Features
Mountain Return
Jan/Feb 2010
by Rebecca Falzano
Photography Irvin Serrano
A hybrid log home is a cozy, stylish retreat for a family with deep Sugarloaf roots
As dusk descends on Sugarloaf, Jim and Priscilla Denny’s home glows amber through a snowy screen of trees. After a day on the cold slopes, their warm oasis beckons. Soon a fire will be lit and voices from the kitchen will mingle with those drawn to the flames. Tomorrow, everyone will wake up to fresh, powder-covered trails visible from their bedrooms. For many loyal Loafers, this is only a dream. For the Dennys, it’s their reality—one arrived at by the most circuitous of routes.
Self-Contained Living
Jan/Feb 2010
by Elena Sarni
Photography Trent Bell
From cargo ship to container house
New on Mere Point
Nov/Dec 2009
by Debra Spark
Photography Trent Bell
A year-round home designed with old summer cottages in mind
The story of the home at Mere Point begins like this: Some years ago, a homeowner built a garage with a second-floor apartment on a particularly nice piece of property, filled with meadows and forest, with commanding views of the still waters of Mere Point Bay, just west of the Harpswells.
Cabin Fever
Nov/Dec 2009
by Bruce Irving
Photography Irvin Serrano
An authentic log home that’s big on style and comfort
The Charge of the Right Brigade
October 2009
by Bruce Irving
Photography Irvin Serrano
A small army works to give a classic Portland home new life
Apart from Civil War buffs, the name Holman S. Melcher doesn’t ring a bell for many folks in Portland anymore. That’s too bad. Besides having a they-don’t-name-kids-like-they-used-to first name, he was also a fine upstanding citizen: a two-term mayor (1889–1890), a successful wholesale grocer, and the man responsible for changing the name of Market Square to Monument Square. He was also the homeowner who hired architect John Calvin Stevens in 1893 to expand his home on Pine Street—most likely so that his daughter and her family could live in one side of the renovated structure, while he and wife lived in the other (fancier) half.
The Life of the Loft
October 2009
by Rebecca Falzano
Photography Trent Bell
On Camden’s waterfront, a lively blend of food and family
One Sunday morning in Maine, as in Robert Frost’s famous poem, Christina Sidoti came upon a fork in the road.
Portland Platinum
October 2009
by Rebecca Falzano
Photography Irvin Serrano
SUSTAINABLE: A Portland house achieves the ultimate in LEED ratings
There is a well-known, albeit clichéd, adage: Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars. Sometimes, though—as was the case with Catherine and Jonathan Culley of Redfern Properties in Portland—one shoots for the stars and winds up hitting the moon. The two real-estate developers set out to design and build a home that was both green and affordable—a goal that some would consider unachievable. What they got surprised even them: a home that not only was affordable but that earned the highest rating possible—Platinum—from the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) system, an internationally recognized certification program for environmentally conscious construction.
Second Lives
September 2009
by Rebecca Falzano
Photography Trent Bell
On Diamond Cove, a former pilot transforms a naval power plant into a home
The Moss Manse
September 2009
by Debra Spark
Photography Trent Bell
Taking John Calvin Stevens to Boothbay
When it comes to her own home, realtor Connie Moss has something of a set design approach to real estate. After the stage has been set—her home constructed or renovated in as fine a fashion as possible—she lets the show of her life run for a few years, then it’s on to a new performance—a new residence and a new project. Since relocating to Maine in 1997, Moss has built and sold a home in South Bristol, renovated another on Pemaquid Point, and fixed up both a brownstone and an 1867 half-house in Portland. Her latest effort and current abode—an expansive Shingle Style home that sits on a ledge overlooking East Boothbay’s Little River—is currently on the market. She isn’t, she emphasizes, “flipping”—the real real-estate term for buying up properties for rapid resale—but enjoying the whole process of perfecting properties. “It’s an adventure,” she says. “I like to think that I respect the house. I like to do what the house needs in terms of material, and I like to feel that I add something to the house, that it is better off for my being there.”
The Homework of Home
September 2009
by Rebecca Falzano
Photography Trent Bell
One couple’s journey to the not-so-big house
When planning their first home together, Jeff and Dominique Sommer immersed themselves in the world of home design and construction. Hardcover architecture books with glossy pages moved to the top of their reading lists. Design terminology worked its way into everyday conversation at the breakfast table, in the car, and just before bed. Emails at 3 a.m. to architect and mentor Carol De Tine of Carriage House Studio Architects in Portland were frequent. Late-night algorithms (for example, calculating the shoreline setback using the Pythagorean theorem) were not uncommon. The methods of renowned architectural greats were called on. For months on end, the Sommers lived, slept, ate, and breathed the creation of their home.
Easy Elegance
August 2009
by Laura Serino
Photography Trent Bell
A blend of modern and traditional styles, the island way
Almost three miles across Penobscot Bay from Lincolnville, or about a twenty-minute ferry ride from the mainland, is the small island of Islesboro. Although the community is perhaps best known as the summer residence of such high-profile celebrities as John Travolta and Kirstie Alley, the vibe here is anything but pretentious.
A Family Affair
August 2009
by Debra Spark
Photography François Gagné
Designing for generations
When Ariana Fischer-Gregg was 22, she took the Johnson O’Connor aptitude test. Her credentials were in order—her years at boarding school and Boston University behind her—but what were her natural talents? “High aesthetics,” she remembers the test concluding. “Long-term vision. You should own your own business or sell pretty things.” Could these results have been a surprise? Given Ariana’s lineage? Her childhood? Probably not.
Lake House Living
August 2009by Rebecca Falzano
Photography Trent Bell
A family retreat on Long Lake redefines the meaning of camp
Maine’s rugged coastline is so long and serpentine that it seems to unwind forever. Miles inland, however, far from the crashing waves of the Atlantic, and beautiful in its own right, is a different kind of waterfront: the shores of Maine’s serene lakes region. On a map, the area is speckled with various shapes and sizes of blue, with Long Lake running in a narrow strip down the middle. While each lake has its own unique community, a common thread unites them all: the mystique of a lake in summertime.
A Sparkling Sanctuary
June 2009
by Rebecca Falzano
Photography Trent Bell
If we listen closely, houses will sometimes speak to us. Queen Annes overlooking brick-lined streets share secrets of the past. Farmhouses lining snowy country roads whisper of the warmth within. Rustic camps beside glassy lakes exude the promise of tranquility. At the north end of three-mile-long Goose Rocks Beach, on a secluded peninsula of rock and sand where the Little River meets the Atlantic, the Temerlin home speaks quietly of a sparkling solitude punctuated only by the quintessential summer hum of peepers. The sight and sound are mesmerizing.
Wrestling with Style
June 2009by Debra Spark
Photography Darren Setlow
Inside the life of unexpected art dealers Rob and Annette Elowitch
If Rob and Annette Elowitch were words, they would be an oxymoron. If statements, a paradox. As it stands, they are merely unexpected: art dealers by day, a professional wrestler and his concerned (“I don’t want to see him get hurt”) wife by night. Their age—the long-married couple are in their 60s—and the prestige of their annual art auction—sales topped $4 million last year—make the contrast between their vocations all the more striking. And all the more interesting to Sports Illustrated, ABC News, and the National Enquirer, among the many news outlets that have told the couple’s story and expressed surprise that the fast-talking, gravelly voiced art broker might have, on any given day, a Sir Joshua Reynolds painting in the foyer of his home while a duffel bag packed with a black-and-gold bikini and knee-high boots waits upstairs for his next match.
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