When asked if his latest project, a vacation home in the Idaho resort town of Sun Valley, is at all based on a local vernacular, Tuscon-based architect Rick Joy bristles.

Located on the turquoise trail between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, the Lone Mountain Ranch House by Rick Joy Architects is a light-filled twist on the low-slung form. The American West merges with the Far East on a 27,000-acre Wagyu-cattle ranch in a ghost town called Golden, New Mexico. Tucson-based architect Rick Joy designed a six-bedroom house for a couple who inherited the land.

Rick Joy shows us his Woodstock Farm, a modern Vermont house rooted in a Northeast vernacular.