How do you build in such as a special place?
With eighty acres of pristine wilderness stretching out before you where do you even begin?
This is a new project for me it's on an island seven miles off the mid coast of Maine more
than half of it is national park preserved as wild forever.
Year-round residents number less than a hundred there's a one-room post office a tiny school
a fire station a store this is a place where people still drive Model T's it feels like
a frontier a place that's on the edge balanced between tides and storms isolated and self-sufficient
to get here you have to catch the mail boat from Stonington and I grabbed the first one
of the day you share the 45-minute ride with contractors and tourists framing lumber and
sheetrock provisions for the mainland and you steam past the granite hauling derricks
of Crotch Island between tiny windswept islands and hidden ledges countless lobster buoys
we finally slipped into the small leeward thoroughfare arriving at the town pier and
here I'm met by my clients we met at my studio last fall to discuss their project and this
summer we’re walking their parcel as we prepare the road access we begin the tour
on the island’s only road a 12 mile loop encircling the island they've spent weeks
hiking their land in every season but winter searching for the right spot to build surveying
the beaches and high heads the drainages and Heath barrens the forests of fern and they've
narrowed it down to three candidate locations each with their own set of challenges and
we're assessing each of those as possible building sites today and beginning our schematic
design discussions and so the next few minutes of footage are a little bit shaky but I wanted
to include it because I think the insights here are really important as we arrived at
the first site and just before I started to record we had an interesting exchange about
the simplicity and directness of the local architecture and this notion of uniqueness
came up and I really wanted to get at the crux of this not only because these are the
kinds of things that can shape the design but also because they tend to surface some
of the things people really care about things that are hard to articulate what's existing
here on the island, anything that you like?
natural cedar siding metal roof stone is everywhere we don't have to use that in my mind's eye
anyway - mm-hmm - there is a lot of cedar siding out here and I have no problems with
that I don't think I like the cedar shingles so much because there's so much of it – interesting
- I like board-and-batten cedar that would work or…
So, it needs to be different…It needs to be a little different yes needs to be a little
bit different - and from a shape standpoint too, a massing standpoint?
yes I think so.
A shed, is a shed roof different?
I love a shed roof - that's interesting, so you don't associate that necessarily with
the simple style here then?
the shed?
no I think it is a little more unique so okay I would put that in your in the cat okay okay
I think we see it very differently it's unique because it is if it is but I don't need to
have it stand out in that way I don't it's not a it doesn't represent me I don't have
any firm ideas around whether I don't necessarily want a tower and another that's sort of something
I think you've toyed with a lot more than I have I you know some of the things he's
drawn or designed were great but I don’t it needs to be in harmony with where it is
and I do want some view of course you want to be able to look out and you know see things
you like but I don't think I prefer almost you know I'll have to look that way and I'm
not I it's all beautiful to me and we talked about you know there could even be structures
divided you know they're separate you know we even talked about like having you know
a sleeping space and then there's a space that sort of doubles as you know sleeping
for us or or office / guests and there's a more communal space where we come together
and everybody hangs out.
Something that makes it unique is I mean just it's a journey to get here like it's that's
why I was asking you how long it took you to get here from your house it's not easy
to get here and then there's this process of coming here and disconnecting and exploring
that's something unique about this place how does that get expressed in this house? is
it about opening doors and closing things or is it about going to different sleeping
spaces there's a sleeping porch or there's yeah I don't know I it's all interesting to
me to think about that and to me it's hard for me to come up with an architecture that
competes with that view, my instinct is always just to defer to that because it feels like
I don't have to do much here and then it's about arrival and how the spaces feel and
how they make you feel and how you live in it that's where the uniqueness comes.
Because I think a lot of the local places I mean even the place you're staying in now
there's not a lot of thought about how you live in a place like that right?
It's kind of a function of how the space was divided up it's not a great place to to gather
necessarily I mean I don't know you can tell me differently.
No, you’re right.
From here we hiked to the second site high on a promontory between a field of blow downs
in the open ocean it proved far too exposed and given everything we had just discussed
we quickly moved on to the final potential site an area near a series of stepped granite
seams falling away to the surf below in the lee of a tiny island this place felt different
and I know this may sound a little too much like alchemy but when you're walking a site
you have to rely on all your senses to guide you to the right place intuition does play
a role and it's not a special skill we all have it here we had the view a cover of native
vegetation a natural clearing to the east and the water a granite whale's back all the
diversity present on the property was right here it also offered a shorter and more direct
approach from the road for access so we found a place to sit and sketch and to begin envisioning
what we might do here so when you enter you enter to mudroom space here you think?
Or is it mudroom laundry?
I mean you talked about really one or two I love the idea of consolidation with regard
to you know all that but it's still the entrance of the house so I don't know I think that
it just feels but it's here I mean it could be that I mean it's here I meaning it’s
Outpost.
Casual?
