LETTER FROM THE EDITOR – July 2014
by Rebecca Falzano, Managing Editor

Ask anyone who is designing in Maine what inspires them, and nine times out of ten Mother Nature gets the credit. (And really, who could be a better muse?)

The designers in this month’s issue are no exception. In talking with the team who transformed the Vanderbilt Carriage House into a showhouse to benefit the Bar Harbor Historical Society (“Reviving Vanderbilt,” page xx), I learned that several of the designers borrowed their palettes from the surrounding landscape of Mount Desert Island. What could be more beautiful? When Linda Banks set out to design a new home for her clients on a cove in Harpswell, she began with a long and narrow profile to maximize water views—a “linear plan honoring the waterfront setting,” she says. And designers aren’t the only ones stirred by Maine’s natural beauty: the homeowners in our “Room to Grow” story (page xx) had been captivated for 20 years with a sweep of land on the open ocean in southern Maine before eventually buying a house there. “The place is so familiar and personal to us, “ says the homeowner, “and yet, every time I look, I see something different in the waves, the color of the water, or the way the sun lights up the rocks.”

The beauty of our land—and the space we have to explore it—touches anyone who comes here. I spent the last weekend in May on Mount Desert Island, when local businesses were getting ready to flip the signs on their doors to “OPEN.” I wandered into the Jordon Pond Restaurant in Acadia National Park about 45 minutes before they were opening for the season. Outside, staff were wiping down tables where the first popovers of the season would be savored overlooking the pond and Bubble Mountains in the distance. By the time you’re reading this, these tables will be filled with people from all over the world taking in the Maine landscape—and the inspiration that comes with it.