Things That Make a Summer Home Worth Coming Back To
At Nubuor Designs, we've had the privilege of working on summer homes from the Cape and islands to coastal properties well beyond New England. A summer home is a different kind of project than a primary residence, but it deserves the same design rigor. The stakes are different, the lifestyle is different, and the design priorities shift in ways that aren't always obvious until a space doesn't quite work for the way a family actually uses it. The best summer homes are designed around how people live when they're relaxed, when the door is constantly opening and closing, and there are twelve people over for dinner on a quiet summer night. These are the features we recommend on nearly every summer home project, and the ones our clients are most grateful for once they've spent a season in their new home.
A Kitchen Large Enough to Host Everyone
Summer homes exist for gathering, and the kitchen is always where gathering happens, whether you planned for it or not. The design priority isn't necessarily an open plan, though that often works well. It's a kitchen that's large and welcoming enough to absorb everyone who gravitates toward it without feeling crowded or chaotic. Counter space, seating at an island, and enough room for multiple people to move around without getting in each other's way are the practical foundations.
A built-in bench adds something that stools and chairs alone don't: softness. On a lazy Sunday morning when no one is in a hurry, a banquette with cushions is where people will linger over coffee and stay longer than they planned. It's the kind of detail that makes a kitchen feel like home.
A summer home also hosts more people, more meals, on more occasions than a primary residence, and the kitchen needs to support that. Extra dishes, serving pieces, glasses for a crowd, and pantry depth for a week of groceries all need a proper home. Getting the storage right during the design process is significantly easier than working around it once the season is underway.
A Great Room Built for Real Life
The living room of a summer home needs to work harder than any other room in the house. It needs to seat everyone comfortably, survive wet bathing suits and sandy feet, and still look beautiful doing it. Performance and washable upholstery fabrics have come a long way and are now available at a finish level that doesn't compromise the aesthetic. Hardy hard surfaces, stone, tile, or properly sealed wood, are the right choice for anything precious. This is entirely achievable with a modern, elevated sensibility.
Whether the home is a shingled Cape Cod cottage, a Nantucket compound, a Maine coastal retreat, or a more contemporary property further afield, durable and beautiful are not mutually exclusive.
A True Mudroom
Not a bench by the door. A proper mudroom with dedicated storage for every person who uses the house: hooks, cubbies, a place for wet gear, sandy shoes, and beach bags. A summer home without a real mudroom is one where the chaos of outdoor living migrates directly into the living space. A well-designed mudroom contains it, and keeps the rest of the house feeling like the retreat it's supposed to be.
Ideally, a powder room sits directly adjacent to the mudroom. It means wet, sandy people coming in from the beach or the pool have everything they need in one zone without tracking through the kitchen or the living room to find a bathroom. It's a simple planning decision that makes daily life in the house significantly more pleasant, and one that's much easier to get right during the design process than to wish for later.
An Outdoor Shower
If there is one feature that defines the summer home experience, it's an outdoor shower. It's practical, it's joyful, and it's one of those additions that gets used every single day from June through September. A well-designed outdoor shower with good water pressure, a proper drainage solution, and a thoughtful enclosure for privacy is a detail that guests and potential home buyers notice and remember. Hot and cold water is worth the additional plumbing cost. So is a teak or stone floor that feels intentional rather than improvised.
An outdoor shower placed near the pool entry or the path from the beach means it actually gets used as intended. For properties where a full outdoor shower isn't possible, a simple foot wash tap at the entry has a high return for the additional cost. A low spigot with a small drain set into the ground near the door means sandy feet get rinsed before they cross the threshold, which changes the daily maintenance of the house considerably.
Comfortable, Considered Outdoor Furniture
Outdoor furniture is one area where summer home owners most often underinvest and most often regret it. Furniture that isn't genuinely comfortable doesn't get used, which defeats the purpose of having outdoor space at all. Quality outdoor sofas, deep seating with weather-resistant cushions, and dining furniture scaled to actually seat the group are worth the investment. Brands like Janus et Cie, Brown Jordan, Sutherland, and Paola Lenti represent the standard we recommend for clients who want outdoor furniture that holds up beautifully over decades of real use.
For fabric, performance upholstery is a great choice for a summer home. Perennials is our most frequent recommendation at the domestic level, known for its durability and breadth of pattern and color. For clients open to international options, European collections and fabric houses operating under EU textile standards are worth exploring. Those standards are stricter, and the difference in hand feel and longevity is noticeable. For clients who prefer the look of natural linen outdoors, it's entirely achievable with the right fabric selection, but requires a more considered maintenance approach.
Shade Solutions
Usable outdoor space in summer requires shade, and the right solution depends on the property. Retractable awnings offer flexibility and protection. A well-built pergola with a climbing vine or shade sail creates an outdoor room that feels intentional and adds real architectural interest to the property. A covered patio extends the usable season and is one of the features that consistently adds value to a vacation home where most people would like to spend the time outdoors. Whatever the solution, shade should be designed rather than improvised.
