Coastal Connection

A deck off the office boasts beautiful views; the boardwalk leads out to a firepit, and the flat-roof connector, which does double duty as a gallery, links to the living room and kitchen.

The flat-roof connector widens the living and dining rooms; the cantilevered deck with a covered porch and glass rail is a scenic spot for morning coffee.

“One of the nice things about the site are the diagonal views captured at various vantage points around the property,” says Elliott Architects’s JT Loomis about the Maine retreat

Looking up at the house from the shore, the private left wing contains the primary suites, while the right side comprises the kitchen, living/dining areas, office, and guest room.

A new detached garage is visible on one side of the glass connector while the coast unfolds on the other side.

Owner Janet Griffin’s quilting studio doubles as guest quarters; the quilting layouts pinned on the far wall disguise a Murphy bed.

Large granite blocks pay homage to Stonington’s history as a quarry town.

It was serendipity, say Jeffrey Hunter and Janet Griffin, that led them to the property they would purchase in Stonington, Maine. Oneday, while summering on the island, they spotted a For Sale sign by an abandoned auto-body shop at the top of a dead-end road. Further investigation led them down past an exposed ledge where they discovered a dilapidated farmhouse.

While the buildings weren’t salvageable, the site was extraordinary—tucked away and private but overlooking a bustling navigation channel with a picturesque parade of boats.

The couple enlisted Elliott Architects, with JT Loomis taking the lead on the project. Their goal was twofold: “the antithesis of our beautiful 1895 Queen Anne Victorian in Iowa,” says Hunter, “and a design that respected the vernacular architecture of Downeast Maine.”

Loomis responded with a single-story 3,400-square-foot house that, he says, “starts in that authentic Maine vernacular, then gets transformed. We veered from the traditional and gave it a little edge.” The white cedar shingles, bleached to weather naturally, nod to the coastal area, but the overall aesthetic skews modern. Three gabled structures, roughly the same height and with eye-catching flat-roof connectors, serve to bring down the scale of the house and delineate the interior living plan.

The perpendicular structure contains the two primary suites, while the two overlapping parallel volumes comprise the main living area. A glass-and-wood connector bridges the private quarters and family spaces. A similar, larger connector extends the living and dining room out into the landscape, framing stunning views of the rocky coast and islands beyond.

In fact, incorporating the architecture into the landscape was a key component of the project, says Loomis. Todd Richardson of Richardson & Associates embraced the existing site conditions—the ledge, the meadows, the gravel beach—while hearkening back to Stonington’s storied history in granite quarrying. Huge blocks of granite, mined from a quarry a mile up the road, were trucked in and placed perpendicular to the home. “The blocks extend the architecture out to the landscape and blur the boundaries between the two,” explains Richardson.

They also celebrate a sense of place—a notion dear to the homeowners. And one that the design team took to heart. Sums up Loomis: “The project represents a strong connection in both form and materiality to the Maine coast they love.”

Project Team
Architecture: Elliott Architects
Builder: Jon D. Woodward & Sons
Landscape design:Todd Richardson, Richardson & Associates