Sculptor turned builder Anthony Esteves’ work is haunted by the dark side of old New England.
Photography courtesy of Greta Rybus.
“I treat the work as a sculpture and balance traditional aesthetics with high-performance building techniques and materials,” he says.
The Soot House, surrounded by wild Maine brush. It has influences from both old New England and Japan: The shape and scale of the structure and roof is decidedly New England, and the main part of the building is fitted with traditional colonial clapboards (visible nails included).
A detail of the charred-wood siding.
Inside, the front portion of the house has high ceilings.
The small dining area is adjacent to the living room, with a dining table sourced from The Red Barn Marketplace in Lincolnville, Maine.
Diogo’s high chair at the table.
Open cedar shelves create a divider between the dining room and kitchen and display earth-toned ceramics.
The snug kitchen is one step down, and has the feel of a modern root cellar.
“This airflow maintains a consistency in temperature throughout the house, and the loft stays within one to two degrees of the main floor,” Esteves says.
On a ledge: an animal jaw.
Herbs, ready for cooking, in an antique basin.
At left, built-in wood storage. At right, Esteves made use of empty space beneath the floor to create niches for jars of spices and dry goods.
At the other end of the kitchen, a small cooktop sits atop a vintage cabinet.
Appliances are kept out of the kitchen; the Smeg refrigerator lives in a small nook with a poured-in-place concrete floor.
Work shirts hang on hooks from Sugar Tools in Camden, Maine.
O’Rourke and son Diogo in the bathroom, with an exposed-pipe faucet and concrete sink.
Esteves’s design, with influences from sculpture.
Esteves made the hand rail from a branch of a fallen poplar tree.
Upstairs, O’Rourke (who has a line of children’s clothing) made simple floor mats to serve as a bed for Diogo.
A witchy antique broom hangs over the bed in Esteves and O’Rourke’s room.
Note the slats in the floor that allow heat from the wood stove to cycle through.
The couple’s deconstructed, DIY closet under the eaves, with copper pipes threaded with rope and suspended from the ceiling.
The family in front of the Soot House.
The small family compound in a clearing.
Esteves is hoping that “bayberry, wildflowers, and saplings will creep in, and over time moss and lichen will grow on the granite. The process will be slow but the progression will be beautiful.”