There is something distinctly Mediterranean in Nina Farmer’s recent Harpswell design. Nina is first to cop to the influence. “Early on, I noticed some architectural similarity between Île de Ré (a summer hot spot in France) and what this house was giving us,” she says, “so we knew pretty quickly we weren’t going to be pulling from a New England vernacular.” The array of vernaculars Nina does pull from, however, is extraordinary. Surprising and varied, these disparate elements cohere into a finish that is both grounded and elusive—inevitable on the northeast coast of New England, while just as easy to imagine in the high deserts of New Mexico; mid-century one minute, 18th century the next. This space doesn’t hold still.
“I like to start with the rugs,” Nina says, when asked how her process unfolds. The home features several massive pieces, both vintage and custom cut. “Not only are they often the longest lead time on a project,” Nina says, “but rugs help solidify things like color palette, texture, especially on a project like this, where the owners gave us such freedom. You have to start making decisions.” A Swedish rug in the dining room was one of her earliest purchases.
From the rugs, it’s a matter of building out. Nina sources vintage roughly 70% of her furniture, and most, if not all, gets fresh upholstery. The selection process, she admits, is a bit mysterious, a delicate combination of preconception and intuition. “I have a sense of what I’m angling for—periods and places of origin I want to pull from,” she says, “but what we eventually find, and where we find it, is always a bit of a guessing game.” Trust is paramount, and Nina is quick to thank her clients, whose home in Massachusetts she previously designed. “I felt very fortunate to have that added, built-in trust,” she says. “With vintage pieces, a lot of times you have to act fast. They’re here one day, gone the next. That’s when it’s great to have clients you can call and say, ‘I know we don’t know what the rest of the space looks like yet, but if we don’t jump on this-or-that piece we’ll lose it, so can we commit?’”
Such was the case with this home’s dining room chairs and overhead ratan lighting
fixture, both early finds that established a tone for the rest of the space. Taken with that initial
dining room rug—plus an unexpected-yet-somehow-perfect concrete table—those quick-grab
vintage chairs and wooden fixture make a sublime eyeful.
Other showstoppers include a three-seat bench in the primary suite, with tooled leather by Brazilian designer Angel Pazmiño—in the living room, a mixed materials coffee table by the French artist Roger Capron. “He was pretty well known for his tile-top tables,” Nina says of Capron. Grooved detailing in the wood adds another subtle layer of texture. Upstairs, in the primary bath, a dresser from the 1770s has been topped with Belgian Bluestone and fitted with Waterworks fixtures to make a custom vanity that is both striking and placeless.
“It’s the cumulative effect between textiles, furniture, texture, and color that makes this house special,” Nina says.
All are present in droves. A white envelope (all floors, walls, and beams are painted Farrow & Ball’s White Tie) allows each element to shine without competing. Vibrant art selections are by local artists, save for a few scattered pieces, and the ceiling, boldly, is painted a Mars Red (the perfect shade for this otherworldly, Maine-but-not-Maine, space). “I know it’s sort of an extreme color for a ceiling, but I think it adds great richness to the room,” Nina says. Depending on where one stands, the ceiling red becomes hundreds of shades, morphing wonderfully with changes of angle and light.
Lastly, tile is placed sparingly but strategically. In the kitchen, where playful Mondrian vibes reign, black and white Moroccan tiling roughs up the edges a bit. “It’s handmade, so it has a lot of irregularities that give it an interesting quality,” Nina says of the kitchen tile. “I like working with handmade tile because it’s clear from the imperfection that a human was involved. It’s not a machine-led process.”
The real fireworks, though, are in the primary bath. As the only room in the house without a view of the water, Nina wanted to do something special in the space. “We decided to make the shower look like an art installation,” Nina says. Colored tiles cover each wall of the stall, seemingly at random, but Nina explains that that wabi-sabi sweet spot takes planning and skill to pull off. “The idea is that there’s not really a pattern, it’s more random,” she says. “But it’s harder to do random than you think. Random still has to be balanced, and it takes a lot of work to make that happen.” 
