When Bill Pedersen, FAIA, co-founder and principal design partner of Kohn Pedersen Fox, bought a three-acre piece of land on Shelter Island, New York in 1981, “Things were a little different on the island,” he wryly recalls. He means that one could buy a waterfront plot with views of Long Island Sound and Coecles Harbor without the excessive fanfare or money that nowadays accompany real estate purchases. In the intervening years, the island has grown more expensive to live on and crowded with visitors during the summer, but Pedersen has created a residence that, nested in the earth and angled to create uninterrupted views of nature, is protected from those changes.It took Pedersen two decades to develop his design for some very demanding clients: the architect himself and his family. As demonstrated by a shelf of miniature models that Pedersen keeps along with his sailing trophies (more about this later), he considered myriad options and worked on some 30 different iterations before determining the final one. “This project formed my weekend entertainment for almost 20 years. Now we have a wonderful new dog, a Boxer, to keep me occupied,” Pedersen jokes. For two years, Pedersen considered a spiral-shaped house with a south-facing interior garden—an orientation that would have shielded the house from the northeast winds and let it bask in the southern sun, but neglected the stunning view of the Sound’s open waters to the north.The dwelling, as it stands now, not only capitalizes on that vista, but also preserves two neighboring houses’ views. Pedersen was particularly concerned that he not mar one of the house’s axis to a lighthouse across the Sound—after all, Pedersen built that structure, the Bedell Mills house, in 1991. Thus his own residence’s slim, angular shape is a thoughtful example of how to build without impeding upon the landscape. Its low-slung form defers to the island’s natural slope, seeming to rise up where the earth is depressed and taper off where it comes up. This design also affords low heat-gain during summer and better solar penetration from the low winter sun, making the house energy-efficient year round. Large, sliding doors in the first-floor bedrooms, and windows and doors along the halls, bring daylight and provide natural ventilation so air conditioning is rarely turned on.But back to those sailing trophies. Another major influence on the design of the house was the local nautical culture and Pedersen’s passion for sailing (he moors his boat in Coecles Harbor, just south of the property). In section, the 4,500-square-foot residence resembles a very large yacht with a stone fireplace rising like a boat’s mast. This romantic gesture is echoed in the surrounding natural landscaping—native species grow on the lawn and undulate in the wind like waves. The course of the driveway winding up to the house forces a car to tack in from the road like a boat would across the water.Inside, the thinness of the house resembles the hull of a boat. A voluminous living room anchored by the fireplace gives way to a narrow hallway with three bedrooms, lined in a row and accessed by pocket doors. The compartmentalization of the bedrooms and Ipe wood built-ins that hide everything from storage to a drafting table and emulate the propriety of a well-kept sloop.The first floor serves as the house’s quarters, while a staircase held up by the kind of 400-pound gauge, stainless-steel rods typically used on boat rigging leads visitors to the second, public floor. Indoors and outdoors truly meet here as kitchen and dining space flow into an outdoor deck that runs the length of the house and cantilevers over the first floor. Like a captain’s perch, this floor allows for 360-degree panoramic views of the sound, harbor, ospreys in their nests, and seals frolicking off shore.Primarily constructed of concrete, the house is clad in stone and copper that echo the timelessness of the natural landscape, but serve as a counterpoint to the traditional architecture found elsewhere on the island. In fact, as the architect and his family lived in a renovated a farmhouse for the years while this house gestated, Pedersen particularly wanted to avoid the maintenance that those older structures require. Given that this house’s materials last indefinitely, and even improve with age, they give the composition a weight and maturity that despite its buoyant design ensures it won’t sail away soon.