Since first visiting Martha’s Vineyard, John and Sharon DaSilva of Polhemus Savery DaSilva have enjoyed both the rural Chilmark landscape and the architectural exuberance of the cottages of Oak Bluffs. Their original idea was to build a similar cottage, but the site that was available (and affordable) implied something a little different. It suggested a "tree house." Both ideas are combined in the cottage they designed.

The porch, with its curves and brackets, recalls the Victorian Gothic of Oak Bluffs, but the details are flattened, and enlarged to be visible from a distance through the trees. They reinterpreted the in-town model for a more rural woodland site. When approached from the road, the front is seen through a "cathedral" of trees. Vertical elements in the porch structure, and the board and batten siding on the adjacent wall, echo the scale and verticality of the trees. The porch is scaled to the landscape beyond, not the tiny house to which it is attached.

Like shoreline houses designed to expand water views, they put the living spaces on the second floor. In their case, it was not a water view they were seeking, but the feeling of being up in the trees. The second floor location also allowed them to give the living space more drama by opening it up into the tent-like volume defined by the roof, the height of which was set by a twenty-four-foot limit. A strip of windows that fold around the east, south and west sides, provide treetop views and makes the small living space almost porch-like. Broad overhangs provide shading from the summer sun.