When she set out to build a custom home on Bailey Island in Maine, Natasha Durham didn't just want a home to live in. “I wanted to build a sculpture,” she said.
Ms. Durham, 62, the founder of Rough & Tumble, a boutique handbag company, owned other homes in Maine with her husband, Steve Durham, 76, a boat captain. These properties included their primary residence in Portland and several others that they used as retreats and investments.
“I’ve always lived in big old houses, with loud radiators, mold and history,” Ms. Durham said. But ever since she studied sculpture at what was then the Maine College of Art, she dreamed of creating something different: a monumental new home that was more about spatial experience than comfort.
The project began when the couple found a rugged 1.6-acre property on Bailey Island on a rocky outcrop that led to the crashing waves of Casco Bay. They bought the property in 2017 for $750,000 and got to know the land while living in a dilapidated cabin with no insulation on the property.
Ms. Durham had ideas for a sculptural new home but wasn't an architect, so she hired a local professional to help. It didn't go well.
“I knew very quickly it wasn’t going to work,” she said, because the architect was more focused on practical things. “I wasn’t there to talk about logistics, like how many bedrooms, blah, blah, blah,” she said. “I was there to talk about large, overlapping shapes, what light they produce and how they work together.”
When looking for someone with a similar creative streak, she couldn't ignore the fact that her neighbor in Portland, Lauren Rosenberg, was a smart and ambitious architect. Ms. Durham suggested they work together on their home on Bailey Island.
“I decided to take it on and start my own company,” said Ms. Rosenberg, who worked for another company before starting her own company, LR/ARC, in May 2020. “It was a dream project.”
After demolishing the existing cabin, Ms. Durham and Ms. Rosenberg built a four-bedroom home of about 7,400 square feet. Although expansive, the house is divided into a series of overlapping volumes with gabled roofs and rectangular boxes.
Their goal was to keep the home's details as simple as possible, using only a few different materials. “It was really important to have this minimal material palette and keep things really consistent and calm,” Ms. Rosenberg said.
The exterior is completely clad in Alaskan yellow cedar and has a cedar shingle roof that has already weathered to a cool gray.
For the interior, “I didn't want more than three finishes,” Ms. Durham said, adding that she also didn't want the kind of rooms that most people who build a large, upscale home have. “I told Lauren: no walk-in closets, no vaulted ceilings, no majestic staircases.”
Instead, she wanted visual simplicity. She even asked Ms. Rosenberg to limit the number of interior doors to the bare minimum to leave sight lines and the space as open as possible.
“Using doors is like cheating,” Ms. Durham said. Instead, she said, “You let the shapes create the space.”
Throughout most of the interior, Ms. Rosenberg installed white oak floors, wall paneling and custom millwork, including portals that provide a sense of separation between rooms without sealing them off. In the master suite, the bedroom, bathroom, and closets are separated by a few twists and turns instead of doors.
Before starting Rough & Tumble, Ms. Durham was a chef at a few Portland Restaurants. She still loves cooking, but didn't want a restaurant kitchen full of stainless steel appliances. Instead, the kitchen is arranged around a large island that looks like a giant block of Blue de Savoie marble and hides the fridge and freezer drawers. On an adjacent wall, individual Pitt burners sprout from an Olympian White Danby marble countertop, replacing a regular cooktop.
Ms. Rosenberg worked on details that required sophisticated construction. The kitchen island and a raised stone oven in the study appear to float an inch above the ground. Wooden wall panels have equal proportions to avoid awkward cuts; Windows are borderless; and lights are recessed into the ceilings to avoid flanges and canopies.
Ms. Durham has allowed for a little more variety in some areas. In her design studio, she agreed to a vaulted ceiling, where Ms. Rosenberg installed a tall glass door and transom that framed views of the forest. Bathrooms and fireplaces are made of different types of natural stone. Ipe, a Brazilian hardwood, There are also some ceilings lined, including a screened porch with a fireplace sheathed in locally made Morin brick.
The house took four years to complete and was finally finished in the fall of 2024. The cost was approximately $11.5 million.
“It was worth it,” Ms. Durham said. “There is no place in this house where you don't experience life in this breathing sculpture. And I experience that every day.”