The identity of some places can be disturbed too much by construction to be salvaged. Nature is fragile. Shallow roots, decades of pine needles, crushable strawberries, shade plants at the edges, almost imperceptible slope and subsequent slow crawl of runoff water seemingly stops time. It is easy to be unkind in these places. Care to take away nothing, to feather the soil, to only develop atop the compacted built locations of the past, to be sublime in the face of majestic scale, and to accept the leggy and screened views at increased setbacks—this is how to build in a white pine forest with a shoreline. To be fundamental in structure and form is to defer to the wilderness, complement its resources, and sustain its beauty.
