When Elisa Castillo and Rob Solomon bought their East Boothbay property in 2019, the 15-acre parcel had sat on the market for a year. It was densely wooded, covered with scrubby growth, and run through with ledges that threatened to limit buildable lots; roads would have to be built, and electricity and water brought in. But the couple fell under its spell. “It’s a beautiful property with ridges, highs, lows, swamp, everything. We kept hiking through the property, and every time, we saw something totally different,” says Solomon. “It was disorienting. It was magic.” They purchased it and began to plan for a second home that would become a remote work location (Castillo is a psychologist and wellness dean at a public university, and Solomon is a solutions architect for a cybersecurity software company). Veteran travelers, they also wanted to put their Airbnb experience to use designing a home that could be rented when they weren’t using it. A hilltop offered the possibility of an ocean view, and they worked with Kaplan Thompson Architects to design a structure tall enough to see the water while conforming to local height limits. But as they spent more time on the property, they found themselves drawn to a different location: a grove of birch trees surrounding a large maple and spotted with vernal pools. They built a stone firepit there, set some Adirondack chairs around it, and changed their plan.

Putting their custom design on the shelf (for now), they began working with Kaplan Thompson’s sister firm, BrightBuilt Home, to customize a high-performance modular home. Site responsiveness was important to the couple, says Solomon: “I didn’t want a tabula rasa. I didn’t want to take an idea of a house and plop it down anyplace. I wanted to create something shaped around the place.” A modular home is, in fact, brought to the site largely complete, but that doesn’t get in the way of specificity, says architect Jessica Benner, who worked with the couple to modify the firm’s Sidekick model. With an eye toward matching the plans for the hilltop home, they switched the gable form for a shed roof and added clerestory windows under vaulted ceilings. The bedrooms were moved to opposite ends of the module to provide more privacy; the kitchen was converted to a galley. Most high-performance homes are south facing, says Benner, but in this case “the siting of the house has really beautiful views to the east, so we arranged the spaces so that all of that light and sun could come in on the east side.”

Once the design was complete, the home was constructed by KBS Builders in South Paris, while general contractor Mike White of Island Carpentry in Georgetown prepared the site. One of the efficiencies of modular construction is that the foundation can be poured while the walls and roof are being built, rather than in sequence. It can take only two weeks for the home to be constructed in the factory. Then, on “set day,” the home is delivered to the site and positioned by crane, under the supervision of the general contractor, who oversees a team of specialists. At that point, says Benner, 70 or 75 percent of the work is completed. “Once they deliver the module, it takes three months to finish these guys, on average,” says White. “If you build a house from scratch on a foundation, it might be five, six, seven months.” But for White, who has worked with BrightBuilt on around 25 homes, time savings are less important than resource conservation. Several years ago, motivated by the threat of climate change, he committed to building zero-energy homes, which produce all the energy they consume. “It’s the only thing I want to do. It’s the right thing to do, not only for the environment, but also for people’s pocketbooks. It saves money, particularly over a long period,” he says. Because modular construction creates cost savings, it makes zero-energy homes available to more people. “It’s been a mission of BrightBuilt to change the paradigm of modular, bringing high design to the modular industry. It’s meant to make the design and architecture and high performance more accessible,” says Benner.
“I firmly believe that modular is the construction method of the future.”

Finishing the home, for Castillo and Solomon, meant completing its ties to the outdoors. It is a small space—850 square feet—but they never imagined its walls as boundaries. Castillo grew up in Puerto Rico, where, she says, “everyone lives outdoors”; Solomon had a similar experience growing up in a Long Island, New York, beach town and had developed a deep love for the woods while attending summer camp in Maine. They worked with White to add an oversized deck and a separate structure that holds a sauna and outdoor hot tub, while designing a “forest garden” in the birch grove, using stones unearthed during construction. The interior design was “all about elevating natural elements,” says Castillo. They selected light wood trim, clear maple floors, a soapstone countertop, and a fireplace surround made of river stones to anchor the design in nature. Accents in a deep teal were matched to decaying wood they found on the property, which was stained by the green elfcup fungus. Castillo chose artworks that use elemental shapes—circles, squares, and rectangles—in playful ways, to create a calming effect. She hung round mirrors opposite the large windows to bring the forest into the interior and echo the moon motif that appears throughout the home.

