A family fell in love with the spot near the eastern end of Long Island, so they bought and gut-renovated a house, keeping energy-efficiency top of mind.
After Hannes Ciatti and Verena Zannantoni rented a house on Shelter Island, N.Y., in the summer of 2020, they experienced a vacation-time pang of reluctance familiar to many. They didn’t really want to return home.
For Mr. Ciatti, 47, and Ms. Zannantoni, 43, home was Brooklyn. But on Shelter Island, “we couldn’t quite believe there was such a beautiful place just two hours from the city,” said Ms. Zannantoni, who, along with Mr. Ciatti, grew up in the Dolomites of Italy.
“We just fell in love with the island,” she said, “walking to all the little nice beaches, going for bike rides and living this very simple life that reminded both of us of our childhoods.”
By then, the pandemic had rewritten the rules regarding whether they needed to sit in urban offices for work, so the idea of moving to the island full-time seemed like more than just a dream. Mr. Ciatti is a founder of Alto, a creative agency comfortable with virtual work arrangements, and Ms. Zannantoni began working as a freelance project manager shortly before the couple had their children, Ennio, now 5, and Matteo, 3.
Near the end of that summer, they visited a couple of houses for sale on the island, picked their favorite and quickly made an offer. “On the last day of our stay, that offer actually got accepted,” Ms. Zannantoni said.
