Tour a Coastal Maine Three-Generation Family Home That Was Years in the Making

Robert Rorke
·11 min read

When Leah Lippmann, an architect and senior interior designer at Knickerbocker Group, began renovating a waterfront home overlooking Maine’s Casco Bay, she had the mansions of Bar Harbor in mind. “They built these beautiful Shingle-style houses on the water,” she says. “They were in railroad, coal, magnates of some sort. They had a lot of money and that’s where they spent it.”

The setting, with a private beach and enough landscaping to ensure privacy, was perfect. “When I initially set foot on the property, I was like, this landscape is unbelievable,” she says. But the house, she adds, was not “deserving of where it was located. It needed to be elevated to the landscape. It needed that history, it needed that richness.” The interiors were decidedly pedestrian. “The cabinetry, it was low-end,” she says. “Particleboard, not great finishes. It was basically a drywall chalet mansion. Very basic.”

The owners, Janice and Lee, wanted a summer home where their three children and three grandchildren could visit. Janice had wanted a coastal home for years and Lee, a retired oilman, bought this one as a present. “He surprised me for my birthday, May 27, 2016,” Janice says. “My husband had an iPad in a box, wrapped. And it said Push Play. It was the realtor’s video. And it said, ‘Welcome to your new home.’”

“She must have played it a thousand times,” says Lee.

The turret had already been renovated when Janice shot up in bed one night in her Texas home and realized that what she really wanted was a catwalk outside the structure as well as doors leading up to it. Inspired by a nearby lighthouse, Knickerbocker’s construction team, led by project foreman Jared Prentiss, installed a wraparound catwalk that offers stunning ocean views. Marvin Window supplied the new doors. The custom pillows and lampshade are covered with Schumacher’s Citrus Garden fabric. Knickerbocker Group designed and installed the bronze compass rose inlaid in the walnut plank floor as well as the floral upholstered chair with fabrics by Duralee. The green side table is by Century Furniture. The rattan chairs were found in a local shop.

The team at Knickerbocker Group took four years to complete renovations on the 12,000-square-foot house. “We gutted it down to the studs,” Lippmann says. “The only [thing] that was great about this house was that it had good bones. We designed and added everything else. There wasn’t anything we didn’t replace.”

The logical starting point was the porch, originally an eight-foot-wide strip that barely allowed people to pass each other. “We designed a veranda,” Lippmann says. With a new copper roof, rafters, cedar shingles, cedar decking, and a mahogany railing, the porch became the kind of inviting outdoor space Janice and Lee could use all the time.

“We pretty much live on that porch,” says Janice. “I grew up with a big porch as a child. And I just wanted that porch because if it’s pouring down rain, the [grand]kids can still play. They can jump rope. It’s big enough that they can even ride their tricycles on it.”

Knickerbocker moved the six-and-a-half-foot-deep indoor pool 18 inches to make the space symmetrical. They also built two walkways on either side to accommodate seating and added light fixtures by Urban Electric and Barbican.

Lippmann also built a balcony over the veranda and a bunk room over the garage to add much-needed bedrooms for those visiting family members. The floors throughout the house were ripped up and replaced with walnut boards. A so-called three-season porch, closer to the woods on the property, was another add-on. And way upstairs, an attic space was turned into a plush playroom.

Smaller rooms on the house’s lower level were demolished to create a large recreational area where Janice and Lee could show off their bar, which was fashioned from one of Lee’s mahogany Sebago Lake boats. “The boys like to play bartender down there,” Janice says. What’s on tap? “We’re pretty much wine drinkers ourselves. We’re Louisiana people. We lived there for quite a while. A good Bloody Mary goes a long way down there on a Sunday morning.”

