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Yellow waterfront residence with old barn in background

A Traditional Take: Old Soul Style for a New Midcoast Retreat

October, 2025 | By: Alyssa Bird | Photography: Jeff Roberts

The owners of this midcoast residence share a deep love of old houses, having taken on hefty restoration projects in the past—including their early-nineteenth-century primary residence in Charleston, South Carolina. The couple, who have three grown children, have been visiting Maine for 40 years and most recently owned a farmstead farther inland. However, when the opportunity to purchase a 70-acre waterfront property presented itself, they couldn’t pass it up. The idyllic setting featured a residence from 1810, a barn that predates the Civil War, and mature lilacs, magnolias, and apple trees. There was one problem, however: The home, which had undergone several bad expansions and hadn’t been properly cared for, was too far gone to salvage. Not the ideal situation for a couple of old house lovers, but it did present a unique opportunity for the pair to tailor a new building to their specific needs. Not wanting to stray too far from the traditional style they adore, the couple enlisted Charleston-based architect Glenn Keyes, with whom they had previously worked on two historic renovations.

With the intention of modeling the new structure after the Federal mansions so commonly found in the state, Keyes and the clients set out to visit a few prime examples in the midcoast area. One of them was the Kavanagh residence, an 1803 estate built by housewright Nicholas Codd for prominent merchant and shipbuilder James Kavanagh in Damariscotta Mills. (Kavanagh’s son, Edward, went on to become governor of Maine and lived in the home until his death in 1844.) The private residence isn’t normally accessible, but as luck would have it, the new owners were embarking on its renovation and accommodated a walk-through. “We had shown Glenn photos and historical research on the Kavanagh property and asked him to use it as broad inspiration for our project,” explains the husband. “When you think of nineteenth-century Maine houses, there are either saltwater farms with attached barns or sea captains’ homes like this. We wanted to respect the state’s architectural history and use this style as a template while incorporating elements of nineteenth-century Charleston properties, such as higher ceilings and larger windows. In Charleston, we live in a very formal 1801 Federal home. For the Maine property, we were after a combination of architectural elegance with a more casual, relaxed style of living. It’s similar in spirit, but the detailing is less ornate than what we have in Charleston.”

Also joining the team were the design-build firm Knickerbocker Group, who was responsible for both construction and landscape architecture. Landscape architect practice leader Kerry Lewis helped with the overall site design, new entry sequence, and planting scheme. “It’s an incredible property, so we discussed how to position the new house to maximize the views,” says Lewis. “There was a lot of talk about preserving as much mature vegetation as possible, from the apple trees and lilacs near the barn to the old magnolia trees in front. We also rerouted the driveway to eliminate a straight view of the house from the road. Now, there’s a lovely entry experience from the road to the front door, with an S-curve drive that provides both privacy and sound buffering. When you arrive at the building, a circular drive loops around one of the existing magnolia trees.”

When it came to the design of the 5,500-square-foot residence, Keyes certainly looked to the Kavanagh mansion for inspiration, but it is by no means meant to be a replica. The most prominent element borrowed from the Kavanagh property is the octagonal cupola, but the facade incorporates many commonly seen features of the period, including a Palladian window, an entry portico, and engaged corner pilasters. “We took measurements and photos of details we liked while touring the Kavanagh residence and other Federal structures, but there’s no relationship when it comes to the actual layout of the home,” says the architect. “The goal was to interpret the style in a way that works for these clients.” Still, there’s a sense of formality in the plan—especially in the front of the home, where a library and dining room flank the entry hall. From the entry, one can see out the rear windows to the water beyond. “At the end of the hall is a more casual family room, which has lots of glass,” notes Keyes. In fact, a large family room where the family can convene, relax, and enjoy the water vistas was a specific request from the clients. “We knew we wanted a space where lots of people can spread out, with multiple conversation areas, a table for puzzles, and a fireplace,” says the wife.

The kitchen, adjacent to the dining room, is another area where the couple had some specific ideas. “I wanted a blue and white color scheme,” continues the wife, who notes that the backsplash behind the range features handmade Portuguese tiles. Some of the kitchen ceiling beams were salvaged from the original house. While the wife had a clear aesthetic vision for the kitchen, the husband’s main concern was function and ensuring that there was a large prep island facing the cove. Rounding out the main floor is a sunroom, while there are four bedrooms on the second level. One of the most beloved features of the home, however, is the octagonal cupola that offers a 360-degree view of the surroundings. Perfect for enjoying a sunset cocktail, some stargazing, or quietly reading, the space is accessed via a narrow, winding stair complete with a braided rope rail made by a local shipbuilder. “You actually feel as though you’re climbing up a ship,” notes the husband. There’s even a compass rose on the ceiling. “It’s a really special spot that appeals to the child in everyone,” adds the wife.

