This Dreamy New Maine Hideaway Was Made for Fall

Andrew Sessa
·5 min read

New Englanders aren’t necessarily known for their exuberance—or their attention to what happens on fashion runways—but locals couldn’t help but lose their cool over menswear designer Todd Snyder’s fall 2020 runway show. An homage to Maine’s great outdoors, and the heritage of native brand L.L. Bean specifically, the collection featured haute versions of Bean’s signature puffer vests, overcoats, duck boots, and tote bags. Portland’s Press Herald celebrated the collection with a huge front-page story, and it wasn’t just Mainers who took notice. The show won fans from all over.

Fall is now almost upon us, but pieces from the collaboration—Bean’s first in its century-plus history—won’t be available until October 26, when they arrive in stores (Snyder’s two New York City boutiques, his recently opened East Hampton pop-up, and Bean’s Freeport flagship). Now, however, there’s a new way for you to get a truly immersive experience of the Snyder x Bean aesthetic.

In the compact foyer, an upholstered bench—once again in hunting-blaze orange—sits in front of custom camouflage wallpaper. The space offers a peek through to the living room beyond.
In the compact foyer, an upholstered bench—once again in hunting-blaze orange—sits in front of custom camouflage wallpaper. The space offers a peek through to the living room beyond.
Snyder found pillows made of patchworked rugs on 1stdibs, through J&D Oriental Rugs Co. He used these, along with a blanket from Faribault Woolen Mill Company, to adorn a seating nook on one of the lodge’s two screened porches. (Each bedroom has its own porch.)

The luxe Kennebunkport resort Hidden Pond has just debuted Snyder’s From Away Lodge, a suite that takes its name from the title of his fashion collection. (In regional vernacular, someone who’s “from away” is anyone—like Iowa native Snyder—not born in Maine.) Working with local interior designers Louise Hurlbut and Krista Stokes, Snyder translated the look and feel of his collection into the two bedrooms, cozy living room, and pair of screened porches of a 1,100-square-foot cabin tucked into Hidden Pond’s 60 woodland acres.

With the lodge, Snyder says he wanted to engage guests in his experience designing the collection, discovering L.L. Bean’s history and indulging his newfound love of Maine. When he began the collaboration for the clothing line, “I didn’t know L.L Bean was a real person,” Snyder admits. “But he was. Leon Leonwood Bean was a guide, and he would bring people from Boston and New York around Maine to show them where to go fishing, where to go camping—where to go, period.” Bean started creating apparel because his clients would come from the city with wool suits and haberdashery—not great clothes for the great outdoors.

The foyer opens to a cozy living room featuring a shag rug, midcentury chairs with cushions in L.L. Bean’s signature red-and-black plaid, and a daybed and pillows done in men’s suiting fabrics, including gray flannel and tweed.
The foyer opens to a cozy living room featuring a shag rug, midcentury chairs with cushions in L.L. Bean’s signature red-and-black plaid, and a daybed and pillows done in men’s suiting fabrics, including gray flannel and tweed.

And so, Snyder explains, Bean decided to take traditional menswear fabrics and turn them into hunting jackets and other pieces that made sense for the wilds of nature, “whether that meant making them weatherproof or thornproof,” says the designer. The From Away Lodge, like the runway collection, “plays with luxury and utility, giving you this very luxurious experience in a very outdoorsman sort of place.”

The son of an interior decorator, Snyder, who studied architecture in college, imagined a lodge where Bean’s clients might have stayed in the latter decades of his long life, from the 1930s through the ’60s. (Bean died in 1967 at the age of 95.) Snyder combined favorite suiting fabrics and textures with midcentury finds, largely sourced from 1stdibs, and he worked with ABC Carpet & Home to create patchworks of antique Persian carpets. “I wanted the whole thing to look bohemian and eclectic,” says Snyder, “a mix of all the things from the show.”

Snyder—who collaborated with local interior designers Louise Hurlbut and Krista Stokes on the project—had the main bedroom painted Benjamin Moore’s aptly named Kennebunkport Green. He worked with ABC Carpet & Home to create the custom carpet, a patchwork of antique Persian rugs, and he found the brushed-steel dresser, made by Simmons Company Furniture in the 1930s, on the 1stdibs storefront of City Foundry.

It feels that way from the minute you catch sight of the lodge. A hunting-blaze-orange front door welcomes you into a petite camouflage-wallpapered foyer, which opens to a living area outfitted with a cream-colored New Zealand wool shag rug, two midcentury-modern wood armchairs with cushions covered in L.L. Bean’s signature red-and-black plaid, and a gray-flannel daybed topped by plaid and tweed pillows. Snyder had the main bedroom painted a mossy shade (Benjamin Moore’s Kennebunkport Green, appropriately enough), adding a shearling chair and an industrial-chic brushed-steel dresser made by Simmons Company Furniture in the 1930s. The second bedroom (done in Moore’s Hale Navy blue) got a cowhide bench plus a George Nelson Herman Miller dresser whose two orange drawer panels recall the front door.

On-point details abound: All the bed linens are from John Robshaw, while the decoupaged trays are by John Derian. The books Snyder picked (about modern art, rock ’n’ roll and Maine) are midcentury, and the artworks (a mix of contemporary landscapes and abstract works by local artists) were sourced at Corey Daniels Gallery, in nearby Wells. “The artwork pulls it all together,” says the designer. “It’s a bit of a symphony.”

Benjamin Moore's Hale Navy covers the walls in the second bedroom. A set of antlers hangs over the headboard, with art from the nearby Corey Daniels Gallery, in Wells, Maine, elsewhere on the walls.

Snyder’s favorite thing about the lodge? It might well be its longevity. “When you do a fashion show, there’s all this buildup, and then it’s over in 15 minutes—Thank God there are photos,” he says. “This project was intriguing because it’ll live on. That’s really exciting.” hiddenpondmaine.com

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest