Two weeks ago my parents were here, and the day after they departed we flew to Maine! I use the exclamation point because that's how I feel when I think about our time there - not because of my parent's departure. Thanks to the generosity of dear family friends, we were invited to stay at Rockcrest - their family house at the shore. Rockcrest was built in the 1920s and still remains with the original family. While it's strictly a vacation home now, old family photographs line the walls, antiques fill the rooms, and drawers and cupboards are still filled with linens, family papers, and a motley assortment of miscellany. I had an excuse to open up every closet in the house while I searched for an iron, and along the way I found a number of little treasures waiting to be rediscovered. Old hairpins, historic storage boxes, and numerous quilts have been left to keep the old home company.
As much as I adore anything with patina, the combination of the creaky house with these old things means it can get a little creepy at night. Walking down the hall in the dark is a little spooky with all of those eyes on the walls watching. And something about the bathroom under the stairs sent shivers up my spine - it didn't help that the lock in that room is tricky and each time left me stuck in there a few seconds longer than I wanted to be. I won't mention the suicide that occurred in the detached garage many years ago - or maybe I just did.
In the daylight however, it's a totally different story. As the sunlight spills through the windows and pools on the floor, the peace and contentment provided by the house would make me a millionaire if I could bottle and sell it. I know each of us - me, Ethiel, Sarah, Hayes and my in-laws, Ben and Susan - felt instantly renewed when we arrived. When I travel I seek to be inspired and normally find myself itching to get out and see what the region has to offer, but at Rockcrest, the inspiration found me.
I love everything about this old house (minus that scary powder room under the stairs) - the history, the architecture, the grounds. Our time there is always too short and our visits too few. One of my many goals in life is to build a perfectly appointed small house - not too small, but definitely not too large, and Rockcrest will undoubtedly dictate the design theme. The mixture of cedar shakes and stone walls against the backdrop of greenery makes my heart swoon. The color palette is pretty dreamy, too.
On the left is the garage with an old swing in the foreground, and on the right a downspout proceeds down the curved wall, clad in cedar shake
The front porch and old house numbers
Another view of the curved front porch
Two different views from the side entrance - I adore that tapered column and the shadow lines cast by the shakes
The front porch again, where we spent most of our time reading and enjoying each other's company
A little peek into the bathroom that wasn't creepy and the diamond sash just inside the front door - Sarah made it a habit to fill various vessels around the house with flowers from the grounds.
I can't wait to return. In the meantime, I hope to prescribe some of the tenements found at Rockcrest to the garage renovation. Mostly what I've taken away from Rockcrest is that fine design is rarely flashy and is instead achieved by quality materials that reflect the regional landscape - in this case cedar, stone, and slate. And a view of the ocean from the bedroom window only adds to the appeal.