The property, which carries the name Forest Spa Maine on Airbnb, was always intended as a retreat, but as construction proceeded during the COVID pandemic, it gained new meanings. By then, the couple had moved beyond camping out on the site: they had built a large platform topped by a Garden Igloo plastic dome tent, and they had also brought in a portable toilet and two-burner gas grill. “We came here every other weekend through that first summer of COVID,” Solomon recalls. “It helped preserve our sanity.” Castillo was heading up the COVID response at her university. “It was so intense,” she says. “We became very mindful of how hungry we are for retreat, escape, relaxation, and wellness. We wanted to create a space not just for us but for others to unplug, be with nature, go hiking, have that meditative experience that could be so healing.” Now that they have a space for themselves and for Airbnb guests, the couple is imagining next steps. They are planning their “third bedroom”—a small, off-grid structure that will expand the home’s capacity for guests. Perhaps they will take that model further, creating private areas for “glamping” around the property; perhaps they will create a wellness retreat. And there’s still that plan for the house on the hill. For now, Castillo says, they are deeply appreciating what they have built. “My favorite thing here is being in the hot tub, when you can see the Milky Way at night. It’s a small house, but you have access to the universe.”

Jorge Arango is in the kitchen, stirring a pot of richly scented soup, when I arrive at his Portland apartment. This in itself is unusual. Homeowners don’t often feed me when I come for tours, but Arango is different from most magazine subjects. He’s a design writer, too. He knows the routine we’re about to undergo because he’s done it hundreds of times himself. He knows the questions I’m going to ask about styling a home, because he wrote the book on it. “I’ve published 13 books,” he tells me as I examine his bookshelf, plus he’s had bylines everywhere one could imagine, from Elle Decor to House Beautiful. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”

And yet, despite his years of experience in our shared arena, Arango isn’t intimidating in person, nor does he boast of his accomplishments. He states them quickly during our walk around his home before directing me to sit at an old, uneven dining table covered in scratches, where he’s placed a vase of yellow tulips that are lolling appealingly about in their vase. “I know Portland has a lot of great restaurants, but I hardly go to them because I love to cook,” he says. “I really love to host and feed people.” Tonight he’s throwing a dinner party for a group of his closest friends or, as he calls it, “members of my pod.”

I imagine it will be an intimate event, that all gatherings at his place must be. The kitchen is also the dining room, which is open to the living room and the “disaster zone” of a mudroom, as he calls it. (I peeked inside; it’s not that bad.) His bedroom opens into the living area and the hallway, and across from it lies the apartment’s sole bathroom. “It’s the biggest bathroom I’ve had in any apartment,” he says. “I just love it. It’s enormous and has this exposed brick wall. And of course, it was brand, spanking new when I moved in.” It’s why he chose this place—the bathroom, the newness, the blank slate of a new home for a new life.

Arango moved to Portland in 2019 after a divorce from his longtime partner. While he has always loved old buildings and old things, he didn’t want to buy another fixer-upper. This Munjoy Hill apartment fits both his needs and his aesthetic sensibilities. The exterior of the building dates back to the early 1900s, but in 2017 a fire tore through the center of the structure. The damage was considerable. Then-owner Kate Anker oversaw renovations. “She’s the one who designed the interior,” explains Arango. “Since it’s a rental, I can’t change a lot.” This doesn’t appear to be a problem: “Kate made some bold moves, like painting the wall in the kitchen black. It really works. And it came with beautiful hardwood floors and built-ins, which are something I have loved since I was a child.” The fire spared the cabinets on the walls and did no lasting damage to the lovely exposed brick. Anker’s redesign relied largely on neutral colors: black, white, and touches of gray-blond wood. “She made some really thoughtful choices, like the light fixtures,” Arango adds. “They’re all different, but you can tell they were designed by the same person.”

