Diamond in the Rough
An unconventional house on an old island military installation turns its back to ocean views.
WHEN BRUCE LAPIERRE AND HIS WIFE, Kathryn Adamchick, built their Maine island house on an old US Army artillery installation, they weren't aiming for quaint.
The house on Great Diamond Island - an 80-minute ferry ride from Portland - is constructed largely of industrial materials. The quirky ultracontemporary retreat stands in stark contrast to the picturesque cedar-shingled seaside cottages that dot the Maine coast and ooze vintage charm. The rough site demanded rough materials - and an architect with a bulletproof aesthetic.
LaPierre, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where the couple lives, and Adamchick, an art educator, turned to Whitten Architects of Portland (now Whitten Winkelman, Architects). The firm, known for its innovative designs, was asked to transform their parcel of the decommissioned Fort McKinley into a tranquil getaway. "I like being on an island, near the water, but also in the middle of the woods," Adamchick says. "For me, this is the best of both worlds."
The gutsiest architectural decision was the orientation of the new structure: Instead of being perched at the tip of a cove to exploit the spectacular water views, the house overlooks an abandoned quarry the couple calls their "dry lake" or "rock pond."
"Bruce and Kathryn deserve huge credit for not only being respectful of the site but being respectful of the approach into the cove," says Phil Kaplan, the 38-year-old project architect who has since founded his own firm, Phil Kaplan Architects.
LaPierre, 59, and Adamchick, 53, married two years ago but had been together since 1990. They first saw the property in 2000, in the dead of winter. Outdoor enthusiasts who have bicycled, kayaked, and fly-fished throughout the state, they are longtime attendees of the WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine, where they learned how to build dories and baidarkas.
"Most people thought the quarry was a disaster, a scar on the land," says LaPierre, who cleared debris and bittersweet off the overgrown outpost. "We thought it was cool."
Adds Adamchick: "It was like Andy Goldsworthy meets Zen garden."
The couple had searched for land on the Maine coast for six years before plunking down $128,500 for their 4.44 acres, complete with a 1905 fire-commander station - all part of the Diamond Cove development.
Located on the island's highest point, the monolithic brick-and-concrete tower - once the command center for four gun batteries - was part of Fort McKinley, an Army site crucial to the defense of Portland Harbor during the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.
The impressive structure, about 16 feet tall, has a series of bowed windows sighting the sea and a unique glass roof girded with 3-inch-thick lenses resembling the bottoms of old
Unheated, unfurnished, and used mainly as a seasonal guest bedroom, the bi-level structure is a tight 300 square feet and was preserved as a historical artifact. Kaplan linked it to the two new rectangular boxes that make up the main house with a ground-level bridge from the tower's lower level to the house's upstairs landing, and another from the tower's upper level to a red-cedar rooftop terrace.
There's also a red-cedar deck - which the couple jokingly call "the dock" - off of the living room; it overlooks the rock quarry. The wooden patios add warmth against the chilly steel and provide civilized access to the deliberately unmanicured outdoors.
Initially, the plan was to have the new portion be a boat-building workshop, hence the oversized, mirror-image front and back doors. However, that was abandoned in favor of using the 1,143-square-foot space as a one-bedroom, one-bath vacation home. The first floor has a kitchen and dining area that opens to a two-story living room crowned with eight skylights. Upstairs, the bedroom loft, which overlooks the living room, has an adjacent office barely big enough for a desk and folding chair.
No matter the size of the structure, building on an island isn't easy - or inexpensive.
The homeowners hired Leddy Houser Associates of South Portland, a general contractor specializing in island houses, to build their anti-cottage cottage. The 13-month project was completed in June 2004.
"It all cost more than I ever anticipated," LaPierre says. "I'll never sit down and figure out the per-square-foot cost, because I don't want to know."
Kaplan's primitively voguish design utilizes CorTen steel, a naturally oxidizing product that gives the appearance of rust, with exposed bolts for the exterior walls; galvanized steel (doused with saltwater to give it a weathered look) for the interior walls; a corrugated galvanized-steel roof; and sheathing made of Polygal, a heavy-duty polycarbonate, on selected exterior walls. No paint or drywall was used.
The building materials' earth tones - white, brown, sage - enhance the indigenous feel of the home, as do the exposed beams, studs, and stairs made of hemlock and the baseboards made of Baltic birch. "We wanted to keep this low-slung and to feel like it's part of the ground, very hunkered down," Kaplan says. "But from that grows this box of light."
At night, the stairs and structural framework are visible, and the house glows through the translucent Polygal like a lit pumpkin.
"I really like it," says Roger Shoemaker, the van driver who shuttles passengers to and from the ferry, "but it took some getting used to."
Such a dramatic house needs minimal embellishment, and Adamchick, who has an artist's eye for interior design, maintains the airy feeling of the open floor plan with an uncluttered aesthetic that incorporates a neutral palette and Shaker- and tansu-inspired furnishings. The Polygal acts like a shoji screen, weightless and dreamy, with light seeping through the panels.
In the kitchen, the dishware sits boldly on open shelves. "Everything had to be silver or white, just to simplify," says Adamchick, "and to emphasize the shapes of things. The shapes of the glasses, the shapes of the mugs, the stacks of plates - I sort of saw it as a sculpture within a sculpture."
Adamchick and LaPierre, who now use the house only in summer, hope to retire there. Eventually, they might convert the house into that boat-building workshop and put a new residence on the property.
"Because of the simplicity of the house," Kathryn Adamchick says, "I just find it a very calm, very peaceful way of life."
DIAMOND EVOLUTION
Great Diamond Island is one of about a dozen sizable islands in Casco Bay off of Portland. In the mid 19th century, it, and several of the other islands easily reached from Portland, had elegant summer colonies catering to wealthy families from Boston and New York looking to escape the summer heat. It was also a magnet for artists and writers. Among visitors to the island were novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Many of the homes were designed by Portland architect John Calvin Stevens, renowned for his Shingle-style and brick Colonial Revival designs.
However, the island is most noted as the home of Fort McKinley, a US Army coastal defense fortification that operated on the northern side of Great Diamond from the early 1900s until 1945. The buildings are, perhaps in a nod to Stevens, Colonial Revival brick structures, many with Queen Anne detailing. Today, a portion of the fort is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Once the Army abandoned the installation, the property fell into disrepair, and the buildings were vandalized and stripped of architectural details such as moldings and mantels. Then, in the early 1990s, Diamond Cove, a private development, created a community of about 120 condominiums and cottages, converting many of the brick barracks and officers' quarters into residences.
On the southern side of the island, where the ferry docks at the public boat landing, there are still about 70 private homes, many of them owned by longtime Maine residents.
The 430-acre island is part of the city, though it's a 4-mile trip by ferry. Casco Bay Lines (cascobaylines.com) provides service to Great Diamond, with boat sleaving from the Maine State Pier, 56 Commercial Street, Portland.
The island has no public beaches, restrooms, golf course, or other amenities. There is no car ferry, so automobiles are few, although a shuttle does provide transport to Diamond Cove, where private vehicles are banned and electric golf carts are the popular mode of transportation.
Diamond Cove also is home to the island's one general store, located in the fort's former blacksmith shop. It and Diamond's Edge Restaurant & Marina (diamondsedge.com), the island's only restaurant, which is in the former quarter master's storeroom, are open from late May through mid-October.
Stacey Chase is a freelance writer living in Maine. E-mail her at storychaser@earthlink.net. 