{"id":15066,"date":"2018-06-13T19:57:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T23:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=15066"},"modified":"2019-04-04T13:19:27","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T17:19:27","slug":"flying-in-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/flying-in-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying in Place"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Summerguide 2018 | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/pdf\/SG18%20Rockhouse%20HOM.pdf\">view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<div data-configid=\"37604829\/68909189\" style=\"width:100%; height:600px;\" class=\"issuuembed\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.js\" async=\"true\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\">Welcome to Shore Road in York\u2013and a master class in open concept. \u201c<strong>Rockhouse<\/strong>\u201d is the Yang of Maine oceanfront real estate.<\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\">By Colin W. Sargent<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15069 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/SG18-Rockhouse-HOM-t-1-300x163.jpg\" alt=\"SG18-Rockhouse-HOM-t\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/SG18-Rockhouse-HOM-t-1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/SG18-Rockhouse-HOM-t-1-200x109.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>What do you dream of when you already live in a dream house? The question stops software engineer and hotelier Christopher Crane short. He beetles his brow, walks a few steps toward the Atlantic, and points toward London. \u201cYou dream of living in a dream house that\u2019s closer to the water.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In 1998, he and his wife Elizabeth were a pair of Britons from away visiting friends in Maine. \u201cLiz is from Guisborough, in North Yorkshire. I\u2019m from Derbyshire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">During their first visit to the Yorks and Ogunquit, they poked around the coast and stumbled upon the ghost of a stone and shingle mansion designed by Portland architect Antoine Dorticos for sale on Shore Road in York. \u201cCragmere was for sale forever. It was a wreck. Liz told me, \u2018You must be crazy. You like modern homes. I like modern homes.\u2019 It turns out, I was,\u201d Chris says. \u201cWe renovated Cragmere from 1997 to 1998 and lived there for 11 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">If Cragmere was the question, the modern house we\u2019re standing in at 11 Cragmere Way is the answer. \u201cCragmere was a grand cottage. But that was shelter. This is exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong>Sea Change<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Right on the booming shelves of surf, tucked below the knoll where Cragmere holds court, was a mid-century modern designed by Fletcher Ashley in 1959. \u201cSomewhere there\u2019s a 1959 penny on this property, below a post,\u201d Chris says as he takes us through Rockhouse, Cragmere\u2019s younger, hipper sister that was developed from the original Cragmere parcel, closer to the water. \u201cWe bought Rockhouse to have a better view from Cragmere. We wanted to clear some brush down here. But once we got to the deck hanging over the water, we said, \u2018It\u2019s pretty nice here!\u2019 The architect [who transformed the Ashley design into what Rockhouse is today] was my nephew from England, Charles MacKeith\u2013my sister\u2019s son. With his partner, Madeleine Adams, they completely reimagined this space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong>If Rockhouse Were a\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Musical Composition\u2026<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Chris guides us past a Yamaha baby grand toward staggering views of the water. \u00a0If Frank Sinatra were still around, this would have been his spot, baby. Who plays the piano? \u201cChris does,\u201d Liz says. If this house could be summed up in a song, what would it be? Chris shrugs. \u201cFly Me to the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Visitors can\u2019t help but feel a sense of Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s famous dictum of \u201ccompression and release\u201d as the trajectory of sightlines opens toward the vast ocean. \u201cI said I was in the software business [largely programs used by Customs workers processing imports into different countries], but we\u2019re also in the hotel business. See that big building to the right of Nubble Light?\u201d Chris points. \u201cThat\u2019s our ViewPoint Hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong>Door-i-gami<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The most innovative part of the design is that the rooms in Rockhouse actually glide, shift, and recompose with a seamless system of pocket doors, cabinets, and sleeping quarters that vanish when closed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt\u2019s better than open concept, because the rooms can change,\u201d Chris says. \u201cUnlike Cragmere, where there are [fixed] rooms, we wanted to have more options.\u201d \u00a0Many of the rooms are \u201cdual purpose with Murphy beds,\u201d as easy to turn into a new shape as a transformer toy. Walls of glass and plaster appear and disappear. A study or a gym becomes a bedroom. Industrial light and magic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cThere are two first-floor bedrooms,\u201d Chris says. \u201cI use that one for my office.\u201d With the massive sliding doors closed, it becomes a guest suite. The other is a fabulous master-bedroom suite that opens to a two-sided fireplace and the area they call the \u201csnug,\u201d or winter living room, when the sliding doors are open.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong>Visions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">As we tour the solar-heated infinity pool created by Northern Pool and Spa, Liz says, \u201cThere was a whale here last week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">You\u2019re so close to Boon Island \u201cyou can see the water on the other side of the lighthouse,\u201d Chris says. \u201cThe silvery slips of land on the horizon are The Isles of Shoals.\u201d Houses in this lucky part of the world can tell time by the passages of the <em>Finestkind <\/em>tour boat that cruises by us, having just passed the Cliff House resort. We ask Chris and Liz if they\u2019ve been on the <em>Finestkind<\/em> to gaze up at their sparkling glass house. \u201cYes.\u201d Guilty. Every once in a while, you should seize the chance to see how the other half lives\u2013even if you\u2019re them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Chris points to the ledge: \u201cSedimentary rock. See how it\u2019s vertical? You can see how some of the plates pushed it up that way. A three-inch-wide section must cover a hundred thousand, even millions of years.\u201d He looks at the deck. \u201cBeing from Maine, you know that every single screw and nail out here has to be stainless steel\u201d as proof against the elements. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t build this house here today. It had to have the grandfathered footprint of the Ashley design. Otherwise, the house would have had to be located 100 feet back. We were told the early owner actually blasted into the rocks to create the swimming pool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Heading back into the house from the spectacular private views (they surpass the views visitors marvel at in Cape Elizabeth at the Lobster Shack), Chris points at an overhead set of shelves suspended from the ceiling inside. Up to this point we\u2019d never seen, or heard of, an aerial library. \u201cWhen you\u2019re inside the house looking out at the ocean, you look directly at the surf and can\u2019t see these books. But standing on the ocean side looking in, you see the upper library suspended from the ceiling\u2013a juxtaposition of thoughts and ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Between skylights and smooth maple floors, views of designer pine trees and river birches outside bring to mind a Neil Welliver painting against the gallery-white walls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Because the devil\u2019s in the details, Chris points out the enormous Duratherm custom windows. \u201cEvery window takes four people to carry.\u201d And it takes computer-controlled twin boilers to monitor ten zones of micro-climates with underfloor heating so you see no registers anywhere. Outside there\u2019s a radiant walkway and drive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">One interested couple of possible purchasers has come through twice without pulling the trigger. Why? \u201cIt seems too much like a vacation home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Exactly. It\u2019s a perfect day, and the ocean is almost too close, too dazzling. \u00a0During electrical storms, it must be even more cinematic out here. At night there\u2019s so little light pollution \u00a0Chris has a telescope in the tower so he can collect the stars\u2013seashells in the sky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Nothing is forever, even in a place this fortunate. \u201cA visiting friend of mine once asked us, \u2018When is summer in Maine?\u2019\u201d Chris says. \u201cBy then I knew to answer, \u2018Sometimes on a Wednesday.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Rockhouse could be yours for $5.98M. Taxes are $31,059.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summerguide 2018<br \/>\nWelcome to Shore Road in York\u2013and a master class in open concept. \u201cRockhouse\u201d is the Yang of Maine oceanfront real estate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[226],"class_list":["post-15066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-summerguide-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15066"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16126,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15066\/revisions\/16126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}