Maine the largest of the US states that make up New England, has a quirky architectural history and boundless seasidey charm. Channel Maine’s relaxed interiors style with help of a new book …
“Are we being good ancestors?” In five simple words, virologist and medical researcher Jonas Salk, who developed the first polio vaccine in 1955, asks a question both potent and poignant. And though Salk’s enquiry relates to science and medicine, the sentiment is universal. His question followed Maura McEvoy, Basha Burwell and Kathleen Hackett throughout their Maine travels in search of houses that exemplify what makes a house a Maine house, for their book, Maine House II.
They found kindred spirits everywhere, confirming that Maine casts a spell unlike anywhere else in the world. Spend any amount of time there – a weekend, a summer, a lifetime – and it gets under your skin and streams through your consciousness forever. They set their sights not only on houses that have been preserved, renovated, restored, rescued, and sensitively expanded but, equally as important, on the people who live in them, all of them resolved to take care of what one acquaintance called a “thin place,” derived from the Celtic phrase caol áit, in which the boundary between heaven and earth is, yes, thin. The book is filled with houses whose owners can proudly answer Salk with a resounding “yes.”
Co-author and cookery writer Kathleen Hackett had admired her home, which she called Baby M, from the street for almost two decades before acquiring it: “Our morning walks out to the point began at the house, at one of the last remaining Capes on the harbour. We marvelled at its charms every single time, as if noticing them anew: the double hollyhocks that overshot the roofline; the blackgreen shutters with their anchor motif, a kitschy flourish that seemed just right here; the chunky centre chimney that gives the tiny place dignity; the sweet second front door that opens into the kitchen. There was a time when chamber music and the unmistakable scent of oil paint floated through the salt air here, when visiting musicians and artists took up residence in the modest cottages and fishermen’s shacks that once dotted this stretch of coastal bliss.
The idiosyncratic living room features a mix of vintage furniture, paintings, and lighting. Humour is a common thread throughout the house: it takes a second look to realise the ship is on fire in the painting above the fireplace.
In the hallway, a monster lobster claw greets guests, a reference to the maritime pursuits of the region.
“When the place became ours, the neighbours were circumspect. In a village that was in the midst of unprecedented change, further erasure of its past would not come as a surprise, though the sting would last forever. We couldn’t turn back time, but maybe we could preserve a small piece of the street’s storied past. We were determined to leave the house – built in 1860 and added to willynilly – just the way it was. Aren’t those quirks what attracted us to it in the first place? My sister, who lives around the corner, gave it a name: the letter M, the first initial of the street it is on.
“Apart from removing the dropped kitchen ceiling and cladding our newfound cubic feet in pine planks, we resisted the impulse to expand. Sure, a dormer on the second floor would open things up, but then we wouldn’t get to laugh uproariously when my husband’s curls – some of the last remaining on his head – graze the eave in the bedroom. Or connect with our sons, Finn and James, each of whom stands at six feet, when we all crowd onto the living room sofa.
“I love the daily ritual of flinging open the door while the coffee brews, then sitting down in the fussy floral chintz chair and sipping in silence as the sun comes up.”
A chintz covered chair in the kitchen.
“Admittedly I am prone to a desire to expand the kitchen, using my work as a cookbook writer as rationale. I love the daily ritual of flinging open the kitchen door while the coffee brews, then sitting down in the fussy floral chintz chair and sipping in silence as the sun comes up. Of course, we did make our mark, largely with buckets of paint, a floor sander, and furniture and art we had collected over two decades.
“The garden pays homage to the artist who lived here before us. We tend to both it and the house as if we are merely its caretakers. Indeed, it’s not unlike having a newborn: we coddle it, protect it, and never ever want it to grow up.”
A former garage is now an art studio, lunchroom and guest bedroom, in a pinch.
On a Queen Anne chest of drawers, a still life of treasures.
In the dining room, a floor-to-ceiling abstract painting of a river in winter hangs on the wall behind the dining table; another still life on a painted chest of drawers.
Adapted from the Maine House II by Maura McEvoy, Basha Burwell and Kathleen Hackett, published by Vendome Press.
