A Passion For History

BOB AND CAROL LEBEAU are Massachusetts transplants who moved to coastal Maine in the 1980s.

They had to adapt as they looked for the perfect plot of land and built their dream house. “We wanted to reproduce an antique gambrel,” Bob says. “We salvaged the posts and beams from a2 50-year-old barn and planned for that in the design, incorporating the structural elements—they span the entire width of the house.” The residence includes house and garage on a single axis; these are separated by a one-storey breakfast room that steps back, as if the house had a wing.

• Indulging an interest in early paint-decorated surfaces, they perpetually reinvent their home as they update the collections and the landscape.

Obsessive antiquers, Carol and Bob have collected furniture, clocks, paintings, lighting fixtures, pewter—all of it displayed and used, lending credible age to these quiet, comfortable rooms.