Long Island, property of Mr. Murray Fishman | architect Horace Gifford

On a Long Island site not far from the Atlantic Ocean and Great South Bay, a sun-seeking house rises through a dense growth of holly, pines, oak trees and sassafras, clear to the tree tops. For textile stylist Murray Fishman, the house combines the best of two weekend worlds-beach and country-since architect Horace Gifford, who designed it, carefully preserved the site's rich growth and built the house upward to take in the sea view. The usual room plan is reversed: the main living areas are upstairs, the bedrooms on the ground floor where they are tree-shaded, secluded, their windows screened by leafy branches. No sign of the ocean there. But go upstairs and you are suddenly in an airy sun-flooded aerie. If you go out on one of the decks, you can touch a tree top and glimpse the water. Go up still another stairway to the deck on the roof, and you have a magnificent panorama of ocean on one side, bay on the other. "Every- thing about the house is right," says Mr. Fishman, who wanted a retreat that would offer quick relief from his hectic summer work schedule in New York. "The first day I moved in, even while boxes were still around, I felt completely relaxed."