In This Maine Barn, Dinner Parties Become Pickleball Tournaments

In the great room, the stunning fir-lined A-frame ceiling soars above the shared living/dining space, which also converts to an indoor pickleball court for friendly family matches. / Photo by Sean Litchfield

This article is from the winter 2026 issue of Boston Home. Sign up here to receive a subscription.

On Mount Desert Island’s Northeast Harbor, where the scent of Maine’s pine boughs flirts with the salty breeze, this 4-acre property straddles the rocky coast. The owner, a hotelier originally from Bangor, had spent summers here for four decades, decompressing in the peace and slower pace of island life. As his family expanded, he dreamed of more space to accommodate their shared adventures.

This new barn became his solution. One of three outbuildings, including a main home and a small standalone guesthouse, it was built to resemble a historical structure on the outside, with its weathered cedar shingles and steeply pitched A-frame roof. Inside, its cavernous living space revolves around a modern, versatile usability, featuring a dining room–turned indoor pickleball court and separate sleeping quarters. Now, all ages can gather for al fresco dinners, tournaments, and fireside chats.

With all the airiness and wide windows of the lofty A-frame roof, it feels as if the trees are sleeping in the guest suite, too. The fir on the floors here and throughout the home is from Longleaf Lumber in Cambridge and is salvaged from the World War II Hingham Shipyard that built battleships. The fir on the walls and ceiling is from the Pacific Northwest. / Photo by Sean Litchfield

A cozy seating area in the lofted guest suite comes complete with custom chairs and fabrics by Coley Home. / Photo by Sean Litchfield

“He wanted a place where his family felt comfortable, but also a place where kids can do chalk on the ground and play and feel free,” explains Chris Mahaney of Bloom Building & Construction, who collaborated on the project with his wife and business partner, interior designer Stephanie Mahaney. “He said, ‘How many different purposes can we give one space?’ To accommodate that, the building and design are multipurpose, but also very functional for the way they live.”

In the great room, a wide-open living and dining space unites all of these distinct goals with a sense of precision and permanence. A cathedral ceiling lined in local, single-plank fir with exposed beams counters the raw, unfinished concrete floor with buoyancy. The 15-person dining table hosts friends and family for sumptuous meals then shifts to the periphery—or to the patio via custom 12-foot steel bypass screen doors—for a pickleball match. Neither walls nor rugs impede dinner conversation or a heated game, so it’s an outlandishly fun interpretation of what a legacy vacation home could be.

Meanwhile, a striking, two-story granite fireplace with no stones smaller than two square feet attracts diners and players to relax into the evening. Crafted by Hanlon Stone, this fireplace inspired the design for the entire house, as they wanted to make it look as though they had built the house around the fireplace, with a single piece of reclaimed granite hearth that’s 14 feet long and 18 inches thick.

“It feels like a ballroom with a grand fireplace that’s 34 feet tall. But also, it’s a rec room where you have rollerblading and indoor football and pickleball, and it’s all happening in the same space,” Chris explains. “And it’s a very Maine experience for his summer guests, where they help move the dining table between spaces.”

Fir is on nearly every surface in the kitchen and, with the rear of the stone fireplace, it creates a warm space for family and guests to gather. / Photo by Sean Litchfield

Durable Gastón Y Daniela knitted fabrics on the custom sectional sofa and GP & J Baker fabric on the ottoman help the underground basement rec room “feel intimate, cozy, and like the perfect place to curl up on a rainy summer day or have the entire family overflowing on the sofa for movie night,” Stephanie says. / Photo by Sean Litchfield

With only 2,000 square feet of living area in a 7,000-square-foot, three-bedroom structure, however, the juxtaposition demanded creativity and efficiency from spatial restraints to furnishings, explains Stephanie. Maximizing every square inch, they tucked the kitchen behind the fireplace and built it on-site, enveloping every surface with warm fir. To keep it breezy, they eschewed overhead cabinets for open shelving and drawers beneath butcher-block counters, while a fir island is a runway for breakfast buffets. In the subterranean basement rec room, the husband-and-wife duo embraced the lack of windows and tight footprint by commissioning a massive sectional sofa and saturating the walls in Domingue Finishes’ “Boxwood” green lime wash to encourage cozy, informal game nights and quiet time.

Conversely, the loft bedroom upstairs is positioned in the A-frame so that whoever sleeps there feels like they’re in the trees, Stephanie says, where the height of the fir-lined ceiling meets the fir floors and a wall of windows ushers the Maine forest in.

Into the mossy forest, only 25 yards from the barn, this outdoor sauna by Almost Heaven is wrapped in rustic red cedar and is an idyllic spot to unwind. / Photo by Sean Litchfield

The kids’ bedroom is designed to grow with the grandchildren, who will no doubt fight for the top bunk. A custom twin-over-twin built-in, made by family friend and New Hampshire craftsman Collin Perry of Bog Bespoke, features a built-in closet and a sliding handcrafted ladder. Stephanie found the midcentury wool Turkish kilim rug in the vintage shop Heirloom Rugs in Palm Beach and added a playful pop of Benjamin Moore’s “Eggplant” inside the bunks to tie it all together. / Photo by Sean Litchfield

The home’s overarching fluidity called for the Mahaneys to custom-build furnishings, too, with performance fabrics that are meant to last. From the loft’s chenille headboard to the chunky-knit sofa and patterned ottomans in the basement and bunk beds in the kids’ room built by a friend of the family, each space is designed to endure hyper children and encourage parents and grandparents to recreate and recoup.

“It feels like this barn was always supposed to be like this,” Stephanie says. “It’s beautiful, but at the same time, it’s a space that they can really live in. This barn isn’t just a building. It’s a place for laughter, for family stories, for coming home. That’s what makes it so special.”

Architect Lake Flato Architects
Builder Bloom Building & Construction
Interior Designer Stephanie Rae Interiors
Photography Stylist Frances Bailey

Photo by Sean Litchfield

Photo by Sean Litchfield

Photo by Sean Litchfield

Photo by Sean Litchfield