It’s a bachelor pad, but unlike the ugly, faux-industrial-chic ones you’ve seen on television, this small home is full of warmth, color, and texture. “I could tell you a story about every object in here,” he says, before opening a drawer to reveal a collection of vintage flatware. “Everything in this space means something to me. Even the sofa, which I bought at Baker Furniture, was something I chose knowing that it would last me decades. I want to have it for years; I want it to last.” Arango’s never been one to worship the new. He believes in the power of antiques and sees the layered, complex beauty of a dinged-up cabinet, a worn leather chair, an almost-grungy patina on a basic wood table. He also knows that, with some effort, many thrift store finds can be transformed, reborn through a baptism of paint stripper and furniture wax. He’s a frequent patron of the Flea for All and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

On a slightly more highbrow level, he’s also become a repeat customer at Greenhut Galleries. Over the past few years, Arango has formed a close friendship with founder Peggy Greenhut Golden. Through his work writing art reviews at the Portland Press Herald, Arango has come to know many members of the local arts community, and he particularly likes supporting contemporary artists. “Jorge has a wide appreciation for all genres,” says Golden. “I don’t know what pieces he will find attractive—he surprises me! But I do know that he can decipher a well-made painting and takes pleasure in acknowledging good craft.” Studio visits “inform and delight Jorge,” and Golden believes his conversations with artists have resulted in a rich appreciation for their works. It makes sense, then, that Jorge chose to hang many of his pieces in a salon style, “coating the walls top to bottom like the Barnes [Foundation] collection in Philadelphia,” explains Golden. “It maximizes the art you can exhibit.”

This is a tricky look to pull off, since every piece needs to make sense in its own context. There needs to be visual harmony in how the works are hung; one must pay close attention to framing and spacing; every element in the grouping must speak to the others. Eclecticism is the goal, while chaos is the pitfall. Arango’s collection is wide-ranging and features landscape paintings, folk art sculptures, collages, photographs, and textile arts. While he has art in every room, usually arranged in groupings, the white living room wall is where he’s created a salon-style experience using miniature American landscapes in gold frames, intricate vintage East Asian and Indian paintings and drawings, a tiny, collaged painter’s rag work by Damariscotta artist Jaap Helder, and two Indonesian wooden puppets that lean out above the matching lamps with nickel bases. While there are many different styles and techniques on display, the art is held together by the overall warmth of the collection, with its tones of gold, rosewood, scarlet, and brown, and by the Lilliputian sense of scale. Even the bigger works ask viewers to look closer at their careful details. “I’m drawn to artists who are obsessive about their work,” he explains. “And obviously, I love Asian antiques and art.”

This appreciation for craftsmanship is on display in his bedroom, where Arango has hung seven framed textiles in a closely spaced arrangement above his pillow-stacked bed. They were a gift from friends Margaret Minister and Stephen Peck, he explains. “They both had been lugging around these scraps of fabric for years because they were so beautiful, and intended to make them into cushions but never got around to it,” he says. Arango knew what to do with them; he took them to Greenhut Galleries and got them precisely framed in rosewood with beige mats. They tone down the busyness of the bedroom with all its various patterns and give a sense of order, as do the matching side tables topped with almost-matching ceramic lamps (one is white, the other seafoam). On the floor, a simple navy blue rug grounds the space. “I got this for a song at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Kennebunk,” he says. “They have the best stuff.”

In fact, there are only a few pieces that Arango didn’t get secondhand, including the living room sofa and coffee table (both from Baker Furniture) and a floor lamp from All Modern. He says he expects the sofa to become worn and show signs of age, because that’s what functional objects do. It’s part of why he has dedicated his career to the world of things. After we tour his apartment, and after we’ve finished eating soup and salad, our discussion turns briefly toward the personal. We talk about the importance of having a spiritual life, the impact friendships can have on us, and our shared interest in making meaning out of everyday objects. I tell him why I like his home, and he calls my attention to the wobbly table, then to a Hitchcock chair. “Isn’t this special?” he asks. It is.

