of the two-story, 1,900-square-foot cottage. First, it is a “contributing structure” to a National Historic District, which meant the town’s Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review declined to allow significant changes to the street facade. Second, zoning prevented a house on such a small site—.22 of an acre—from expanding beyond its footprint or height.

Not surprisingly, the review board had no problem with Porter’s replacing the aluminum clapboard and asphalt roofing—both transmogrifications made some years ago—with cedar shingles of the original design. But other than this upgrade and the inclusion of boxwood, Japanese maple, and cloud-pruned yew in the front yard, there is little clue from the street of an architect’s extensive intervention.

But upon entering, you find an open, airy interior. Everywhere, white oak clads floors, walls, and even ceilings—punctuated by splashes of color in furnishings, objets d’art, and other accoutrements. “While I was designing the house, I visited Alvar Aalto’s architecture in Finland,” says Porter in reference to combining a modernist vocabulary with natural materials. The effect is warm (literally, helped in the winter by the insulation added to the wood frame, and a newly redesigned fireplace in the living room).

To create light-filled volumes, Porter opened up the rooms to the rear: he lifted the ceiling of the living area to a 10½-foot height, and installed a literal “picture window"—9½ by 8 feet and triple-glazed—to frame the view of the lush back garden. Jutting out to the back, too, is a remodeled screened porch, 10½ feet tall, which overlooks European beech trees that conceal a small lap pool beyond.

The desire for higher ceilings required Porter to raise most of the second floor 3 feet and push the ceilings of these rooms into the former attic, where they reflect the slopes of the gable. Now a guest bedroom, library, and a new sun-room (above the screened porch) complement the one-story master bedroom suite at one end of the first floor.

In connecting the two levels, Porter removed the straight stair perpendicular to the entrance and inserted a switchback one to the right of the door. To keep the incline of the first flight low enough so it would not obstruct the two windows facing the street, Porter designed deep treads with shallow risers: as the stair turns back to ascend to the upper hall, it reassumes normal dimensions.

Through these basic, if complicated and painstakingly crafted moves—inserting a new stair, raising ceiling heights, adding ample expanses of glass, and cladding surfaces in wood—Porter has demonstrated a timeworn precept: innovation is born of necessity. Constraints, to repeat the key word, often are a good thing.