Peace and quiet continue upstairs in the master bedroom. The wall behind the bed hides a walk-around closet. Huge beach-facing windows open wide to a horizontal stretch of steel cables. "That's where you get failings, when you have decks," Schafer says. The soft rushing of a waterfall can be heard through open windows. The water was piped from a nearby culvert to run under the patio and down a rock breakfront to the beach.

THE GOALS: Peace, quiet and oysters. A beach-cabin getaway on a long, very narrow lot (70 feet from highway to beach with 400 feet of beachfront) sandwiched between highway and water. His parents have a small cabin up the road, and Schafer fondly recalls time spent there. "It's a spot that only people who've been here, grew up here, know about. There are so many activities. Hiking in the Olympics. In summer the water is warm enough to swim in. I can pull in 25 Dungeness crab in an hour in the summer. And the oysters!"

BIGGEST REWARD: "Its remoteness. When you get here you feel completely isolated, by yourself. . . There's nowhere to tool around down here, like in the San Juan Islands, so over a weekend I'll hardly see a boat go by."

KEY FEATURES: Light and water. And lots of both. At 1,750 square feet, the house features a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows that open fully to the water. Over the separate 750-square-foot boat house sits a guest cottage with a bedroom and bath. An intercom connects guests and host. The house has a built-in Bose stereo system. The signature sliding garage doors of architect firm Miller-Hull open both sides of the boat house. The in-floor radiant heat can be controlled from Seattle with a remote or by telephone. The security system also can be operated remotely. The home was completed in 2002.
 

Craig Schafer's power boat fills the lower space of the separate boat house in winter, but during the summer, the sliding garage doors on either side throw open the possibilities. "The idea of driving through it gave it the option for all kinds of uses," architect Bob Hull says. "It becomes a cabana on the beach with a pop cooler and shower capabilities, storage for fishing gear, cleaning oysters. I'd be happy with that building alone." Also, Hull sees the space between the buildings as sort of a "car room." "We have to get vehicles down in there and have them make sense. The cars arenšt excluded from the scheme." The guest house above is a bedroom/bathroom.

ARCHITECTS: Miller/Hull Partnership. "I really liked the sight," says Bob Hull of the narrow lot with big possibilities. "If I were to describe a typical Hood Canal cabin, it's the fact that you're crunched between the highway and the beach. A problem became, I hope, an advantage."

Miller/Hull is the American Institute of Architects Firm of the Year for 2003, the equivalent of an Oscar for an architecture firm. It is well known for defining "Pacific Northwest Regional Modernism."

BUILDER: Van Dijk Homes in Belfair. "I don't think (the builder) had ever seen anything like it. He used to cuss out Miller/Hull," Schafer says. The construction was challenging but, in the end, rewarding.

INTERIOR DESIGNER: Dawson Design Associates. "Andrea Dawson does my hotels. She usually doesn't do houses, but she knows my personality. She knows how I want to feel." Schafer describes it as country beach house with a little bit of Cape Cod. Colors are muted blue, buttery yellow, deep red, soft green, cocoa and creamy white.

QUOTE: "This house grows from this spot. It fills it and fits it," Schafer says.

GUILTY PLEASURE: Just inside the front door is a bath/mudroom with a male person's ceramic dream — "my prized possession — my urinal. I don't understand why there's not a urinal in every house. Guys love it. I saw it on a trip to New Zealand, and I said, 'That's the urinal for me!' "

TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS: The half-round, galvanized-steel farm gutters that seem to constantly fill with branches, leaves and pine needles. But what really gets Schafer is one pesky woodpecker over the front-door eve. "It beats the hell out of the trim and then dumps down the side of the house," he says. In an off white that does match the trim, however.

The Montana slate fireplace is nestled into the steps to the dining room. The walls are painted a muted blue and soft yellow, with a bookcase built in along the west wall. The wide-plank floors are old pine shipped from back East finished with a light wash; they carry throughout the dining room and kitchen. The exterior cocoa shingling is carried inside, here in the dining room.

A soapstone counter tops deep-red cabinets in the kitchen. The front of the dishwasher is disguised as a cabinet door. Touches include a Viking stainless-steel oven, antique lights from an old schoolhouse, a farm sink and a swinging glass door to the pantry.