Later, after I’ve returned home, I open my computer and find an email from Arango. He had been thinking about things after I left, he said, and he wanted to expand on our conversation. I can’t think of any better way to conclude than by sharing what he wrote:

“At some dimension of reality, all mystical traditions acknowledge there is no fundamental difference between the table, the fork, the painting, and us. All of reality is made of the same thing. We could debate what that thing is. But from this perspective, it’s easy to see that if everything is one, then the things we love and own speak some aspect of ourselves back to us. They are, literally, part of us. We don’t have to carry all those things through our entire life. There’s a lot of unnecessary stuff we can certainly shed, about our things as well as ourselves. And as we grow and change, some things lose meaning, so we let them go. But it boils down, at some level, to ‘my cherished possessions, myself.’”

There’s concern in architectural and design circles about the decline of the hand sketch. A drawing is not meant to replace a finished rendering or be a masterpiece but rather part of a designer’s creative process. “What has happened to our profession, and our art,” said renowned architect Michael Graves to the New York Times, “to cause the supposed end of our most powerful means of conceptualizing and representing architecture?” While Graves acknowledged the importance of computers for presenting data and creating detailed construction documents, he argued that an architect’s hands as creative tools should never become obsolete. Many iconic designs throughout history have begun as a simple sketch on a napkin, place mat, or scrap of paper, from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater to the “I Love New York” logo drawn by Milton Glaser in red crayon on an envelope in the back of a taxi. With this spirit in mind, MH+D, Knickerbocker Group, and the Portland Society for Architecture invited Maine designers to join us at Novare Res Bier Café in Portland for a drink and a chance to create their own napkin sketches. Participants were given five prompts and some pens and napkins and asked to produce as many or as few sketches as they wished within the allotted time. Here are the results.

PROMPTS

Each guest was asked to create one or more drawings based on the following prompts.

• A downtown train station for Portland
• A structure based on your favorite board game
• A children’s play fort/treehouse in Deering Oaks Park
• An adaptive new use for an old space (mill, shopping mall, box store)
• A reimagined Adirondack chair

CHRIS DELANO
Principal/Owner
DELANO ARCHITECTURE

“I am fascinated by the relationships of people and the fabric of places. These sketches address the collective effect that relationships have on a composition. They are visual studies: lines become an object, each object joins other objects to create movement, a point of view, and a place. A story emerges.”

RACHEL CONLY
Owner/Design Director
JUNIPER DESIGN + BUILD

“For me, the best seat in the house is always at the edge of the sea. The Adirondack prompt inspired a chair shaped from earth that is designed to provide a contemplative, front-row view of the tides and ocean life with easy access for full immersion or soaking one’s feet.”

DANIELLE FOISY
Architect
JUNIPER DESIGN + BUILD

“The treehouse is made up of interconnected pods, designed to foster imagination in nature through playful exploration or as a refuge in the trees.”

HENRI JP BIZINDAVYI
Designer
JUNIPER DESIGN + BUILD

“Envisioning the future of downtown Portland’s train station is like sketching a bridge through time, where the echoes of the past meet the wisdom of nature, guiding us toward a sustainable tomorrow. The goal is to create a space where the elegance of historical architecture seamlessly merges with organic forms inspired by our intricate ecosystem.”

CHRISTOPHER DUDLEY
Lead Carpenter
JUNIPER DESIGN + BUILD

“I drew a reimagined box store, turning a Home Depot into an apartment complex with indoor/outdoor community spaces. It was a fun evening of sketching and seeing what other creative people came up with from the prompts given.”

RICHARD LO
Senior Architectural Staff
KAPLAN THOMPSON ARCHITECTS

“My last sketch of the evening, the ‘Peacorondack,’ was no doubt helped along by excellent company and beverages. A slightly showy upgrade for a familiar and iconic vacation chair, it is best displayed prominently in small groups scattered at the edge of sloping lawn facing a lake, river, or the Atlantic Ocean.”

PAIGE BECHTLE
Interior Designer
KAPLAN THOMPSON ARCHITECTS

“We get so accustomed to drawing from observation or designing what’s ‘typical’—it was so enjoyable to stretch our creativity with playful prompts and places we are all fond of here in Maine!”

GRACE TISDALE
Project Manager
KAPLAN THOMPSON ARCHITECTS

“Although seemingly impractical, the ‘S’mores Chair’ is a comfortable yet supportive chair throughout the day, and then as you settle in for the evening and light a fire, you can enjoy your seat as it melts into a treat!”

