Summer Fling

The day Diana Merriam discovered Windacre-by-the-Sea, a rambling circa-1930 house set along Maine’s southern coast, she lost her heart. “Peter, my husband, required some prodding. But I knew it was wonderful,” she says. Never mind that the old building had stood vacant for years. Or that nature had encroached with tenacious bittersweet vines and brambles, some of which, Diana recalls, had worked their way inside. It was a beautiful house, holding the promise of many memorable summers to come.

Parents of four young children, the couple had long dreamt of a getaway where they could spend vacations together by the sea. So Diana urged Peter to overlook the flaws. “The walls and floors were dark. I urged him to think paint, paint, paint,” she says, laughing. Once a grand dame,  the home was surrounded by a saltwater pool built into the rocks, a croquet field and lovely stone walls—in the end, a package far too rare to pass up.

Fast- forward ten years and Windacre-by-the-Sea today looks more glorious than ever. “We didn’t really do that much,” says Diana. “Every season we accomplished a little bit more here and there. We didn’t want construction crews around while we were in residence. And, above all, we wanted to keep this old summer house as close to its original state as possible.”

With that as their goal, the owners enlisted Boston-based interior designer Fotene Demoulas (who also happens to be Diana’s sister) and architects Michael and Aileen Graf of Graf Design Associates in Newburyport, Massachusetts, to help make their home more livable, more in keeping with modern times, while carefully maintaining its character in every way. “The owners were insistent,” remembers Michael, “that we touch the house lightly.”

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