Tour a Coastal Maine Three-Generation Family Home That Was Years in the Making

Lippmamn took a formal approach to designing the living room. Two Ferrell Mittman sofas, upholstered in coral velvet by Schumacher, face each other on either side of a Ferrell Mittman Brighton coffee table. The sofas are juxtaposed with a pair of pompadour ottomans by Baker Furniture. The sconces on either side of the fireplace are by Vaughan Designs. The Atlanta antique shop Parc Monceau supplied the mahogany Regency console tables that flank the fireplace. Above it hangs a silver leaf mirror from the Carvers’ Guild.
Knickerbocker Group took the house’s original porch, at the back of the house and no wider than eight feet, and transformed it into this luxurious veranda with views of Casco Bay. Among the additions: a new copper roof, pendant lighting by Hinkley Lighting, and a mahogany railing. The rafter tails and railing trim are done in Pigeon by Farrow & Ball. The shingles are H2BO by Maibec.
For the entry, Lippmann added an antique pine bench that her colleague Chloe Kregling found at a local shop, and painted it Hague Blue by Farrow & Ball. The color of the wood paneling is Pointing by Farrow & Ball. Hudson Valley Lighting did the sconces.
The turret had already been renovated when Janice shot up in bed one night in her Texas home and realized that what she really wanted was a catwalk outside the structure as well as doors leading up to it. Inspired by a nearby lighthouse, Knickerbocker’s construction team, led by project foreman Jared Prentiss, installed a wraparound catwalk that offers stunning ocean views. Marvin Window supplied the new doors. The custom pillows and lampshade are covered with Schumacher’s Citrus Garden fabric. Knickerbocker Group designed and installed the bronze compass rose inlaid in the walnut plank floor as well as the floral upholstered chair with fabrics by Duralee. The green side table is by Century Furniture. The rattan chairs were found in a local shop.
The three-season porch is a favorite perch. The custom tiles on the fireplace were hand-painted by D. Todd & Co. and installed by Old Port Specialty Tile. The pendant lighting is by Rocky Mountain Hardware. The sconces are by Rejuvenation. Lippmann found the weathered teak side tables, lounge chairs, and ottomans at Janus et Cie.
“I love the study,” says Janice. “It’s that room where I like to go and read a book or do a puzzle.” The room features a 19th-century mahogany breakfast table found at a local antiques shop. The William Morris café curtains, done in pure net appliqué fabric through Sanderson Design Group, add a layer of softness. The pillows are covered in Cowtan & Tout, Duralee, and Schumacher fabrics.
This portion of the study features a built-in bench that’s perfect for curling up with a good mystery book. The Haley chairs by Bernhardt are upholstered in Schumacher green velvet. The room is painted Stiffkey Blue by Farrow & Ball.
The handsome centerpiece of this cozy, well-appointed guest bedroom suite is a custom low-post bed by Leonards of New England. The rattan chairs, with custom fabric by Lee Jofa, are by Palacek. The Urban Electric lantern is in a custom color. Vaughan Lighting did the wall sconces. Bedside tables are by Grange Furniture.
This guest room comes with a built-in queen-sized bed and its own custom privacy screen, which is covered in William Morris fabric. The Elkins sconces above the bed are by Thomas O’Brien and the custom rug is by Steven King Decorative Carpets in Boston. A mahogany step stool by Lostine Home Goods can be seen in the lower left corner. The room is painted Pitch Blue by Farrow & Ball.
Lippmann and the Knickerbocker construction team, led by Prentiss, took the roof off the garage and created a second story that now houses additional accommodations. “The roof was originally built as a series of trusses, just an assemblage of crisscrossing beams. We added rafter ties and a floor in order to turn it into an open, habitable space, ” says Lippmann. “It’s attached to the house and has a coffee bar and drawer fridges. If your kids get up at five in the morning, you don’t want to wake up Grandma and Grampy because they’re still sleeping.” For this portion of the room, Knickerbocker made the rustic barn door; the bronze hardware is by Lowe Hardware. The Harper cane chairs are by Henredon; Dos Gallos made the table.
Inspired by the tight living quarters seen on boats near the house, Lippmann designed built-in drawers that hold extra blankets in this bunk room. Beds with iron pipe privacy rods by Cumberland Ironworks and custom curtains in wool by Duralee can be seen. The paint color is Light Stone by Farrow & Ball.
Knickerbocker moved the six-and-a-half-foot-deep indoor pool 18 inches to make the space symmetrical. They also built two walkways on either side to accommodate seating and added light fixtures by Urban Electric and Barbican.
Lee’s sons gave him an antique mahogany Sebago Lake boat as a Father’s Day present. Knickerbocker Group’s construction team and David Fields Woodworking later transformed the design into a working bar. “A section has been taken out so that you can walk behind it and mix a cocktail,” says Lippmann. “The lights all work and it has the original windshield and the steering wheel.” Located on the home’s lower level, the boat bar is the gathering spot in a large game room that includes limited-edition pinball and video game machines. Artist Henry Isaacs painted the nearby work, Boats on the Harbor.
The attic room’s colors, purple and gold, are taken from Louisiana State University, alma mater to Janice and Lee. Lippmann found the wallpaper through U.K. manufacturer Abigail Borg. The tea table is from English Farmhouse and the table lamps are by Stray Dog Designs. The tea set belongs to Janice and Lee’s granddaughter, but in this photo, Lippmann’s daughter Sawyer takes them out for a spin.
This photo captures one of the home’s in-between spaces. The front section is a butler’s pantry with a blue-tiled staircase that leads to a bunk room above the garage, the rear of an enormous mudroom divided by a Dutch door. “Janice and Lee wanted a Dutch door because they have a large family of dogs. The dogs hang out in the mudroom,” says Lippmann. “They have little cubbies. That silvery green tile you see—it’s actually a dog wash.” (The family uses the space too. “Every[one] has their own cubby with hooks for their jackets and places for their boots.”) The green tile in the mudroom is by Pratt & Larson. Both sets of tile were installed by Old Port Specialty Tile. Farrow & Ball paints Green Smoke and London Stone were used for the upper half of the Dutch door and for the wall of the pantry respectively. Lighting is by Urban Electric; hardware is by Hamilton Sinkler and Horton Brasses.
See the video.

Lippmann employed local and international vendors to give the house its glorious upgrade, ordering paint from the U.K. manufacturer Farrow & Ball, rugs from Mougalian in nearby Portland, Maine, and lighting from The Urban Electric Co. in Charleston. She also canvassed local antiques stores. Part of the renovation went on while Janice and Lee were living in the house, but Janice says it never felt inconvenient. “One thing with Knickerbocker, they always respected that we had a short amount of time because we were just coming up for the summer,” she says. “They scheduled work around any people we had coming or anything we had going on.”

Janice and Lee go to the house in early spring to escape the heat at their permanent residence in Texas. The visitors will start arriving and the games will begin. “We play Wiffle ball on the lawn. Horseshoes. Badminton,” she says. Guests come away with souvenirs from the private beach. “Our beach is full of sea glass. We bought little jars so all of [our visitors could] go sea glass hunting. That’s their going-away gift. The house has so many wonderful aspects… Of all the places we lived, I think [we] got this one right.”

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest