I'm staring in disbelief at the 'before' snapshots (see below) of this renovated lakeside home. The whole place had become decidely un-lovely... forlorn and abandoned, surrounded by overgrown shrubs, with an out-of-kilter garage door and a back porch that looks like a black eye. At the heart of this startling transformation - from ugly duckling ranch to swan on the lake - is the site, but it couldn't have come about without equal measures of vision, practicality, and faith. The vision came jointly from the architect, who pictured a two-story Adirondack Shingle Cottage rising from the footprint of a dilapidated ranch, and from the owners, who had childhood memories of Great Lakes homes. The house on Appletree Point had been on the market for years before its new owners came along an allowed their imaginations to take wing. Unlike some of the huge homes that have sprouted on the shores of Lake Champlain in recent years, their recycled house may not be an "architectural statement", but it's a statement nevertheless - of the best qualities of conservation, craftsmanship and good taste.

- from Vermont Magazine,
authored by David Sleeper; photos by Carolyn Bates.