Profiles – August 2015

by Katy Kelleher | Photography Nicole Wolf

Joshua Carle, president of Rockport Granite, finds balance and beauty in the native stones of the Maine coast

We all know what a diamond looks like, with its sharp pointed sides and simple clarity. Yet for all their easy beauty, for Joshua Carle, these precious gems are just a means to an end. Those subjects of song and objects of material lust are put to work at Rockport Granite. They glitter on the edges of drills and saws. They perform a function, helping to elevate other minerals by cutting raw rock slabs into useful, beautiful shapes for countertops and stairways, accent pieces and fire pits. Here, diamonds are secondary to granite—the very humble rock that sits unnoticed on so many Maine beaches. After visiting a quarry, I no longer find this role reversal puzzling. Carle helps me see that granite has a life all its own, a richness and depth of character, a slow beauty that builds the longer you look.

Take, for example, the boulders at the quarry in York, where the midcoast-based company produces its line of Cape Neddick granite. To the untrained eye, the color of these igneous stones could be described simply as “beige,” but Carle tells me to look closer. Flecked with black feldspar and milky quartz, the cut slabs are covered with naturally occurring salt-and-pepper patterns. Some are weatherstained, others bear the distinctive rust of iron deposits. There is a complexity to these stones, a depth of pattern and color that becomes more evident the longer you stare. “See that?” asks Jared Vanderbloeman, project manager and field salesman for Rockport Granite. “I call that pink, and that one—that’s green.”

He’s right. The green granite isn’t truly green, but it does have a strange luster to it, a faint echo of oxidized copper or lichen. The pink granite just barely blushes, subtle and warm. “No one else in the business has access to the stones we have,” remarks Carle. “That’s what sets us apart. In our case, we have four types of stone, and we have them exclusively.” And, he adds later, the fact that all the stone at Rockport Granite comes from the Maine coastline is very appealing to customers—particularly those who are seeking a house that complements (rather than stands apart from) the natural landscape.

At a job site in Kennebunk, landscape designer Ted Carter expands on this idea while showing off some of Rockport Granite’s products in situ. He kneels down in front of the stairs leading from the driveway to the front door, touching the “live edge” of the granite slabs. “Each piece has so much motion and life. Have you seen New Hampshire granite? Sometimes, that can look dead. I use Josh’s Mystic Mountain granite all the time,” he says. Mystic Mountain is one of Rockport Granite’s four kinds of granite, harvested at their Belfast quarry. Granite from each site is differentiated primarily by color; the Mystic Mountain granite is as unlike the Cape Neddick as two stones can be. This slab is gray and smoky, with blue undertones and swirled through with quartz. As Carter points out, it seems alive, with veins of minerals mimicking the ebb and flow of water on a beach. “When you think of the Maine coast, you don’t think of something pristine and perfect,” Carter says. “There’s an art to choosing stones that reflect the landscape. I like stones that are indigenous, sincere, and authentic. And that’s why I work with Josh.”

Sincere, indigenous, and authentic are all words that could be used to describe company president Joshua Carle as well as his products. A Mainer by birth, Carle isn’t someone who seeks out attention. He is quiet and speaks in a low tone. He’s a man of few words, but when he talks you want to lean in and hear more. He smiles most often at his young son, Preston, who is “just starting to reach the terrible twos.” As we talk, Preston grabs a broom and begins pushing it around the driveway. A serious little boy, he plays at working, trotting after Carle wherever he walks. Preston is a frequent sight on jobs, and Carle’s employees come up to fist-bump his tiny hands or help him “sweep” the ground. In these moments, Carle seems at ease, in his element.

As I get to know Carle, it becomes clear that I is his life. “Rockport Granite is really less about me and more about the 23 employees who work here,” he says. “I managed to get it off the ground, but my brother coming on has played a huge part in what it has become. My role in the company and my freedom to spend time with my family and do the things I am passionate about would not be possible without him.” His brother, Bryan Carle, manages the day-to-day business while Joshua deals with big-picture things like growth and expansion. An average day for Carle involves working in the morning, playing with his son in the afternoon, and visiting job sites when he can. In the past four years, he’s built Rockport Granite into a successful business with headquarters in Rockport, a countertop shop in Camden, and four quarries that sprawl up the coast from York to Belfast. Yet he doesn’t dwell on his commercial success. Instead, we talk about skiing at the Camden Snow Bowl—“I’m going to teach Preston soon,” he says—and cruising around Lake Megunticook on his motorboat—“He’s too small to get in the tube, but he’ll be on the water in no time.”

Granite is the vehicle that allows him to create something we all desire: a sustainable work/life balance. The earthly gems of pink and green and gray are uncovered at quarries, pulled from the ground, and delivered to the capable hands of architects and designers. Then, these stones become part of someone else’s home. Someone’s children will totter happily up those steps. “Why do I like granite?” Carle says, repeating my question as though the answer were obvious. “It’s beautiful and it lasts forever.” He’s been working with these stones since 1996, helping others improve their homes. He knows their value, and he knows their true worth. And now, his focus is on his own home, his own young family—something more precious than diamonds, or even granite.