Throughout the residence, it’s the small details, timeless materials, and expert craftsmanship that contribute to the impression that the structure is much older than it is. “From the door surrounds to the mantels, the woodwork is highly ornamented and refined,” says Keyes, adding that each room features its own distinctive plaster mouldings based on the room’s hierarchy of importance, as historically done, with the more elaborate mouldings in the most formal spaces. “What’s fascinating is that many of the mouldings we saw in the Federal structures we visited are typical of Charleston’s Greek Revival homes,” notes the architect, who worked closely with Knickerbocker Group to replicate their favorites. “It took a lot of collaboration with the architect, clients, and millworkers,” says Knickerbocker Group’s Steve Arnold. “We did mock-ups so Glenn and the clients could see the moulding profiles in the room, which really helped. The home feels like it has been there for 200 years.” And it’s not just the people closest to the project who think so, as the wife points out. “We recently had some workmen in the house, and one asked me how old the place is,” she recalls. “He had guessed it was from the early nineteenth century, and that’s exactly what we were hoping to accomplish.”

The Craftsman & His Company: Nate Holyoke’s Passion for Woodcraft

October, 2025 | By: Katherine Gaudet | Photography: Heidi Kirn

I’m a fourth-generation builder,” says Nate Holyoke. “I always knew what I wanted to do.” After completing a vocational curriculum in carpentry during high school, he briefly worked as a subcontractor before starting his own company at the age of 20, leaning on his “family-generated knowledge and background.” Through good instincts, a deep commitment to craftsmanship, and “the school of hard knocks,” he’s grown Nate Holyoke Builders into a firm that employs 150 people and builds many of the state’s most luxurious residences.

Holyoke’s company got off the ground subcontracting for Cold Mountain Builders in Belfast. “There were six of us carpenters when we started,” he recalls. “We all had the desire to do the absolute best work. There was competition between the guys to do the highest quality.” Not all projects, though, can support the hours needed for peak craftsmanship, so Holyoke and his cohort gravitated toward the high-end residential market. “I’m wired to do complicated, highly crafted things. In order to work for an honest wage, I had to find people willing to pay for more time, so more love could go into the project.”

Through Cold Mountain, Holyoke was hired onto a project that would be a turning point in his career: a large lakeside property that started with an innovative yet camplike home, then evolved into a multistructure site where built and landscaped elements wove among woods, boulders, and shoreline. The project gave him a chance to flex his creative and technical muscles, and was his first collaboration with architect Will Winkelman and his then-firm, Whitten Architects (Winkelman started his own firm shortly afterward). Those relationships have lasted. “Over the last fifteen-plus years I’ve learned that Nate is an outstanding builder whose passion for his craft shines through in every project,” says Russ Tyson of Whitten Architects. “His humility, creativity, and unwavering dedication to craftsmanship are inspiring and help to elevate our projects. I deeply appreciate the respect he has for architecture and our design process.”

Holyoke launched Nate Holyoke Builders in 2004, and soon after joined Winkelman on a very large-scale property on Mount Desert Island. “That really started us into the high end,” he says. “Once you’re in it, if you work hard and treat clients fairly, the projects seem to be endless. And bigger.”

His company got bigger, too. From the beginning, Holyoke knew what kind of building he wanted to do. “Once you find your style, you pick what you’re good at,” he says. “I really like visual craftsmanship. I really like traditional. I respect and understand the modern side of things. A lot of work is hidden behind steel and glass, and that’s hard to pull off. But if you can look at a house and say, ‘That’s extremely crafted,’ that’s meaningful. We want you to be able to see it. The most important thing for us is the quality of the build. If we lose that, we lose everything.”

To maintain the company’s high level of craftsmanship, Holyoke stays hands on, making sure he is a presence on every jobsite. “Being on the sites helps a lot. The hardest thing I’ve found is to train someone else to have that eye. What’s the most important thing for me to do in this company? It’s not sitting in the Zoom call or the finance office, writing meeting notes or agendas. It’s going to the jobs to make sure they look the way they should. The houses are expensive, so they’ve got to look like it. You have to reinforce that, and believe in it, or you can lose that culture.”

For all the importance of Holyoke’s personal presence and influence, there is a lot of room for autonomy throughout the company. “It’s so far from a dictatorship. I’m so far from a micromanager,” he says. “We have some of the best people in the trade, with great talent and great attitude. People are going to want to learn from those types of people.” Longtime friend and collaborator Albert Putnam, who leads the structural engineering company Albert Putnam Associates, confirms this. “He motivates by showing what needs to be done, not how, and it spurs organic growth and creativity at all levels within his companies.” Holyoke says that his company’s growth was a byproduct of supporting his team. “We had a lot of good people who wanted to stay with the company, and wanted to work their way up. Once people get promoted into leadership, it’s hard to downscale. We invest hard in our people.”

