Mountain Retreat

North Waterford, Maine

The owner of this unique house chose a site on his mountain top property to capture specific views of the peaks he has climbed including most of the New Hampshire Presidential Range. The house hangs over a precipice where wildlife is frequently seen moving through the valley far below. The house is, by necessity, off- the-grid. One inspiration for its assembly of volumes and materials was the architecture of mining camps, even the way rock tailings might have been distributed as a by-product of that industry. Details include corten steel roofs and cladding, knotty cedar vertical siding, an upper deck that is suspended from the rafters, gutters fabricated from sawn-in-half iron pipe, an exercise pool fabricated by a company that makes cedar water tanks, and wood posts that are fastened to boulders with custom steel anchors. This project was a rich collaboration between owner, architects and a dog named Lucy.