With cinematic views of the rocky Maine coast, this full-renovation was a fresh start with room to grow for a local Cape Elizabeth family. Our clients—a married couple with three children—came to us looking for a classic shingle-style home that could fit into the community and grow with their family over the years.

In crafting this fresh start we had to remove an existing home on the lot. What’s more, we had to take neighborhood association restraints into consideration, devising a look and feel that would both meet our clients' hopes while also falling in line with the limitation that the house was no more than one story on the roadside.

The views from this site are a breath of fresh air, so when we began our design process it was key for us to capture them from every angle we could. The layout of the house feels open, welcoming, and intentional with bedrooms tucked away on one side and shared spaces on the other. A three-car garage starts the house on the left side and as you travel toward the bedroom wing (consisting of four bedrooms on the main level) there’s a mudroom, sitting area, dining area, kitchen, and living room. On the lower level, there’s space for kids to play, an exercise room, and two guest bedrooms. Once outside, there’s a sprawling area for entertaining that includes an outdoor fireplace, kitchen, and pool.

Aesthetically, a big focus of this project was to make the house feel at home in its surroundings. With this in mind, we used a mix of materials on the exterior from white cedar shingles to white cedar vertical shiplap. Given the local building guidelines, we faced a unique challenge when it came to adding dimension to this long one-story house from the roadside as well as the backside. Ultimately, we broke up the roofline with various dormers and changes in wall planes.

We're very proud of how this home came together, blending comfortably with its landscape on the roadside and making the most out of its vantage points outback and all around the house.