By Friday, after all the business meetings and soccer practices and piano lessons are over, it’s time for a little more sky. We’re willing to spend hours on the road just to get to a place where we can fall asleep to whispering pines or wake up to the glint of sunlight on water. In country towns without traffic lights or island enclaves a ferry ride away, time expands, and we can concoct that special pasta sauce, curl up in the middle of the afternoon with a novel, or dangle our feet at the end of a dock, next to a child. Weekend houses, whether the product of an impulse buy or the culmination of a lifelong passion, have the unique ability to put us back in touch with the elemental. Even the most humble retreat helps us reconstitute ourselves so that each of us can become the person we are meant to be.       This view: A private ferry brings residents to this community of well-reserved summer cottages for three and a half months each year, then all goes dormant. Facing page: making seamless repairs to the 1895 house was the goal of the owners, designers and workmen. Automobiles are forbidden on Fire Island; bicycles and wagons carry residents and their gear. Writer: Stephen Henderson Photographer: Jonathan Wallen Producer: Rick Ellis continued on next page