Sauvie Island—a river island 10 miles northwest of downtown Portland, Oregon—is a gem of a place to live. Cradled by the Columbia River to the east and the Multnomah Channel to the west, the island is a nature lover’s paradise, replete with farms full of berry patches, roughly 11,500 acres of wildlife reserve, and several stretches of white sandy beaches. Its charming scenery is the reason a family of four chose it as the location for their second home, finding a 1979 fixer-upper to make their own. “You got to one bedroom through the garage,” designer Jessica Helgerson notes of the preexisting structure’s flaws. (Other absurdities included a toilet bowl…