KATIE BRADDOCK LA ROSE
Architect
KAPLAN THOMPSON ARCHITECTS

“The Adirondack chair is all about sinking back, relaxing, and taking in the surrounding views; this reimagination favors togetherness as well. The ‘Adirondack in the Round’ allows for few or many to gather, as if around a fire, for conversation and company. The semicircle pieces can be rearranged into a landscape of their own.”

ERIC WITTMAN
Senior Project Designer, Architecture
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“Imagine turning the shell of a familiar national brand into a vertical farm. The structure and layout would make it an easy transition, and existing loading docks would be a plus. Naming the farm ‘Garden Encapsulated Towers’ or simply ‘Grow Eats Tall’ would allow you to ‘adaptively reuse’ half of the existing sign.”

STEVEN MANSFIELD
Senior Associate Landscape Architect
MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM LANDSCAPE DESIGN

“It was a great evening to be with some of Portland’s best designers and contribute to conversations that came up from wildly different sketch prompts. It’s always fun to step back, let loose, and draw the first thing that comes to mind.”

KARL ALAMO
Designer
MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM LANDSCAPE DESIGN

“The Maine landscape is lush, rugged, and hosts a way of life inimitable and seldom rivaled. For a transportation center, I envision simple uses of steel that celebrate the early industry of rural Maine life, nestled into a landscape abundant with locally native plants and stone—a welcome home, and a reminder to return soon.”

ERIK MILLES
Principal
CHARRON | REFLEX LIGHTING

“I loved seeing the creativity and hand drawing skills of everyone involved. Drink and Sketch holds a special place in my heart because it brings us back to the very essence of architecture and design: putting pencil to paper, letting the mind explore, and sharing it with others to enjoy.”

RUSS TYSON
Principal
WHITTEN ARCHITECTS

“Introducing a light rail train station to the peninsula would make it a breeze to hop off the train and dive right into Portland’s downtown neighborhoods. It would spark more foot traffic and energy in the charming Old Port while keeping the car chaos to a minimum.”

GEORGE WORKMAN
Senior Landscape Architect
SMRT ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS

“While the world changes and moves away from analog so quickly, and freehand drawing threatens to go the way of cursive, it’s truly a pleasure to enjoy the company of colleagues and friends while drawing freehand. It feels like a vignette of the old days.”

SOREN DENIORD
Owner/Principal
SOREN DENIORD DESIGN STUDIO

“Drink and Sketch was a fun ‘after-work’ gathering and a chance to connect outside of shared projects. The prompts were imaginative, and I enjoyed hearing and seeing different people’s interpretations.”

KARI GALLOW-WRIGHT
Landscape Designer
TED CARTER INSPIRED LANDSCAPES

“There is something wonderful about reimagining a board game as a livable space. I began by studying the pieces and elements of particular games before things took on a more concrete form. I particularly enjoyed drafting a Monopoly walkway with a focus on material, shape, and color.”

TED CARTER
President
TED CARTER INSPIRED LANDSCAPES

“As my mind wandered during the sketching event, my inner child came out to play, and I found myself daydreaming about various country settings. I went off script. The natural world has so many hills and valleys filled with mystery and intrigue, both timeless and limitless.”

ALEX HABA
Designer
WHITTEN ARCHITECTS

“I heard that Casco Bay Lines is expanding…underwater railroad from the Eastern Prom to Brunswick.”

TORI GITTO
Designer
WHITTEN ARCHITECTS

“Throughout the game of dominoes, lines extend and join into lengthy shapes of legible connection. Structures share a similar language by using compatibility to build and join together what would otherwise appear to be dissimilar or incompatible. Warning: Carelessness may result in a chain reaction of fallen dominoes and failed structure!”

ALYSSA PHANITDASACK
Project Architect
WHITTEN ARCHITECTS

“A sketch is a seed. Drink and Sketch is my favorite event that encourages casual cross-pollination of creative minds.”

