“We are 251 steps to the beach,” Donna Porritt says as I step into her Mariner’s Watch villa, “but who’s counting?”

At 625 square feet, there is a lot about the villa that could rely on numbers. Whether you attribute the tiny house movement or reducing your carbon footprint, the art of downsizing—living full time in a significantly small space without sacrificing the luxuries and belongings that matter to you most—is fun, and Donna and husband Sam Bromage perfected it by having “right-sized” living in mind from the start of their renovation until the day they brought the last of their belongings from Connecticut.