FEATURE-September 2010

By Debra Spark | Photography Irvin Serrano

A fresh take on old-fashioned charm

There was so much to love about the dilapidated cottage, built in 1890, when a young Boston family first found it more than a decade ago. From its graceful lines, its intimate porches, and its welcoming scale—it was a vacationland dream.
But there was more: it sat at the end of a long alee of mature locust trees, on a sun-drenched point overlooking the wide, blue waters of Penobscot Bay on three sides. When visitors imagine Maine’s spectacular vistas, they ache for spots like this. All it needed was a good polish and a designer with chutzpa.

The family enlisted a local builder, Terry Wuori, and Boston-based designer Sheldon Tager to make it livable—but not make it new. They restored the cottage, and then some. They made two small sitting rooms into one generous one. They added a modest kitchen, with a master bedroom above, that looks as if it had been there all along. And they refreshed nearly every surface with several coats of artfully applied paint.

“The intent was to honor the house,” the homeowner says. “It’s a bit chipped and frayed, a little worn. It’s the personality of the house, and it really guided the process of the design.”

Even though it has been restored, the home still retains, in its bones, the sense of having been lived in for centuries. And it is this lingering, atmospheric quality that makes the house feel so good. It is comfortable and cushy, yet elegant and respectful of its history.

That kind of alchemy was just what the homeowners hoped for when they met Tager at his popular Beacon Hill shop, Belle Maison. “I remember walking by and telling my husband, ‘Oh, I want my house to look like that,’” she recalls. “I loved everything about it.”
The couple admired Tager’s elegant family spaces. He has a collector’s eye, and stashes of beautiful European and Canadian antiques. So they asked if he could work his magic at their new vacation home. The trick: make it look like the furnishings might have been collected over generations, and make it comfortable enough for a growing family that now includes four young children (as the family has grown, so has the house: it now measures 2,500 square feet).

The homeowners originally planned to move in before Memorial Day in 1999, but construction delays required them to move their target to Thanksgiving. Tager and his team were ready. “We had to do paper and paint, but the contractors were still working—and we were living in the house.” It all came down to the wire, as many ambitious plans do. An outgoing Tager met the incoming homeowners on the mainland side of the ferry.

The level of detail on this house is the level Tager likes best: everything in its place. Cutlery fills the drawers. Pantries are stocked. Towels hang in the bathrooms. “They just have to come along and settle in,” he says. And settling in includes having plenty to read.
On a round, draped table in the entry hall, Tager piled volumes he knew the homeowners would enjoy. “The owner reads constantly, and I found beautiful books about his hobbies—boating, sailing, and politics, to start with.” Naturally, the owner has added to his welcoming library ever since.

The house is filled with little surprises, too. In the living room hangs a black-and-white photograph of the University of Maine football team circa 1911. On the side porch, an antique American flag finds a new purpose as a patriotic porch-swing pillow. A rattan seafarer’s trunk holds blankets at the foot of the toile and gingham master bed.

“These folks don’t like things to look new,” Tager says, pointing to the mottled parchment walls, reminiscent of old plaster, that were glazed by decorative painter Martha Fletcher. “They needed it to be friendly to children. They live in and use their things.”

Everything in the house was meant to look old and handmade, right down to the fine copper screens that warm every breezy window. Tager grew up in Montreal, and he has worked on homes from Mexico to Vermont. His varied clients mean his aesthetic approach adapts to each. “This is a country-cottage style, filled with less formal, peasanty pieces,” he says. Among the most striking of these is the large French grain measure that hangs from the kitchen wall. Its patina speaks volumes about the room, all round and warm and nourishing.

In fact, you would be hard-pressed to see that—despite its antique timber beams and beadboard ceiling, its massive antique pine island, and a restored enameled-iron stove—the kitchen is all new. The room serves up equal measures of elegance and coziness. Spare Windsor armchairs sport soft seat cushions. Bright yellow and blue toile abound.
Just beyond the kitchen, the family later added the screened-in porch and a small children’s bedroom above. The bedroom and its magical window-seat daybed are tucked into the eaves and papered in yellow sailboats and charm. It leads to a back staircase that winds down to—where else?—the kitchen.

In the process of making something look fresh and worn, Tager’s pragmatic streak may just be his greatest strength. “Everything doesn’t have to be old,” he says. “Old isn’t necessarily better, and it can be prohibitively expensive. I’m a very pragmatic person, and folks are either practical or need to be.” Case in point: the floors. Painted floors are traditional and relative easy to maintain—a clear choice in a seaside home. Nearly every floor here is awash in subtle color. In some rooms, including the master bedroom, they’re bright, creamy white. The entry hall and kitchen feature a lively celadon and cream checkerboard. A lavishly painted oriental “runner” leads you up the main staircase.

But the piece de resistance lies on the back porch. A hand-painted hooked rug—a study in pointillism, really—was hatched by Tager along with Fletcher, with whom he has collaborated for 15 years. “We looked at lots of ideas and some old rugs we both liked,” Fletcher recalls. “When he asked, ‘Could I do it?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’ll sit on a gorgeous screened porch on Isleboro, overlooking the ocean, and paint. The place is so beautiful, it just breeds creativity.” It took Fletcher and her daughter four days to complete. “It’s perfect for the place it’s in.”

Kids breeze onto the screened porch, toss their sandals in generous antique storage bins Tager found in Quebec, and make their way into the kitchen or to the spectacular flagstone patio just beyond. Like all the other details of the big cottage the family now calls its home away from home, it seems as if it was meant to be. All along.