If I had a really big house, I’d want to have an orangery, a magnificent hothouse for citrus trees and exotic plants. My husband and I have talked about it. We’d also like a wood-paneled library with an enormous fireplace, deep leather chairs, a wet bar, and an IMAX screen. Of course, it would be an eco-friendly marvel of a house, with myriad green technology, but it would be huge – so big that we could have a private Metallica concert at one end without disturbing the sleeping cats at the other. And we would.

Alas, our careers in journalism and environmental policy are financially better suited to our modest home. But one can always dream.

Speaking of dream houses: In this edition, we look inside builder Peter Rosbeck Jr.’s new home on Sengekontacket Pond in Edgartown (page 46), and we examine the controversial proliferation of very large houses on Martha’s Vineyard (page 56). We also check out how other industry types shape their own spaces, visiting builder Jim LeRoux’s West Tisbury post-and-beam construction (page 20) and architect Darren Petrucci’s unique Vineyard Haven retreat (page 28).

In the plant world, the pros at the Polly Hill Arboretum continue to learn and evolve (page 36), and gardeners create window boxes for every season (page 72).

We also stop by the workshop of blacksmith Whit Hanschka. Full disclosure: The article was reported last year, before his wife, Nancy Tutko, became the magazine’s associate editor. Potential for nepotism aside, we know readers will be awed by his creativity and workmanship. I wonder if he’d like to make something for our dreamy orangery.