A Marion, Massachusetts Estate with Harbor Views

The property slopes twenty feet from front to back, allowing the lower level to be transformed into a light-filled living space and the pool to catch plenty of light while retaining privacy. “We created the pool to have a direct relationship with the harbor,” says Sudbury Design Group’s Michael Coutu.

The living room features custom sofas by Decore Upholstering, a custom cocktail table by Masterpiece Woodworks, and a Steven King area rug. The painting is Late Summer by Carl Wuermer.

A low, continuous roofline connects the main house with the single-story detached guest suite on one side and the main garage on the other.

Architect Doreve Nicholaeff designed all interior cabinetry to coordinate with the transoms above the front door, “So we have this sort of continuous line that works through the house that ties everything together and makes it feel calm and organized and orderly,” she says.

The library connects to the living room through a pocket door.

To satisfy the client’s request for softer lines, Nicholaeff designed an archway over the Louis J. Solomon bed in the primary suite.

The walk-in closet and dressing room feature a vintage Murano chandelier found at 1stDibs

Interior designer Manuel De Santaren gave a first-floor powder room character with a bold wallpaper by Thibaut.

Coutu created a variety of terrace areas, including a firepit, to help bring the backyard down to scale. “The walk-out basement sort of serves as a cabana,” he says, eliminating the need for a pool house.

The challenge was, quite literally, a very big one: How to make a nearly 9,500-square-foot house feel cozy and intimate? The sprawling plot of land overlooking Sippican Harbor in Marion, Massachusetts, felt ripe for an outsized summer retreat. Except the new homeowners intended to use it as their year-round residence. As such, they wanted plenty of room to entertain and distinct sleeping spaces for their two daughters who’d already left for college and a third who was still living at home, along with details that made it all feel traditional and manageable inside and out. They also requested a guesthouse that felt private but was still connected to the main residence.

The couple enlisted architect Doreve Nicholaeff to replace an existing structure with a home that better suited their needs and was situated more
appropriately. Nicholaeff was instantly drawn to the project by the expansiveness of the site, as well as to challenges presented by a view easement, which would ultimately drive much of the design. The goal was to integrate the home into the land, which gradually sloped from street level all the way to the water, while keeping it out of the floodplains.

From the start, Nicholaeff worked with Michael Coutu, principal and senior project manager at landscape firm Sudbury Design Group, and interior designer Manuel de Santaren and his team to ensure design both in and out made best use of the light, from the view of the water through the front door to the swimming pool and integrated spa that catch the southern sun.

Nicholaeff began by positioning the house away from the street. A brick courtyard and circular driveway cocreated with Coutu leads to a formal
entry and two wings that face one another. The garage is on one side and the guesthouse on the other, connected by a lower roof in order to “break down the scale and not have it loom as a two-story building,” Nicholaeff says. A continuous stone base gives the impression the home meets the ground.

Inside, details like pocket doors and coffered ceilings allow both a sense of open expansiveness and a scaled-down, more traditional feel to coexist nicely. For de Santaren, the homeowners’ love of color became a guiding thread, allowing him and his team to introduce moments of personality and warmth that feel both intentional and effortless.

“We found ourselves leaning into those time-honored design codes that have evolved so beautifully across this special corner of New England,” he says. “Subtle references, familiar textures, and a palette that feels both enduring and authentic. At the same time, we were very conscious of not letting the home feel frozen in time. It was important that these traditional elements be gently lifted with a lighter, more contemporary hand—nothing forced, just a natural layering that keeps the house feeling current, fresh, and entirely livable.”

Coutu, meanwhile, worked to create access to the shore that didn’t require walking through the neighbors’ yard, as it had previously. “The backyard is the showstopper, yet very, very relative to the house,” he says. “You can almost, but not quite, see the pool from the front door, but you do see the harbor.” The house practically looks small in comparison—which, of course, was the entire point.

Project Team
Architecture: Doreve Nicholaeff Architecture
Interior design: Manuel de Santaren
Builder: Meagher Construction
Landscape design: Sudbury Design Group