This shorefront Shelter Island retreat designed by William Pedersen ‘rises from the land, almost like an island emerges from water’.

The copper-clad New York property was conceived as a weekend home for the architect, whose firm, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, is responsible for some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers.

However, while Pedersen’s firm might reach for the sky, his own sculptural island retreat adopts a purposefully low profile that ‘blends into nature as much as possible’, as he told The New York Times.

The three-bedroom Long Island property – listed for $8.495m with Sotheby’s International Realty – was two decades in the making, finally completed in 2005. Rooms are framed with douglas fir timber, bush-hammered concrete and bluestone, and orientated to capture views of the Gardiners Bay.

As well as its 4,700 sq ft of interior space, the architect’s home has a stretch of private water frontage and just under three acres of meadowland surrounding the compound.

Award-winning Postmodern New York home by Robert A M Stern lists for $2.75m