As a result, Nate Holyoke Builders is highly vertically integrated, with specialists in all aspects of building, from millwork and panel fabrication to drywall and painting. A service division provides maintenance for every home the company has built, and a real estate division allows the company to provide rental housing for employees during multiyear projects. In 2018 Holyoke put together a deal that allowed him to acquire a century-old stone quarry that had laid unused for decades, the land divided among disagreeing branches of a family. Even Holyoke’s hobbies, flying and fishing, have been put to good use in the company. Several years ago he bought a floatplane with the idea of getting to fishing spots quickly, but “realized quickly it was more of a business tool.” Now the plane travels multiple times per week to move employees among sites, or occasionally to take a client to Holyoke’s fishing lodge in Labrador. (Holyoke is a Labrador Guide, and says fishing “is as much of a passion as building is.”)

For the future, Holyoke says, “We’re not looking at a lot of growth, but having good people means there will be some growth because everyone wants to excel and succeed. It’s inevitable, but it’s not the vision. We just want to have everybody enjoy what they’re doing.” As Holyoke sees it, at the heart of his company’s success is a shared passion for the craft of fine homebuilding. “When you’re in the big-house, mega-project world, it’s challenging. These projects, you love to see it come in, when you’re in it you struggle, and you miss it when it’s gone. It’s almost the same emotional feeling like it’s a kid or a family member. If you don’t have that type of feeling, you’re not going to be a good fit for our team. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a family.”

Family Ties: A Legacy of Design at A Little Moore

October, 2025 | By: Leah Whalen | Photography: Heidi Kirn

A selection of goods at A Little Moore in Camden, the latest venture from Megan van der Kieft. “I’ll have blue in the shop till the day I die,” she says with a laugh. “Color is for everybody, no matter what.”

Certain things run in families: red hair, or twins, for example. But there is also what writer Laurie Colwin called “house style” for families; like publishing houses, who have their own rules (their house style) about things like comma usage, she suggested that families share their own particular tastes and talents. If one ever needed an example to bolster this theory, the three generations of Megan van der Kieft’s family would provide it. Her grandmother, Margaret Bussey Moore, ran a high-end clothing store in Darien, Connecticut, for years; her mother, Marcy Moore van der Kieft, ran Margo Moore Interiors at 74 Elm Street in Camden until her death in 2020. Now Megan has added to the family legacy with her own shop on Main Street in Camden: A Little Moore, a funny pun on her family name, but also a serious venture. “My grandmother’s life experience taught her valuable lessons that she clearly wanted to pass along,” she says. “And my mother, despite her accomplishments, was very humble. I try to embrace their values here.”

Van der Kieft warms to the subject of her foremothers easily. Settling into a display armchair in her cozy showroom, she tells of how her grandmother reinvented herself as a shop owner after a painful divorce. “She bought out the previous owner within two years,” she says, “and then she ended up becoming very close friends with people like Bill Blass and Yves St. Laurent, all of these wonderful men that embraced her in the retail fashion industry.” “Then, after my parents got married and moved up here,” she continues, “my grandmother said, ‘Well, you can’t go up there without something to do.’ And she ended up buying 74 Elm Street, to make sure my mother would always have a roof over her head and her children’s heads. This was so important to her.” The business, named after Margaret (known as Margo), thrived under Marcy’s leadership. “She really found her clientele and her community here,” recalls her daughter with obvious affection. “She did her thing. She loved her people.” Initially, like the original store in Connecticut, Margo Moore focused on clothing, but the switch to interiors came naturally to her mother, says van der Kieft: “Mom’s greatest love was textile design. And so about 35 years ago, the fashion sort of fell away.”

Like her mother, van der Kieft loves textiles; here, textured linen pillows contrast with soft cotton blankets.

Van der Kieft grew up at the shop. “I was born and raised in Rockport, but at 18 I left home, encouraged by my parents. In fact, they said, ‘Bye-bye, you’re not allowed back in this house!’” van der Kieft says with a laugh that shows she now appreciates their old-school parenting approach. She went first to Lasell University, then transferred to Wentworth Institute of Technology to study interior design. “Then I took a year off, and I worked at the Boston Design Center for a gentleman called David Webster, who was very old school,” she says. “But his style and his eye were so similar to my grandmother’s. He helped me refine my eye, which my grandmother and my mother had begun to do, while I didn’t even realize it, teaching me how to look at, for example, porcelain and determine whether it’s quality or not.” She also spent time at Wentworth learning facilities management and seeing how buildings worked from the inside out, an experience that she says still helps her ask the right (and sometimes unexpected) questions in design meetings with builders and clients.

After graduation, she worked around the country in a variety of jobs, but in 2008 she moved back to Maine to join her mother at Margo Moore Interiors. Sadly, her mother died early in 2020. “I had a great team when Mom passed away, a phenomenal team really, and that’s the only reason why I am standing today,” she says. “I had such a great team of women that supported me.” She relied on their support, she says, when she decided to move her business from Elm Street to the very center of Camden.

Displays around the shop often center on a theme; this one showcases decorative trays, cocktail recipe books, and glowing green glassware.

As van der Kieft explains, “This used to be the village shop, where I used to get Slush Puppies and candy when I was a young kid or run down and get staples or paper or envelopes.” She continues, “Anyhow, they were closing, and because we’re such a small town, I knew that was happening. Then my landlord renovated this whole place with Main Coast Construction. They opened up all those gorgeous windows.” The windows in question not only brighten the back areas of the shop, but they also offer spectacular views over Camden’s Megunticook Falls to the harbor beyond, where schooner masts tower over the town. One half of the now brightly lit space is devoted to displaying her interior design work, while the other half is given over to a treasure trove of gifts and home items. All have been carefully selected by van der Kieft, using the eye that she cultivated growing up with her mother and grandmother.

That legacy connection runs deep in ways both practical and emotional. “Everybody still calls me Margo. I’m not Margo, I’m Megan,” she says. “And my mother was Marcy. But that was one of the things my mother was very proud of—to be called Margo. It didn’t faze her, as it shouldn’t have. It was her mother’s name. It was beautiful. They opened those doors together.” Now van der Kieft maintains her family’s values: an eye for quality, a commitment to her community, and an understanding that business is as much about relationships as it is about transactions.

Van der Kieft keeps a wide selection of Annie Selke and Dash and Albert rugs on hand.

Moore Than A Feeling

A Little Moore serves as van der Kieft’s showroom and workroom, but she also carries plenty of small items that make perfect hostess gifts, or souvenirs of a happy vacation in Camden. Here are some that caught our eye on a recent visit.
Melamine plates from Avenida Home are sturdy enough to take on a picnic but beautiful enough for a dinner party indoors. “They’re awesome, and I just thought they were adorable,” says van der Kieft.
“ Here we are in the pajama and lounge bar,” announces van der Kieft. This area has luxurious pajamas in silky cottons and robes in all fabrics, from terrycloth to waffle weave to cashmere.
You can present traditional Roger et Gallet soaps to your hostess, or you can offer her aromatherapy shower steamers from Chez Gagné with cheeky sayings like “Done Parenting.” “They’re quirky, slightly edgy sort of statements, plus they smell great, and everybody loves them,” says van der Kieft.
Van der Kieft devotes a table at the back of the store to ceramics by Stephanie Krauss Verdun. “She’s from Marblehead, Massachusetts,” she recalls. “I found her work at a little place on Charles Street in Boston, and then she and I became fast friends. I love her.” Her mugs and bowls have delicate flower patterns etched in their creamy glaze and have an appealing heft.
Finally, scattered around the store, one can find hand-painted Herend animal figurines. “They’re something I’m not ready to give up. It’s a family tradition, passed from my grandmother to my mother to me, and we have a following. They’re still very popular with a lot of our patrons.”

Heroic Acts: Grace Hartigan’s Early Collaborations with Poets

October, 2025 | By: Lucky Platt

Grace Hartigan, East Side Sunday, 1956, oil on canvas, 80” × 82”. Brooklyn Museum, gift of James I. Merrill. © Estate of Grace Hartigan.

The era of the exhibition Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention is 1952 to 1968; the setting is New York City. Establishing a chronology of Hartigan’s early works is crucial to the experience of the exhibition as a whole, since the works trace her intimate artistic collaborations with major poets of the New York School, including Frank O’Hara, James Schuyler, James Merrill, Daisy Aldan, and Barbara Guest.

Grace Hartigan (1922–2008) was 30 in 1952. Three years earlier, she’d seen a Jackson Pollock exhibition that “hypnotized” her, prompting a rebellious, career-making decision to abandon her marriage and child in order to paint every day. In 1952 she made a painting, Persian Jacket, that would be acquired the following year by Alfred Barr, then director of the Museum of Modern Art. She was deeply embedded in the Cedar Tavern scene, where the prominent avant-garde writer and art dealer John Bernard Myers hosted salons to connect emerging New York School painters like Hartigan, Pollock, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and others with the New York School poets.

Grace Hartigan, Dido, 1960, oil on canvas, 82” × 91”. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, gift of Jane and Arthur Stieren.

It’s likely that Hartigan first met Frank O’Hara at the Cedar Tavern, and that their first collaboration, Black Crows (Oranges No. 1) from 1952, was “more of a dare,” says North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) curator Jared Ledesma. O’Hara provided Hartigan with poems he’d written in college, and she responded boldly in paint, using affordable materials at hand: newsprint and house paint. She began by inscribing the text of the O’Hara poem, “Oranges I,” onto the newsprint, and then “image making” around the words.

As Hartigan’s painting language sought to move fluidly between abstraction and representation, she rejected artistic mandates of the time, especially those exalting pure abstraction. Finding common artistic ground, encouragement, opportunities for collaboration, and even patronage among the New York poets was so important to Hartigan’s development and endurance. The poet James Merrill, son of the founder of Merrill, Lynch, and Company, funded major museums’ acquisitions of Hartigan’s work, including Interior with Mexican Doll (1955), by the NCMA, East Side Sunday (1956), by the Brooklyn Museum, and Grand Street Brides (1954), Hartigan’s enormous oil on canvas inspired by her beloved Velazquez, which Merrill helped purchase for the Whitney Museum of American Art. As Ledesma so beautifully articulates in the exhibition catalog, Merrill and other poets offered Hartigan “unequivocal endorsement—their gifts of attention,” and Hartigan benefited creatively, emotionally, and financially.

Grace Hartigan, Untitled from The Hero Leaves His Ship, 1960, lithograph, composition: 201/2” × 143/4“; sheet: 30” × 211/4 “. Baltimore Museum of Art, purchased as the gift of the Carolyn and Richard Susel Foundation.

If Hartigan’s work with Frank O’Hara is one bookend of the exhibition (and this period of meaningful collaborations with poets), her work with Barbara Guest is the other. Guest and Hartigan began a friendship and correspondence in the late 1950s. Through the early 1960s, Hartigan responded directly to Guest’s poems in paintings, collages, and notably, lithographs. Hartigan had never made a lithograph (a complex printmaking process) before she embarked on a series of gorgeous tonal grayscale prints inspired by Guest’s poem, “The Hero Leaves His Ship.”

Hartigan’s oil on canvas, The Hero (1960), also in collaboration with Guest, would be her last New York painting. Though Hartigan continued to work and correspond with Guest for several years after making a move to Baltimore, leaving New York meant leaving behind a remarkable, irreplaceable camaraderie.

“No one was known, there was no fame, there was no money, there was no power.
They were just artists, doing this far-out thing that they just took for granted. It came out of existentialism and the disillusionment with World War II, and the feeling that there
was nothing in any society or in any nation or in the world to believe in. They felt the artist alone represented mankind and the loneliness and the alienation, and that the most heroic act was to face a blank canvas.”
—Grace Hartigan, describing her early years in New York City, in a 1990 lecture at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

“Hartigan had a career that developed in many stages,” observes PMA Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Sayantan Mukhopadhyay. Mukhopadhyay brought the exhibition to Maine in collaboration with Ledesma and the NCMA, adding two late oil paintings from Maine museum collections: Ophelia, 1996, on loan from the Farnsworth Art Museum, and the PMA’s own Don Quixote and Madame Butterfly, 1986. “These two works are presented as a coda to the exhibition. Here, Hartigan continues her interdisciplinary journey through literature (and opera) to painting, however the figure in these images comes forward—no longer blurred through the techniques abstraction.”

Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention is organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art and will be on view at the Portland Museum of Art from October 16 through January 11, 2026.

Lakeside Leisure: A Sebago Lake Family Camp Reimagined

In the mid-1970s, the clients’ father purchased a forested, five-acre family camp on the shores of Sebago Lake that included a seasonal log cabin built by the original owner. As the family grew and the camp became the go-to spot for summer gatherings and getaways, a larger prefabricated Acorn House was added. When the three siblings inherited the camp—now with children of their own—they recognized that the property’s aging structures needed renovation to support year-round, multigenerational use. At the top of their minds was where to locate the center of activity on a large property with two buildings.

Kaplan Thompson Architects reimagined the existing attached garage of the Acorn House as a generous, double-height kitchen and dining area at the heart of the compound. A glassy mudroom entry connects the kitchen to a new two-story addition providing an overflow sleeping loft above much-needed garage storage. A rooftop solar array on the addition enables the combined compound to achieve net-zero energy. The new hub extends outdoors to a covered porch and playground of stepped granite offcuts. An ornamental tree originally planted by the siblings’ parents couldn’t be saved during construction, but the same species of red maple will be replanted in their memory.

Inside the Acorn House, the iconic midcentury character is maintained but modernized in both look and livability. The interior is carefully reconfigured around the original exposed wood structure of the building to add a new ground-floor bedroom suite and extra bathrooms, while the exterior is wrapped in an overcoat of wood fiber insulation and buttoned up with all new oversized, triple-glazed windows and doors that upgrade the home’s energy performance to Passive House standards. The original summer cabin is also being lovingly restored, so the entire family can comfortably enjoy year-round lakeside leisure for decades to come.

Architect & Interior Designer: Kaplan Thompson Architects
Builder: R.P. Morrison Builders
Landscape Architect: David Maynes Studio
Construction Start: May 2025
Construction Complete: May 2026

Design Wire September 2025

September, 2025 | By: Becca Abramson

The PORTLAND MUSEUM OF ART (PMA), in partnership with the MAINE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CONSERVATION, AND FORESTRY’S BUREAU OF PARKS AND LANDS, has installed nearly two dozen reproductions from its collection at four scenic locations across Maine: COASTAL MAINE BOTANICAL GARDENS in Boothbay, PINELAND FARMS in New Gloucester, RANGE POND STATE PARK in Poland Spring, and PORTLAND TRAILS’ EVERGREEN WOODS. The outdoor galleries, known as ART ON THE TRAIL, feature works by American artists REGGIE BURROWS HODGES, NEIL WELLIVER, WINSLOW HOMER, NEWELL CONVERS WYETH, and more. Visitors are encouraged to snap a selfie with any Art on the Trail installation and show it at the PMA front desk for one free admission. Check in at all five locations before October 29 and receive a free family membership to the PMA.

Munjoy Hill nonprofit arts organization THE HILL ARTS is attempting to raise $18 million in order to launch a 21,637-square-foot, 400-seat multifunctional performing arts venue next to the existing PARISH HALL THEATER. The new facility will include green rooms, a catering kitchen, a multifunctional promenade space, and a theater and lobby. ARCHETYPE ARCHITECTS, NEWHEIGHT GROUP, and ZACHAU CONSTRUCTION are working together on the project, which will allow the organization to offer space to artists, schools, and nonprofits. “The design of the theater honors the site’s architectural legacy while embracing a forward-looking vision for cultural engagement in Portland’s East End, reflecting the city’s evolving identity,” said Vicky Nicholas, interior designer at Archetype Architects.

Kittery firm FIRST SERVE HOSPITALITY GROUP and Christina Hawkes of HURLBUTT DESIGNS completed a makeover of the 1880s-era Kennebunkport boutique hotel THE BREAKWATER INN, focusing on significant structural and aesthetic updates. The 35 renovated guest rooms feature updated furnishings, color palettes, and fabrics, along with natural wood details and Bethel white granite in the bathrooms. “The Breakwater Inn is a significant property in our community, so we knew that we wanted to help renovate it to create a destination for locals and summer travelers alike. Our goal for the guest rooms was to create a relaxing coastal feel with modern touches, but without the traditional blue and white palette,” says Hawkes. In addition, two new bar areas and a restaurant were added, along with updated rooms for special events and weddings.

Photo: Ella Hannaford, courtesy of the Portland Sea Dogs

This summer, the PORTLAND SEA DOGS unveiled a state-of-the-art $10 million clubhouse that was initially delayed by team negotiations to extend the lease on the city-owned stadium. The 20,410-square-foot, two-story building, which required the
removal of an outdoor picnic area and 500-seat section of the ballpark, is nearly three times the size of the former clubhouse, now used for visiting teams—a new requirement that went into effect when MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL took over its minor league affiliate teams in 2021. A group of 26 contractors led by Gorham’s GREAT FALLS CONSTRUCTION CO. worked on the project, which features a weight room, a commissary, a double batting cage with Trajekt technology, multiple changing areas and showers, and laundry facilities.

The LEGO GROUP recently opened a 157,000-square-foot, six-floor facility that will act as the company’s new U.S. hub in Boston’s Back Bay. Designed by BDG ARCHITECTS and built by STRUCTURE TONE, the space, which is both LEED Gold and WELL Gold certified, includes more than 660 workstations, a gym, flexible wellness areas, playful common spaces, and 90 meeting rooms. “This fantastic new LEGO workspace is an important part of our U.S. investment strategy, fast becoming a talent magnet in this important market. The Boston Hub will open up new ways for LEGO colleagues to create, connect, and grow as we continue our mission to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow across the U.S.,” said Niels B. Christiansen, CEO of the LEGO Group. At the grand opening ceremony for the new office, the company announced a $5 million investment over two years to increase access to play across the city.

Earlier this year, French PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON unveiled a multiyear redevelopment initiative called NOUVELLE RENAISSANCE to address sustainability, educational outreach, and overcrowding at the LOUVRE in Paris, which sees nearly 10 million visitors annually and expects up to 12 million when renovations are complete. The project, described as a “rebirth” of the museum, would reimagine the seventeenth-century Perrault Colonnade entrance and relocate the Mona Lisa to a 33,000-square-foot stand-alone gallery with timed entry while reducing congestion at I.M. PEI’s iconic pyramid entrance. Over the summer, French Culture Minister RACHIDA DATI announced the launch of an international architecture competition for the museum’s transformation. Five finalists will be selected next month, and the overall winner will be announced in early 2026. Renovations are expected to cost about $417 million and should be completed by 2031.

