There are two sides to every story, goes the old chestnut. And in the case of this one, there’s plenty more than that. Because this story is about how not one, but two extremely different homes got conceived, built, and designed in quite different environments in the same timeframe—by a band of people with overlapping but distinctive perspectives—yet all of that ultimately coalesced to form one symbiotically complete living experience.
But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. First, meet the man who would come to buy the two properties and envision living on them: Tim Harrington, the developer known for seeing the potential in Maine’s uninhabited or faded spaces. Founding partner of the Kennebunkport Resort Collection before co-creating businesses like Batson River Brewing & Distilling, Quest Fitness in Kennebunk, and soon to open Bounce Pickle & Play in Biddeford, he’s since revitalized historic Maine properties like The Acadia Collection (Salt Cottages in Bar Harbor, The Claremont Hotel in Southwest Harbor, and The Asticou Hotel in Northeast Harbor), The Lincoln Hotel in Biddeford, The Dunes on the Waterfront in Ogunquit, The Wanderer Cottages in Kennebunk, and more.
Developing and overseeing all of the above businesses and properties, Tim lives what one might call a full and often accelerated life. And he does so with his team of business partners—who just so happen to also be his close friends—in work as well as play. There is, for example, renowned artisan and carpenter Kevin Lord, co-owner of Batson River Brewing & Distilling, The Dunes on the Waterfront, and the founder of Thomas & Lord—southern coastal Maine’s premier builder of richly detailed, high-end homes. There is also Atlantic Hospitality’s director of design and brand, Krista Stokes, and creative director, Mark Cotto, who helmed these projects’ designs, with Louise Hurlbutt, proprietor of Hurlbutt Designs.
And that’s how Tim came to be sitting with Kevin one astoundingly sunny midday in the modern-yet ethereal kitchen that the two of them built together, in an unquestionably splendid Kennebunkport house known as Still Meadow Farm. The two laugh as often as they speak and constantly finish one another’s sentences as they recall all of the properties and businesses they’ve built together in the two decades since they became friends (Hidden Pond Resort and Batson River among them); jaunts they’ve taken together; and vacation homes they’ve bought near one another. “His brain can figure out absolutely anything to do with building,” says Tim of Kevin, who lives nearby in Kennebunkport with his wife, Kelly and three kids. “He’s also got a terrific marketing brain. I love his process.”
As processes go, the original concept for this building was very different than what stands today. “I got involved with this piece of land when President Goerge H. W. Bush [who, as it’s known, spent much time in the Kennebunks community] was in his last days,” explains Tim. “A group of people wanted a summer presidential library, the way the Kennedys had a summer version of their library in Hyannis, to celebrate his connection to the community.” The land was a farmstead at the time—a four-lot subdivision on the elder Bush’s favorite hole on a golf course. “This was going to be the land for that library. It’s zoned for that, but it’s in a residential neighborhood.” After Bush passed, the plan for the library fell through, but by then Tim had already fallen in love with the setting, as well as with the barnlike structures that he had imagined on it. So, he bought the land himself and decided to get to work with Kevin to create a house plan instead.
The result is this 6,000-square-foot, contemporary farmhouse met with a mix of modern architecture bathed in glowing light, courtesy of expansive windows at every turn. Kevin’s craftsmanship pervades: from the kitchen’s high drama marble backsplash and meticulous master bedroom closet shelving to the breathtaking carpentry of a swinging door that hides a speakeasy gym—a door so delicately constructed that it can be pushed closed with mere fingers. The building’s two “barns” create structure for multiple rooms apiece, and between them run long, sleek hallways flanked by lush landscaping.
“This is the most contemporary house I’ve ever lived in,” says Tim. “I knew that I wanted that, but also something very welcoming and Zen.”
Enter Mark, whose wheelhouse is very much ‘warm modern.’ Another dear friend (like Kevin and Mark, Mark and Tim’s words and jokes tumble over one other in interviews), the duo hunted down many of the home’s furnishings and pieces while on boat trips together. “A lot came from antique stores,” says Mark. “Old dressers from Carboni in Wells, or spots in Sag Harbor.” They also worked with friend and partner Louise Hurlbutt, who was the lead design vendor. And to achieve the warmth they were after? “It was about mixing,” says Mark. “There’s vintage. There’s new, there are all different styles.” And that keeps the home’s expanse from coming across as cold or impersonal. “The house is a vast space, but it has these moments and spots that are very intimate,” says Mark. For example, the area in the kitchen anchored by the piano, where Tim loves sitting and simply catching a breath. “It’s where the morning light changes, and the sun sets,” he says.
Which is why you’d be forgiven for being puzzled to hear him moments later announce, “I live in a spectacular house of my dreams, but” with a pause, “I also have shackitis.”
To begin to understand what he might mean, it’s now time to meet Krista. Yet another dear friend, she’s designed a slew of his properties. Meanwhile, she’s also designed “Little Berry,” the 900-square-foot, one-bedroom-plus cottage on Mount Desert Island’s Little Cranberry Island.
It is, indeed, an incredibly sweet shack. And to hear both Tim and Krista describe it, it’s also the very necessary antidote to the demands of virtually everything else Tim does.
“Tim lives in a big world,” explains Krista. “Where he always needs to be doing something. People are always doing things for him and asking him to do things. ‘Little Berry’ is a forced simplification for him.”
Tim happened upon it just after purchasing The Claremont. “When I first saw it, it was boarded up and abandoned and had a for sale sign up,” he remembers. After buying it, he contracted Mount Desert builder Richard Bradford to rebuild a shore cottage in the exact same footprint. It took about a year, all told, and required some serious strategizing. “We had to take the U-Haul in trips with everything,” says Krista, “And the stone guy had to come over on a little boat. You have to really love living on an island to live on one.” That tenacity paid off, she feels. “The new construction doesn’t overpower the sense of history or serenity.”
In her design process, she incorporated found personal pieces that had belonged to the previous structure’s owners. “They’d discovered a [sailor’s] uniform that had been in that cottage, and we used that in part of the design,” she says, as an example of the kind of personalization and simplicity that were brought to the tiny space. And even in adding new elements, she made an effffort to create an environment that exuded a sense of history, and personal memories. “We tried to layer in pieces that felt as if the place had existed already,” she explains. “Cashmeres, wools, cottons, and linens. And there’s a lot of old furniture that came from Mount Desert Island, and it gives you the feeling that it’s touched many lives.”
The draw of that timelessness certainly seems to have had its intended impact. “The place is so magical, it’s hard to explain,” says Tim, who now splits his time between both of his houses, and says he values each in equal measure, regardless of their obvious differences. And in that sense, they don’t so much contradict one another other, as make for one unified whole. Much, one could argue, like the team that put them together. ▪
