by admin | Feb 14, 2023 | Articles, Maine Home & Design
Chris and Brandi Hau take their time with choices. They were living in Boston when, expecting their first child, they decided to move to Maine. “We thought, ‘We want more.’ We wanted land we wanted a place for him to play outside,” says Brandi. Chris is from the West Coast, but Brandi convinced him that her native state was a better choice: “I won the battle of Maine versus California, somehow.” Decision made, they spent two years driving around southern Maine, looking at school systems in range of the Portland airport, which enables Chris’s professional travel. Eventually they found a lot in Falmouth, but a week before closing they found themselves gazing out over the neighboring fields and woods. “It would be nice to have that,” they thought, imagining their kids crossing the fields on snowmobiles. They reached out to the owner and made a deal.
by admin | Feb 14, 2023 | Articles, Maine Home & Design
There’s one kind of Maine coast view that makes me catch my breath every time I find it: a wide-open expanse of water, reaching off to the horizon. It’s not the most painterly of scenes; for those, better to seek out the sharp, dark cliffs, the soft curves of salt-marsh, the hush and hum of pebbly beaches. But spending time by the open water, hearing it whisper the secret movements of wind and weather from day to day, might nurture an artist’s soul. One such artist has found her way to such a view, and to a permanent home in Maine.
by admin | Feb 14, 2023 | Articles, Maine Home & Design
Sometimes, you just have to knock down a few walls. When Nicola Manganello bought her sprawling 1760s farmhouse in Yarmouth, she knew she would have to open it up a bit to create some extra space for her family and friends. It’s a gorgeous, stately home, complete with oversize brick fire-boxes designed by New England architect John Calvin Stevens. Some people might blanch at the idea of updating a house like this, but Manganello knows what she’s doing. She’s been in the interior design business for decades, and she’s been a DIY enthusiast for even longer.
by admin | Feb 14, 2023 | Articles, Maine Home & Design
eowner push her boundaries to find comfort in a small space
February, 2020 | By: Katherine Gaudet | Photography: Erin Little
In 2015, Hannah and Arne Klepinger’s children had left for college, and were starting to think about downsizing from their 3,000-square-foot home in Yarmouth. “I thought it would take a few years. It took a few hours,” says Hannah. The couple looked at eight condos, and the seventh, a compact two-story space on the South Portland waterfront, caught Arne’s eye
by admin | Feb 14, 2023 | Articles, Maine Home & Design
Several years ago, when Warren and Kristin Valdmanis bought their first beach house in an exclusive community on the southern Maine coast, “We were advised to tear it down and start from scratch, which we did,” Kristin recalls. “We were young and didn’t see value in all the twists and turns of an old house. We had really young kids, and we needed something that was ultra-functional.” Fast-forward to 2016. Thinking of it as an investment property, the couple acquired another beach home, this one built in the 1890s, about 10 miles south in another exclusive enclave. “We had deep remorse that we had taken down an original structure with so many memories for the people who had lived there,” says Kristin. “We recognized this house had a soul, and didn’t want bad house karma, so we decided to preserve it as much as we could.”