Rockland’s FARNSWORTH ART MUSEUM, dedicated to American and Maine-inspired art, opened a new campus facility, the 365 ARTS GALLERY AND DESIGN STORE, in a three-story, 12,000-square-foot building across from the museum. The expansion features a flexible gallery space that can accommodate exhibitions, public events, and art workshops as well as a curated store that showcases work from New England artisans alongside Farnsworth-branded merchandise. The mid-nineteenth-century building, formerly known as the Burpee Block, underwent electrical, plumbing, and security updates before reopening. The gallery’s first exhibition, Animalia: Maine’s Illustrated Menagerie, which explores Maine illustrators’ interpretations of animals in imaginative ways, is on view through November 16. Featured artists include TONY MILLIONAIRE, MARY ANNE LLOYD, DOUGLAS SMITH, and MH+D’s art writer LUCKY PLATT.

The cities of Portland, South Portland, and Saco are implementing temporary safety features including roadway paint, flexible traffic posts, and speed bumps as part of a project between the BICYCLE COALITION OF MAINE and the GREATER PORTLAND COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS called VISION ZERO GREATER PORTLAND, which aims to eliminate traffic-related deaths and injuries by 2045. The first three of nine installments throughout the region, the features at Westbrook Street and MacArthur Circle West (South Portland), Maine Street at the Thornton Academy Crossing (Saco), and Washington Avenue from Veranda Street to Ocean Avenue (Portland), will be removed before the first snowfall. “Demonstration projects allow communities to test improvements before investing in permanent infrastructure, ensuring the final design meets both safety needs and public support,” Dakota Hewlett from the MAINE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION told The Portland Press Herald.

Sea View Barn: Maine Timber Frame with Waterfront Views

September, 2025 | By: Becca Abramson | Photography: Trent Bell

Inspired by a nearby historic barn that offers views straight through to the water, the Sea View Barn was created with both transparency and tradition in mind. Designed by Peter Anderson at Houses and Barns by John Libby, the structure was conceived as an entertainment barn, meant to be a flexible gathering space that will one day connect to a yet-to-be-built intimate house on a sloping coastal site.

“The client approached us with a unique brief,” says Anderson of the project. “The owner had purchased an incredible property with a long waterfront, an old farm field, and the remains of an eighteenth-century farmhouse. The goal was to create something that would appear to have always been there while offering visual transparency and maximizing the views to the water.” Anderson’s dual-natured design feels historically appropriate while embracing waterfront views: the road-facing gable is clad in traditional cedar shingles with veneer stone at the foundation walls, while the east-facing water side features an expansive multistory timber curtain wall of Douglas fir coordinated with the hand-cut timber frame structure inside (the interior is primarily finished in eastern white pine).

Floating shelves and a custom-designed metal rack system add a modern touch to the kitchenette.

The barn’s original program included an open main floor for entertaining, a kitchenette, and a three quarter bath. Upstairs, an open studio space would accommodate art making, media, and office zones. As construction unfolded, the design evolved. “When it became clear that the house-building phase of the project was several years in the future, we had to pivot,” says Anderson. “We suddenly had to accommodate sleeping rooms, which weren’t in the original program. It presented quite a challenge: how to subdivide a large, second-floor space open to the roof above without creating redundant loft spaces.” Anderson came up with a solution he refers to as the “mini barns”—small gable forms tucked into the corners of the second floor that act as bedrooms. Sheathed in white pine and accessed via sliding barn doors, they blend in with the surrounding materials and echo the larger structure.

Other signature elements include oversized sliding pocket doors on both gable ends that disappear into the walls, allowing uninterrupted views through the space. That detail required a creative structural solution involving nested posts and spring-loaded systems to preserve the integrity of the timber frame. Steel details at the loft stair and a custom shelving system in the kitchenette add a contemporary edge to the hand-cut, traditionally joined frame.

As the project grew to include a mudroom and garage—connected by a stair clad in glass that reveals the original barn’s exterior siding—the layering of time became an integral part of the story. “We wanted it to look like it had been added to over time,” explains Lee Proscia, president of Houses and Barns by John Libby. “That was part of the charm.” Blending heritage with innovation, the Sea View Barn is a testament to the company’s signature approach: honoring Maine’s architectural past while creating structures designed for the way people live today.

