For architect Winn Wittman, building a house on spec that would showcase his talents and architectural vision was more than a challenge, it was dangerous.

In Los Angeles, where an average house lists for around $700,000, every inch of the city’s 469 square miles is coveted—almost.

When two scientists from the National Institutes of Health, Roxanne Fischer and Donald Orlic, went looking for architects to build them a house with a Modern aesthetic on their 24-acre property on the north fork of the Shenandoah River, they were led to Berryville, Virginia-based Carter Burton Architects.

The notion of a camp compound appealed to the project’s client, an active family wanting to be outdoors as much as possible at their vacation home near the north shore of Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Jim Biber, FAIA, worked with his clients for seven years on this residential compound on a ridge overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Montauk, New York.