Like the family that once spent long, golden summers in its embrace, the Barnhart home on Anne Arundel County’s Cypress Creek has matured. The former “little house with a big porch,” as owner Ellen Barnhart describes it, has been replaced by a contemporary hideaway that’s both a retreat for her and a gathering place for her three children and seven grandchildren—a “Zen cottage,” in the words of her architect, Chip Bohl.

The home, built in 2001, supplanted a beloved but unheated bungalow that Barnhart and her husband purchased thirty years ago. In this incarnation, the screened porch rises to fifteen feet at its gabled peak. A wood-burning fireplace at one corner stands ready to chase the dawn’s chill. “In the morning, I’m always out on the porch or the dock with my coffee,” Barnhart says. “If it’s really cold, I’ll put on an extra robe.”

Four full-length, custom-glass panels on tracks separate the porch from the interior, sliding into a hidden pocket during pleasant weather. Their sleekness enhances the Scandinavian mood in the great room, with its white walls, maple floors, and streamlined furniture. The minimalism is much to Barnhart’s taste. “I love white, and I love spare,” she says with a smile. “I’m a big believer in the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle.” To that end, she found a willing partner in architect Bohl, who kept the inner spaces serene but added unexpected geometry that keeps the views interesting. “When Ellen showed me the magazine clips she liked, they were very architectural and abstract—lots of Manhattan lofts,” says Bohl. “But she had also told me that she wanted something that felt like a summer home, relaxed and comfortable, to accommodate her children and grandchildren. I said, ‘Ellen, these images are beautiful, but I’m not seeing summer house here.’ We had a good laugh about that. She understood the contradiction. That’s where we started.”

Bohl angled walls and created unconventional openings to maximize the water views from the narrow lot. “Almost nobody walks in without saying, ‘Oh!’” says Barnhart of the home’s entryway, which opens on to the main room and the panorama beyond.

Along the floating stairway that rises at the left, a curtain of fixed steel rods drops from the ceiling to anchor each tread. The same motif repeats on the gallery banister on the second floor, where a pair of baths and a trio of bedrooms (one, a six-bunk dormitory) accommodate visiting family and friends. Clearly, it’s a house made for gathering. “I can entertain thirty or forty people here,” Barnhart says. “Every New Year’s Eve, I have a group of friends down for four or five days.” When she hosts her grandchildren, they romp through the same bayside adventures that their parents once enjoyed. (Judging from the number of kayaks, fishing poles, and tubes on the waterside deck, it’s quite a party.) “The sandy beach was one of the features that sold us on the original property,” remarks Barnhart. Another was the view of Gibson Island from the end of the pier, its misty contours like a mirage on the horizon.

From the pier, the house seems to flow toward the water, fanning out like the prow of a large ship. But from the street side, it presents a different aspect. Bohl sliced-and-diced the traditional exterior elements, setting the front porch askew and adding three idiosyncratic, second-story dormer windows. “They’re the visual clues to the house,” Barnhart says. “You can tell something different is going on inside.”

The roof is a curved plane with a sloping ridge—a design that yields extra reflected light and acoustic dampening inside, according to Bohl. “I don’t know how they managed to build that,” Barnhart laughs. Yet, with its neutral wood siding and warm red accents, the house nestles easily into the surrounding neighborhood.

Furnishings are purposely simple to highlight the contemporary look. “I wanted warm, modern, and comfortable,” says Barnhart, pointing out the armless couches flanking a red leather ottoman. Above the teak dining table, an Ingo Maurer chandelier of Japanese paper casts a glow. The decor gets even simpler in summer, with white slipcovers over the seating and the silk Tibetan rugs sent on vacation.

Despite the home’s austerity, there’s a place for the Wii and Xbox generation, too. The lower level is a full-sized game room, where ten-foot ceilings and a Ping-Pong table provide plenty of romping space.

Surveying the house contentedly, Barnhart approves of the mix: Bohl’s “fractured” vision, the splendid views over the water, and the passing parade of grandchildren. “What I like best is that there’s always something to look at,” she says.

Carol Denny writes from Arnold, Md.