For non integrated shade solutions in high-wind coastal areas, anchored options and weighted high-end umbrellas designed specifically for wind exposure like Tuuci, make a significant difference to how usable the outdoor space can be.
An Outdoor Kitchen
Where the footprint and budget allow it, an outdoor kitchen dramatically elevates the summer home experience. A built-in grill, counter space for prep, a small refrigerator, and a sink are the essentials, but the best outdoor kitchens are designed around how the family actually entertains. That might mean a pizza oven, a beverage station, or a long bar counter where guests can pull up a stool and stay close to the action.
When there's a pool on the property, the relationship between the outdoor kitchen and the pool deck deserves careful thought. An outdoor kitchen positioned to face the pool means whoever is cooking is still part of the gathering rather than turned away from it. It keeps the energy connected, which is the whole point of a summer day spent outside. A well-sited outdoor kitchen near the pool also reduces the constant in-and-out to the main house for drinks, snacks, and towels, which is one of those quality of life details that sounds small and isn't.
Well-Integrated Technology
A summer home that's easy to manage from a distance is a summer home that gets more use. Smart home integration for lighting, climate, and security means you can open the house remotely before you arrive, monitor it when you're not there, and close it down at the end of the season without being on site. For a second property, this isn't a luxury. It's a practical necessity.
Whole-home audio is another feature that rewards good planning. A system designed from the start, with speakers integrated into the indoor and outdoor spaces, brings the energy of the main living area outside and throughout the house seamlessly. Retrofitting audio into a finished home is significantly more disruptive and expensive than running it during construction.
High-speed internet, while unglamorous, is now a baseline expectation for any vacation property. Summer homes increasingly serve as remote work locations for weeks at a time, and a connection that can't support video calls and multiple users simultaneously is a genuine liability. Invest in it properly rather than relying on whatever the local provider offers as standard.
A heated pool extends the usable season significantly and is one of the most searched features in vacation home listings. If a pool is already part of the project, the incremental cost of adding heat is modest relative to the overall investment, and meaningful to how much more the pool actually gets used.
A Bunk Room
A dedicated bunk room is one of the features that makes a summer home feel genuinely complete for families. It creates a space where children can have sleepovers, cousins can pile in together, and the social life of the house can extend naturally without displacing adults from their rooms. Built-in bunks with individual reading lights, outlets for charging, and a small amount of dedicated storage for each bunk make the room feel well designed rather than improvised.
A Guest House or Pool House With a Kitchenette
For properties with the square footage to support it, a separate guest house or pool house with a kitchenette is one of the highest-value additions you can make. It gives guests genuine autonomy, extends the capacity of the property for larger gatherings, and is a feature that commands attention in the rental and resale market. Even a modest pool house with a mini kitchen, a bathroom, and a sleeping area adds meaningful versatility to how the property can be used.
A Large Linen Closet
Summer homes generate laundry at a rate that primary residences don't. Beach towels, extra sets of sheets for rotating guest rooms, spare blankets, and a full season's worth of table linens all need somewhere to live. A generously sized linen closet is one of those features that never makes a mood board but that every person who has spent a summer in a house without one will tell you is essential. Build it bigger than you think you need.
Ideally the linen closet sits adjacent to or within a properly sized laundry room. A summer home runs through laundry at a pace that a small stacked unit simply can't keep up with. A full-size washer and dryer, counter space for folding, and enough room to hang items that shouldn't go in the dryer are worth planning for from the start. Laundry rooms never make it into the listing photos but everyone who spends a week in the house will have a strong opinion about it.
A Well-Stocked First Aid Kit
Summer homes are often in locations that aren't easily accessible to medical facilities, and summer activities generate their share of minor injuries. A properly stocked first aid kit, mounted in a visible and accessible location, is a practical necessity that is easy to overlook during the design process.
We also recommend thinking through a few other safety considerations before move-in: a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and one near any outdoor cooking area, carbon monoxide and smoke detectors on every level, life rings or a reaching pole near any pool or waterfront, and a clearly posted list of local emergency numbers including the nearest urgent care and hospital. A summer home should feel carefree. Having these things in place is what makes that feeling possible.
A summer home done well is one of the most rewarding design projects there is. It's a space designed entirely around pleasure, connection, and the particular rhythm of life when the pace slows down. The features that support that life are the ones worth prioritizing from the start.
Nubuor Designs is an interior design studio based in Beacon Hill, Boston, working with homeowners across the country on renovations that deserve to be done right. If you're planning a summer home project and want to make sure it's designed as well as it's built, we'd love to hear more about you and your home. Let's Talk.