Yeah, it’s not like we’re trying to…
Is it, so if the entry were let's say the entry is this sort of strip where you come
in it's got coat pegs and stuff like that and then laundry is behind doors like cubbies
or whatever is it that's all comfortable for me that's comfortable for you can do that
does it still feel like entry potentially like let’s say if you're entering to that
view kind of thing like oh yeah I even kind of like that because I like the high function
of it and I think it could still be beautiful yeah I'm not…laundry can be readily hidden
with a sliding door, barn door can be out-of-the-way bi-fold trifold doors, not some ugly doors,
you don’t like that.
yeah do you do you enter drop your stuff like do you want to be close to the kitchen does
it matter the like is kitchen right there it doesn't have to be the kitchen okay but
It yeah it needs to I like dropping you know we have a really small foyer and that's been
a sort of a we didn't quite think all that through and then there's nowhere like you
know we're coming the front door the back door and we really didn't we thought we had
that nailed down that didn't work it hasn't worked as well I think you like to have a
place where you sit take your boots off if they’re muddy that's what I mean I do and
we don't have quite what we thought we were gonna have so that's something that I see
now is we're talking about it's really important and it's so just you know it's a big turn
time space it's like the turnaround space or you yeah so Eric you can make that foyer
be a mudroom for your laundry room drop room a lot of things right I mean mud rooms are
like the most you know useful space in Maine as far as I'm concerned especially I mean
you won't be here in the winter really but you know for the three seasons that you're
here it's going to do a lot of work and I what else do you come in with?
So dog comes in so kayak paddles do they stay outside what like raingear?
What yeah okay yeah I mean I see a place for stuff we have shelving and we just you know
people drop their shoes yep what about like what what do you see material-wise like when
you come into that kind of space is it like the cocoa matting kind of thing is that metal
grading is it stone tile is it porcelain tiles it would do you care?
what's cocoa cocoa mat? it's like you know the door matting material it's sort of the
brown is kind of short hair I don't know if you remember at my house it's I have that
throughout the whole mudroom you can recess at the floor there's ways to make that feel
like it's built in and custom then the porcelain tile is like inexpensive stone tile I don't
know if you've used that before bomb-proof so five bucks a square foot pretty pretty
affordable stone tile I'm presuming you know what that is and then wood is a little harder
to do on an entry surface but like just in terms of thinking about how you move from
inside to outside do you have any any preconceptions about that?
Again the function is the big piece they're more than just aesthetics yep so like wood
maybe wouldn't be the first choice necessarily but if we needed it to balance or it just
came out that was the best plan because I love wood could you see wood for the rest
of the like the living spaces is that what you picture? it's warmer yep what about like
wall surfaces ceiling surfaces like any any ideas on that like is this this isn't a knotty
pine cabin I'm presuming no I don’t like too much wood.
Sheetrock?
Sheetrock and maybe a little galvalume or maybe a little board and batten rough cut
cedar.
But more light rather than dark.
Yes.
I like cooler not quite so warm as a wood might.
And the dining area separate dining table or is it like a nook?
Or, like have you thought about that at all?
I could do, you know I know at home we have like we have a like a little just a kitchen
area just like this that's what all the counters and everything is there okay then you've got
like a tiny bar and then it's the dining area well you have an island well that's the bar
3 3 or 4 feet by 5 feet I think yeah and that hasn't really worked quite like we thought
either but it's I'm okay with just you know it can all be together you know in other words
the kitchen work area doesn't have to be separated to any large extent from where you dine you
just are you okay with that or would you rather more you know no all contiguous yeah you know
it's fine to be and you have like a big farmhouse table that you do put like is dining with
like six people normal or is it six probably our current table is we'll just plan for that
and you get people's yeah right okay cool yeah it kind of felt like a good yeah yeah
and it's still small enough that we can you don't feel like we really in this big.
so when you talked about the the living I pictured the wood stove in the living but
you mentioned the wood stove might maybe in the bedroom.
Oh no I was suggesting that just if the bedroom is a separate structure altogether got you
then having that as an option might like a little make sense I think there's room in
this plan if we're talking about sort of splaying out two wings but there's room to say the
guests are over here and you guys are over here I think does your room to do that if
you're interested in that and then I'm having two separate bathrooms you know I think having
another bath like I think it just I think you're gonna not regret that I do it but I
you're right equally you're feeling that now because you know everything is so much for
me but truly at home think about how it works what doesn't work sure I think if you look
at the added cost of it it's it's so minor okay based on what you get back from it well
then I guests get a very tiny little bathtub yeah yeah well a shower is or just a shower
yeah yeah I think that works very I think that's a brilliant idea yeah okay as the day
progressed several themes emerged: clean crisp minimal, clean, crisp, modern, minimal and
organic.
Organic.
And the organic is literally like every you see rock or rough-hewn timber or rocking timber
stone good point they're irregular shapes but no everything is irregular around here
so you need some you need some hard lines that's that's very perceptive yeah.
So how do you build in this place well I think it's about doing as little as possible it's
hard not to feel protective of the very thing that's drawn people here that solitude a common
ideal stewardship of the land a respect for the sea this is an intimidating place and
I don't pretend to know what the right thing to do is just yet.
We're calling this project The Outpost it's a study an economy of treading lightly of
deferring to this amazing landscape and a unique climate.
It'll serve as a retreat a place to welcome family friends and neighbors afford their
guests a way to experience this place in much the same way they have.
I'm excited to share it here on the channel as the project unfolds so do stay tuned.
I have to keep I have to keep asking questions until I get the answer I want.
You know that trick, right?