The house was perfectly serviceable—lovely, even. Perched on a ridge in Blue Hill, the white modern farmhouse seemed to float a little above the surrounding landscape. But that was the problem for the homeowners, David and Jeannet Leendertse. “When we built the original house, we didn’t have money to blast, so when we ran into a ledge, it ended up sitting higher than we anticipated,” says Jeannet. For nearly 15 years, they lived with this upright structure, thinking about ways to bring it down to earth. In 2020 they decided to do something about it. They would build an expansion, one that would ground the property, create two spacious workshops, and provide fresh inspiration for the artists.
From the beginning, “they were super involved clients,” says Matt Elliott of Elliott Architects, who worked alongside architect Isaac Robbins and associate Maggie Kirsch to design the compact compound. “They were willing to talk about ideas and listen to ours, but they also had a really strong view of what they wanted,” he continues. David and Jeannet knew how they wanted the space to feel, and they knew how they wanted it to function. “Everybody understood it was going to take a team to pull it off,” agrees builder David Gray of David W. Gray Carpentry. “There was no room for anything but helping each other out.”
It’s not that the drawings were incredibly complicated; it was the opposite. After consulting with David and Jeannet, the architects turned to vintage agrarian building practices for potential ideas. “In Maine in particular, there is a history of having connected outbuildings. It’s the big house, little house, back house, barn,” explains Elliott. “That influences a lot of our work. What we like about that is that you can take a large amount of space and break it into smaller pieces, bringing it down to a human scale.” These buildings would get moved around on the site, depending on the needs of the farmers. The spacing of the structures also created a series of microclimates, which helped keep livestock warm in the winter and shield plants from too much wind or sun in the summer. “With this build, we were trying to do something similar, but in a more connected way,” says Elliott.
The team at Elliott Architects landed on a simple expansion, with two new spare and structural buildings linked by a metal canopy, which would create a courtyard/carport and thus totally change how the homeowners (and their guests) approach the main house. “It’s always very important to us to think about the sequential narrative of coming to the house and arriving,” says Kirsch. “Before, you just drove up to a large empty space and parked. Now, there is an entire sequence, from the courtyard to the canopy to the glass connector.” Kirsch adds, “We really love the spaces where you are either outside and you feel covered, or you’re inside and you feel connected to the outside.”
To further create a sense of connection with the land, they decided to embed one of the studios (David’s) into the hillside. Inspired by nineteenth-century bank barns, the building is spacious and rustic, with hardwood oak floors, plywood wall panels, and exposed steel beams. “It’s not your typical workshop,” says Gray, who reveals that David’s woodshop was, in fact, the trickiest part of the build, due mainly to the two-story sliding doors but also thanks to the wide-open interior and hanging canopy. “The structural work, with all that steel—I had never done anything like that, and I’ve been in business for 30 years,” Gray continues. “Typically, all the steel is covered and never to be seen again. But with this build, you see every bit of it.” Since there are no load-bearing columns in the main workspace, the steel beams were necessary to hold up the roofing—and to bear the weight of the snow that’s bound to come each year. Framing around the pocket doors was also a difficult task. “But those came out big-time cool,” Gray says. “Everyone involved had extremely high expectations, and I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, but I don’t think every company could have pulled that off.”
Although Jeannet’s white-box studio appears simpler than David’s rustic and elegant workshop, it too required precision and excellence. “[Elliott Architects] were very good with the negative spaces. No matter where you stand, the three buildings relate to each other in a beau- tiful way,” reflects Jeannet. She calls the overall build a “sculptural” achievement that puts elements of the landscape—the treeline, the boulders, the hilltop itself—into direct conversation with the built environment, not only through the siting of the studio but also through the careful placement of windows. As David puts it, “Outside, it is truly a wall of green. If you stand anywhere in Jeannet’s studio and look, the trees are the same distance away. It embraces the house. It’s always alive. The trees are always moving in the wind. It’s dynamic but calm at the same time.” Jeannet says, “I like to stand by the windows and look out at the boulder in the field. It’s very calming.”
The sculptural studio also facilitates Jeannet’s artistic work through its thoughtful design. Jeannet is a weaver of seaweed, a maker of intricate, often fragile vessels. Her pieces almost appear to be organic expressions of the ocean itself. But every basket and sculpture has been painstakingly worked by hand. “Jeannet’s work is very delicate,” says Elliott. “She wanted very soft, diffuse light in her studio, so we put in a long ribbon of north-facing windows.” Kirsch adds that this “brings in even light, with no strong shadows that would cut through the space,” allowing the artist to focus fully on her absorbing work.
Originally from the shores of the Netherlands, Jeannet has found plenty of inspiration on the Maine coastline. Over the years her practice has evolved and shifted, molded by place and circumstance. (She began working with seaweed more seriously during the COVID pandemic. “We were spending a lot of time outside,” David says.) “Fiber art lends itself to a wide range of experiments,” Jeannet explains. “There are so many different techniques that you can choose from, whether it is stitching, sewing, knitting, or weaving. There are many ways to use material, and many materials that can act as fiber.” In addition to seaweed, Jeannet also works with silk, flax, lichen, and beeswax. “Now that I have the studio,” she says, “it’s great to be able to build larger pieces and have them all in one place.” She uses the large table for weaving and sketching, the pinning wall to display works in progress, the storage space (located behind the pinning wall) for her materials, and the small kitchen for cleaning, drying, and preparing seaweed. “It’s a process that involves buckets of cold water, salts, and all these types of things. When the seaweed is drying, there are some aromas that come with that,” she says. “It’s a little briny. So you can open the windows, and it’s all good.” She’s even brought in a small freezer, so that she can collect seaweed during peak season and save it for later months. “I harvest when it’s best,” she says.
Although construction has long since ended on the home and studios, Jeannet and David admit they’re never quite done. Decorating these gracious, peaceful spaces is an ongoing process. David is still polishing his woodworking skills, and Jeannet is still aiming for visual harmony—in all aspects of the place. “My idea has been to move very slowly,” she says. “To live in it, and slowly get a feel for it. I’m making some pieces myself for the house.” In one hall- way hangs a dark blue piece made from beeswax and silk, with a deep green basket placed nearby. “I think it’s nice to make place-specific pieces,” muses Jeannet. “I think it’s inspiring to think about the light, the architecture, and think: what does it need here?”