CHRISTIAN A. PRASCH
Architectural Designer
WINKELMAN ARCHITECTURE

“I had fun with the space station Chutes and Ladders scene. I enjoy changing the scale of an object in an attempt to make something new, and this game provides easy fodder for such an exercise.”

DAVID DUNCAN MORRIS
Partner
WOODHULL

“One fun thing on top of another!”

PATRICK BOOTHE
Director, Commercial Studio
WOODHULL

“I often take my 2½-year-old to Deering Oaks playground, where I imagine one of the majestic oaks soaring to 300 feet. After a lightning strike, it miraculously stands tall, transformed into an observation deck with a near-perfect, code-compliant spiral staircase leading to the top. Oh, and it has a zip line, of course.”

JOHN MUCCIARONE
Senior Project Manager
ZEROENERGY DESIGN

“Treehouse: an elevated, urban escape in nature that is simple, playful, and imaginative for the inner child in all of us.”

DUSTIN TISDALE
Residential Studio Project Manager
WOODHULL

“Napkin sketches are the idea droplets that fill the cup of a complete design. Sometimes a little drips out to make room for better ideas…I’m still waiting.”

RICK NELSON
Practice Leader, Architecture
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“The world is in Trouble. It’s best to stay above it.”

GREG NORTON
Senior Project Designer
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“An infrastructure that allows a Portland worker to park out of town and take a trolley to work, relieving Portland of vehicular congestion. One big train station, or series of unique neighborhood stations—anything to create more public transit options as Portland continues to grow.”

TREVOR WATSON
Design Studio Leader, Architecture
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“Being open to different view is a skillset which affords us many opportunities in life—what is more powerful than the physical manifestation of this concept? A treehouse in a park, elevated, built into the branches and leaves. A child’s first experience with a space to call their own.”

TYLER DOHERTY
Revit Specialist and BIM Manager
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“Imagine the possibilities if we innovate the millions of square feet of shopping malls in this country to become rooftop gardens and pastures. They would feed local communities, reduce the risk of food deserts, and bring people a sense of pride in what would otherwise be a desolate expanse of concrete and asphalt.”

LEAH LIPPMANN
Design Studio Leader, Interiors
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“I chose Commercial Street as the location for a grand train station that brings the heritage of trains back into the city. The steel structure acts as a bridge between the past and present while sleek new trains make the trip into the city quick and easy.”

Joan Lasky Saba and Mark Saba, Pittsburgh natives who raised their family in Connecticut, began renting homes in Maine for stretches of time when their son decided to attend Bowdoin College. But the state’s many charms soon lured them in, convincing them to settle here permanently. “I found this 800-square-foot, two-bedroom cottage on the internet,” Joan recalls. “The price was slashed, and I wondered why.”

Curious, she flew up to Maine and drove to West Bath. From the moment she entered the 4.3-acre
property abutting Winnegance Bay, she recalls, “I felt it was something magical.” She was so moved, adds Mark, “When the realtor told the owner Joan had gotten teary-eyed, the owner said, ‘I want them to have it.’”

The house itself, however, was not going to be sufficient to accommodate their retirement plans. Mark had been a medical illustrator and graphic designer for Yale University, but he wanted to pursue his love of painting, poetry, and fiction writing full-time, which required a studio. Joan, though still a partner at an architectural firm specializing in hospitals and academic medical centers, was also a painter in search of her own studio space. “I knew there was no way I’d have the time to design a home,” she says. So she hired David Matero Architecture, whose work she had found in design magazines.

Matero and Eric Smith of Oceanside Builders quickly realized a few possible reasons the property’s price had been reduced. “It was on a steep slope,” explains Matero. “There was about a 50- or 60-foot drop to the house, then another 30-foot drop to the water.” Additionally, there were building restrictions associated with waterfront setbacks and septic systems. “There was not a lot of buildable land.”

Furthermore, adds Smith, “We knew we were going to hit rock at some point, and we did, but only on one part of the house and not the other. I wasn’t going to build one half of the house on fill and the other on ledge.” After consultations with an engineer, Smith solved the issue by hammering back the ledge and bringing in “proper backfill so that the house would be evenly distributed on the base.”

