Peace,love & Patterns

A Fairfield, CT, family opts for a simpler life in a coastal cottage.

- ERIN ZAMMETT RUDDY

After three years of living in a large custom-built, modern home, Heather Lipkind and Jason Sunshine realized they wanted something cozier. "We made a list of what we needed to be happy, and it wasn't that much," says Heather, director of maternal-fetal medicine at New York City's Weill Cornell Medicine. 

She and Jason, an executive director at Morgan Stanley, set their sights on the waterside town of Fairfield, CT, where their girls could walk to shops and the beach, and they found this four-bedroom house in 2019.