Tour a Family Compound in Maine

In the dining area of designer Lisa Duffy’s Maine home, the tasseled chandelier, custom made by M2C Studio, reflects her passion for African-inspired decor.

A stairway leads guests from the second-floor entry down to the main living area. The Lee Industries daybed tucked under the floating staircase is a favorite spot for curling up with a book.

Black-framed windows help give the home its contemporary character, both indoors and out. Natural wood accents, nickel-gap paneling, and comfortable Verellen armchairs and couches harmonize with the home’s rustic setting and help offset expanses of monochromatic walls.

Dramatic glasswork and minimalist lines mix with traditional Downeast design elements like a peaked metal roof and board-and-batten siding to keep the vacation home in touch with its waterfront environs.

Intimate gathering spaces, like this fireplace sitting area off the main living room, bring a touch of coziness to the grandly scaled design.

Brass shelf brackets match the trim on the bar cabinetry.

Lined up like an imagined herd of fluffy sheep, these delightful Verellen stools, covered in faux curly lambswool, epitomize design that is stylish but also comfortable enough for family getaways with children and future grandchildren.

Duffy describes the kitchen, with its expansive island, trellised pantry door, and Moroccan rugs, as “functional but warm.”

The kitchen’s decorative accents—wicker-backed chairs, wood cabinetry trim, and brass hardware—conspire to add a sense of country sophistication.

The powder room’s custom sink is hewn from a single block of native stone and sits on a floating walnut base.

Duffy lets the natural world deliver the color in the main living areas, but she indulges her own favorite hues in the home’s four bedrooms, each with its own distinctive design. A Palecek chandelier cascades over an Oly Studio bed in this blue-tinged guest room, which has a bone-inlay nightstand and oversized shell sconces by Made Goods.

The concrete soaking tub in the primary bath adds contemporary heft to a room edged with handmade Zellige tiles from Morocco.

Honeycomb-framed Paleck chairs and grasscloth wallpaper by Mark Alexander soften the otherwise masculine primary bedroom.

The autumnal room includes a spacious window seat, ideal for quiet contemplation as Maine transitions into its full fall glory.

Of the three homes planned for the property, the main house is furthest from the water, but endless summer days spent in and on the pond are just steps away.

When interior designer Lisa Duffy and her husband, Bob, set out to build a three-house family compound in rural Maine, they took the long view—and we’re not just talking about the vistas from the property’s leafy peninsula that juts into Brandy Pond.

Sited where rustic cabins and an older home once stood, a trio of new residences—one finished, the other two due to be completed in time for the wedding of the couple’s daughter this fall—are intended as a legacy as well as a getaway destination.

The Duffys discovered the property, located between Long Lake and Sebago Lake near Portland, on a rainy vacation day, idly paging through local real-estate guides. But the design of the compound is very intentional, taking into account the couple’s future grandchildren (unborn as yet) and eventual retirement (still a ways over the horizon).

The finished 6,000-square-foot Cove House sits on a lot that slopes down to the pond’s quiet shoreline: entry is via a bridge to the second floor, where the views out to the pond begin even before reaching the door and culminate on an elevated landing, which looks through the home and out a wall of windows.

Guests are ushered down a floating staircase to the main living area, a broad, open space under cathedral ceilings. The first floor includes the kitchen, living room, garage access, and a guest suite, the latter a hedge against a future when single-story living might be more practical for an older couple.

For the compound’s aesthetic, Duffy, founder of Savoir Faire Home, embraced Pine Tree State living, if not its typical design vernacular.
“I didn’t want a country-cottage Maine feel with a screened-in porch and a ton of stone on the exterior,” she says. “I wanted something a little more contemporary but with an organic feel and lots of natural light. If I could have done the whole house in glass, I would have.”

The gabled metal roof does nod to the Downeast setting, but the home’s large black-framed windows, board-and-batten siding, and board-form concrete in place of natural stone contribute to its modern sensibility. Inside, the starkness of white plaster walls is eased with the selective use of natural wood and textured materials; a powder room sink is carved from a single piece of local black mountain stone,
for example. Colorful Moroccan rugs and African accents reflect the couple’s world travels.

Dramatic water views are found throughout, but the property checks many other boxes for an idyllic family hideaway, too: a tennis court, blueberry bushes ripe for picking, and a “field of dreams” for outdoor games. Design-build firm Knickerbocker Group received guidance from Bob Duffy on a landscaping scheme that includes an outdoor firepit and shower, a terrace with an outdoor kitchen, and a golf cart path connecting the three houses. “They have this beautiful luxury home but spend more of their time outside,”
says site manager Derek Libby.

“The owners were very involved and vocal, and the interiors were Lisa’s baby, so that added pressure,” admits Libby. But, says Claire
Thibeault, Knickerbocker’s senior project designer, “It was also great because they knew the right questions to ask and the direction they wanted to go.”

Still to come are the 3,500-square-foot Point House and a 2,500-square-foot guesthouse, both located on the tip of the peninsula, just a short walk from the main residence. And though a work in progress, the collaboration among designers, builders, and owners helped everyone connect to the soul of a unique project, says Libby. “It’s special when you’re building a home that you know is going to be a generational legacy.”

Project Team
Architecture, builder, and landscape design: Knickerbocker Group
Interior design: Savoir Faire Home

Styled by Laura Nero