As for the paucity of buildable land, Matero designed a contemporary crescent-shaped structure. “The landscape really formed this house,” he observes. “The crescent opens up corners on the water-facing side of the house but embraces the topography in the front. The hillside goes way up on the right, so the tall part of the house relates well to its height.” His clients also didn’t want their home to stand out like a sore thumb from the water, so Matero “broke up the massing,” which turned out to have an added advantage: the collection of small roofs drain water more effectively than one big roof would have. That water now streams down through a valley created by the varying rooflines and cascades dramatically like a waterfall outside the main living space. However, Smith explains, to help prevent pooling and foundation-damaging backwash, “We created a dry riverbed look over a storm drain that carries it away from the building.”

Inside, the multiple rooflines create a dynamic play of pine-clad angles overhead but also slope toward the view, training the focus on the waterfront. To ensure a contemporary sensibility that is nevertheless informed by the locality’s sense of place, “We kept rusticity to a minimum without ignoring the surroundings,” says Matero. For instance, Douglas fir paneling enveloping the primary
bedroom is a nod to camp style, as is the stone fireplace, except here the stone is cut into blocks rather than left natural, thus telegraphing a cleaner profile. The warmth of wood and its relation to the forested site continues onto the floors, which are oak throughout.

As an architect with a substantial understanding of design, Joan proved an ideal collaborator with Jeanne Handy of Jeanne Handy Designs on interior finishes and furnishings. “We talked about bringing the outside in with the palette and details like wallpaper and hardware,” remembers Handy. “But the idea for me is always to be less obvious—not to look like the outdoors, but to evoke the feeling the outdoors brings, the serenity the site already has.” The point was to “create ‘aaah’ moments where your shoulders drop a little.”

Says Handy, “It’s always fun for me to work with clients who are artistic. It facilitates a group process rather than having me dictate a style. The Sabas have an excellent eye and are open to things that are different.” They were also quick studies, apparently. “Jeanne and I selected all the light fixtures in 90 minutes,” notes Joan.

Green (primarily Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt in a matte finish) and blue were obvious choices for the color palette, but they are also subtle and susceptible to changes in light throughout the day. Wallpapers bring in elements of surprising pattern and color, such as stylized stripes on the wall behind a bed in a guest room, and the midnight blue paper with a gold pattern of the cosmos in a hidden reading nook tucked behind the fireplace.

The reading nook, one of several unusual features of the home, was Joan’s idea and is sure to be a highly coveted sleeping accommodation for grandchildren. Another of Joan’s unique, innovative details is a 38-by 38-inch “puzzle drawer” that pulls out of the kitchen island. Rather than have a jigsaw puzzle occupying a surface when no one is working on it, she explains, “you can just drop it into the drawer.”

Other elements that differentiate the house from a standard shingle-clad camp are architectural. Matero swathed the entry volume’s exterior with dark bronze corrugated metal. “We didn’t have to use metal,” he admits, but doing so “highlights the entrance and the staircase just inside.” There’s a considerable amount of shadow play activated by the rooflines, but also by brise-soleils, screen panels that protrude horizontally from the tops of windows, breaking up the sunlight both on the exterior and inside the house as it filters through them.

One of Joan’s favorite novelties is a clerestory window in her studio set into the wall within a chamfered edge. “I called David and said, ‘Wait a minute. This reminds me of the windows in Ronchamp’”—better known as Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut, Le Corbusier’s famous structure in
Ronchamp in northeast France. Indeed, her hunch about this architectural reference was accurate, he assured her.

Outside, Jorgensen Landscaping created mulched paths and stone steps to convey the Sabas, their family, and guests through the woods and down to the water, all bordered by native plantings that simply bring a bit more order to the wildness of the site.

As Handy mentioned, the cumulative result of architecture, interiors, and landscaping leans heavily into the serenity that the outdoors brings. For homeowners preoccupied with creative endeavors, this turns out to be quite generative. “We love the silence here,” says Mark, noting that they hid the television out of sight purposely, which helps them concentrate on their respective art forms. “Growing up in Pittsburgh,” he explains, “I was really familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.
This is not that, of course, but I like the feeling of being so tied to nature. The site is conducive to that.”