Garden Tour: The Friends of Fort Williams Park’s biggest fundraiser

September, 2025 | Photography: Amelia Martin

On a sunny and warm Saturday in July, the Friends of Fort Williams Park hosted their Cape Elizabeth Garden Tour during which eight homeowners graciously opened their private gardens for guests to explore. Each garden on the tour boasted unique characteristics, with one garden showcasing over 270 species of plants and others featuring handcrafted sculptures and wooden carvings. The garden tour is the park’s largest fundraiser of the year. Proceeds benefit the organization’s Ecology Project, which aims to cultivate and nurture various types of horticulture at Fort Williams Park, while allowing the community to benefit from the use of the land. Thanks to the Friends of Fort Williams Park and local homeowners, the day was filled with beautiful flowers, unique architecture, and warm hospitality.

“The 2025 Cape Elizabeth Garden Tour was a chance to explore a variety of awe-inspiring gardens, thanks to the generosity of local homeowners. With strong support from the community, the event helps fund important ecological work at Fort Williams Park. It was truly
a perfect Maine day.”
—Jennifer Scarpitti-Nelson, executive director,
Friends of Fort Williams Park

Beaver Tail Chair

September, 2025 | By: Danielle Devine | Photography: Di Tao

There’s a family of beavers who live in the pond behind the cottage of designers Di Tao and Bob Dodd in the scenic Kawartha Highlands of Ontario, Canada, a few hours northeast of Toronto. It was while watching the beaver family’s movements that the duo came up with the design of their Beaver Tail Chair, a sculptural piece that captures the beauty and function of the animal’s iconic tail.

Beavers slap their tails against the water’s surface to warn their colony that danger is approaching; when they hear this warning, they can stay underwater for up to 15 minutes. The Beaver Tail Chair is composed of 16 layers of stack-laminated wood carefully selected and hand shaped by the artisans to produce sweeping curves that mimic the shape of a beaver. Stack lamination is a woodworking technique where multiple thin pieces of wood are glued together in layers to form a thicker, solid mass. The designers say this approach allows them to create flowing, sculptural forms that would be challenging or wasteful to carve from a single block of wood. Although the chair is made entirely of wood, the interior of each chair is carefully carved out to create a hollow space, which helps keep its weight to around 120 pounds.

“It is more than just a seating option; this chair offers a unique tactile experience, inviting you to touch and feel the flowing surface of the wood,” reveal Tao and Dodd. “Its sculptural design and organic wood grain allow it to blend seamlessly into any setting, whether it’s an artist’s studio, a cozy reading nook, or a modern living room.” It’s fitting that the chair was inspired by creatures that build, design, and maintain intricate lodges and dams out of wood on a daily basis.

Partners in life and design, Tao and Dodd founded their studio, Objects and Ideas, in 2015 to craft functional, artful furniture and lighting. Their combined backgrounds in industrial design and digital engineering drive a distinctive approach rooted in form and precision. Each Beaver Tail Chair is unique and takes over 140 hours to build, from stacking the volume to carving, grinding, sanding, and finishing. The chairs are made to order by Objects and Ideas and currently sell for $15,400.

Erin Little: The photographer’s perfect Maine day and inspirations

What would be your perfect Maine day?

My perfect Maine day is in the low 70s with no humidity (a dream!) and starts with going for a long morning run from the West End to the Eastern Prom. After that, I’d pack a picnic lunch and head to a park overlooking the water with friends, then off to a nice trail for a walk or a boat ride on Casco Bay. Before dinner, I’d go out to grab a glass of wine with a buddy at Friends and Family, then come back to my little patio to grill dinner and read until bedtime.

How would you describe your aesthetic in three words?

Timeless, soulful, authentic.

One book everyone who appreciates art and design should read?

It’s not necessarily about art and design, but it is about the creative process: On Writing by Stephen King, which is a memoir about the craft of writing.

What elements do you look for when you frame a photo?

I look for what I need to tell a story. I want the photo to feel intimate, full of life, and pleasing to the eye—not too much to overwhelm, but not too little to leave someone wanting more. Framing is so natural to me that I rarely need to think about it.

How important is light to you?

It’s everything. Whether natural or made by me, it helps amplify the story I’m trying to tell.

Five things you can’t live without?

Books, espresso, music, nature, art.

Favorite local maker?

I love Jose Gouveia’s pottery and Cat Bates’s jewelry.

One piece of furniture, art, or decor in your space that tells a story?

The first piece of art I invested in hangs in my library. It’s a large abstract portrait of a woman
painted by a Dutch artist named Jan Ter Weele. He used to walk past my apartment every day. We eventually became friends, and he invited me to his studio, where I found the piece and fell in love. He was in his late 80s, and we would go to art openings and lunches, or hang out listening to jazz and talking about everything. He recently passed, and now I have quite a few of his pieces. They make me smile, and I feel grateful for the time I had with him.

Name one artist you admire and why.

François Halard is a constant source of photographic inspiration for me. I love his relaxed approach, his use of light, his subject matter, and the way he lives his life. It would be a dream to assist him on a shoot!

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