Excavation—not just of the physical architecture but of the stories imparted by time—is what struck me when speaking with Elana Jadallah about her home in the midcoast. She’s a professional photographer who splits the year between Hawai’i and Maine. Her bicoastal lifestyle, complete with an inconvenient travel schedule, was an intentional choice she and her fiancé, Aaron, made to spend time with her family in Hawai’i, and his in Maine.
That’s how the Maine problem came to be—though not so much a problem as an undertaking greater than either had anticipated. When Aaron’s family approached them with the opportunity to buy an 1800s midcoast home, they purchased the home sight-unseen from pure intuition. While this decision ultimately paid off, the renovation process posed certain challenges. Instead of the simple renovation they had imagined, when Elana and Aaron inspected the home, they were shocked. Elana says, “Aaron’s grandmother looked at us and said, ‘You’re bulldozing this, right?’ And I laughed and said, ‘Grammy, we can’t afford to do that!’ In the end, it might have been cheaper to have pursued that route.”
Yet, with a bulldozing, the storied element of the home would have been taken down with it. Instead, Elana and Aaron restored the entire structure—essentially taking it down to the studs. When they opened up the walls, they found horsehair plaster. They also uncovered three layers of ceiling to expose the hand-hewn wooden beams. To honor the history and craftsmanship of this historic home, they kept the beams exposed. “This became an excavation of our home, but also our souls and our sanity,” she says. “I feel like I grew with this house, there were so many decisions and lessons that came with it.”
Part of that excavation came from the collected stories from neighbors who remembered the house from their youth. She learned that despite the home being built in the 1800s, it had been moved by oxen pulling it over logs around 1920 (or so she has heard from word of mouth). “There are multiple truths and stories in this home,” she says. “Details arrive out of chronological order, from documents we’ve unearthed, anecdotes from the builder and neighbors. We have brought in other antiques with their own unique histories, and all of these collected items feel like pieces of a puzzle.”
After the painstaking and careful process of renovating her home, Elana wanted to approach the interior design with the same thoughtfulness. She is from the generation of fast fashion and fast furniture, but her home is a living antithesis to fast-anything. Rather than ordering convenient pieces of furniture online, Elana opted to explore antique stores to find what spoke to her. “It was such a teaching moment to abstain from convenience culture,” she says. “As we went through the process of curating our home, I often had to pause and remind myself of the bigger picture we are building.”
Natural elements and the color palette of Maine influenced the design as well. The tile in their bathroom is a rosemary green that reminds her of the ocean at high tide, when the murky ocean mixes with the gray-toned sand. To complement the soft green, she pulls blue, tan, brown, and different colors of soil into the various rooms. Nature inspires calm—and that is the sensation Elana seeks to curate in her home. “We live in an overstimulating world, and I want to feel held and grounded in my space, both inside and out.”
Elana’s voice and perspective is one that resonates with thousands of people. On Instagram, she invites her community into a lifestyle that aligns with nature and the seasons. Her refreshing back-to-nature perspective feels like a gem nestled among the slog of digital media. What she puts out into the world feels like an extension of her home: poetic, nature-filled, and peaceful.
The sentience of her home is palpable; the way the sun filters through the sunroom, pouring around the antique dining table, casts movement around the room. Outside, she works to cultivate the life of her garden: “This year, I focused my energy on my tea and herb garden, growing calendula, lemon balm, mint, chamomile, thyme, sage, and more. These are beautiful utilized fresh, but I also dry them to use throughout the rest of the year as loose-leaf tea and when cooking meals.”
This space is one that can only be made in Maine—by someone who has borne witness to a specific way of life—its stout moods in every season, its joyful wildlife. Shaped by someone who has studied the Atlantic Ocean and loved it deeply. The way Maine calls to Elana’s soul is poured into every room. She, the observer of lilacs, the picker of Queen Anne’s lace, the orbiter of these antique-filled rooms.
