By Dorte Mandrup-Poulsen, Jens Thomas Arnfred, Louis Becker

This old blacksmith’s warehouse in Lesvos, Greece was converted using light wood, bright white walls and a beautiful concrete floor. “Imperfection is part of life: It’s where the poetry and humor hide,” says Dorte Mandrup-Poulsen, an architect living in Denmark. In keeping with this ethos, she and two other Danish architects (Louis Becker and Jens Thomas Arnfred) have made an old blacksmith’s warehouse their shared second home on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Spending their summers by the sea, the designers and their families have vacationed together for years. “We all lived in Denmark but liked to go on vacation with all the families in the summer,” she says. “We’ve owned it for eight years now, and the kids have a long history together.” Made up of small coastal towns and villages, Lesbos is located in the northeastern corner of the Aegean Sea and is known for its enchanting landscapes. The small village of Plomari sits south of Mount Olympus and is unaffected by tourism, preserving a sense of Greek Old World tradition.