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For 18 summers, Melanie Millner and her family made the trek from their year-round residence in Georgia to a seasonal rental in the village of Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island in Maine, schlepping comforters, pillows, mattress pads, and sheets to make it feel like home. (And that was just for the bedrooms.) When the house changed hands, Millner was game to endure all sorts of other inconveniences to keep her connection with that coastline. And in buying a nearby 1889 cottage sight unseen, she sure did.
Millner reshingled the exterior of the 1889 cottage in Alaskan yellow cedar (the trim is Benjamin Moore’s Nicolson Green). The names of Millner’s three grown children are hidden under one of the shingles.
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Vintage Woodard Pinecrest chairs gather ’round the outdoor dining table. Millner’s son, Wyatt, worked with local gardener Erika Lindquist to design the surrounding landscape and planting beds.
Francesco LagneseA year into the renovation, Millner discovered that the work done up to that point wasn’t up to par—the project would need to start from scratch. “The house basically needed to be renovated twice,” recalls Millner, a New York native who spent years in Texas and now lives in Atlanta, where she runs her firm, The Design Atelier. (Her daughter, Megan, also a decorator, is set to join her practice this fall.) But Millner tapped into some Down East determination and stayed the course.
Melanie Millner stands in the front door.
Francesco LagneseShe took up an office in the village, made friends with the local year-rounders, and found new, reliable tradespeople. Her son Wyatt, a landscape architect, drove up from Georgia, rented heavy machinery equipment, and in two weeks, had laid pavers, edged the garden beds in stone, and dug a firepit. An architect pal, David VanGroningen of Historical Concepts, took her up on an offer for a family getaway to Maine, and in turn left her with proper sketches for the new rebuild. A friendship with a local gardener, Erika Lindquist, presented another swap: Millner helped with Lindquist’s house, and Lindquist schooled the designer in hydrangeas and even adopted her dahlia tubers for the winter.
As the ad-hoc team made progress on the structure and the garden, Millner could focus on what comes most naturally to her: elegant, warm, unfussy interiors in a house she had earmarked for herself since childhood.
The dining room, wrapped in Newill wallpaper by Morris & Co. with a ceiling painted in Farrow & Ball’s Green Smoke, is lit entirely by candlelight, save for a lamp on the sideboard.
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Millner first fell in love with this antique French lobster poster after seeing it in Katie Leede’s Sag Harbor shop; when it proved too large for the space, Millner’s daughter had a smaller-scale version printed as a gift.
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The mudroom—or “shoe porch”—is painted in Farrow & Ball’s Pigeon. Millner found the Moravian star lantern at the Downeast Art & Antiques Show in Blue Hill, Maine.
Francesco LagneseThe footprint was petite, but Millner liked it that way: “When we’re up there, we want to be together—that’s the point,” she says. The smartly designed floor plan ekes out four bedrooms and an attic sleeping loft, plus one full bath and one with a shower. To make the most of those 2,000 square feet, Millner made one particular choice that might raise eyebrows: wall-to-wall carpet. The move has the visual effect of making the floor feel bigger—no lines, no seams, she says. And plus, “It’s such a small house, so it’s important for the whole thing to feel good.”
An antique marble-topped island anchors the kitchen, with an antique pendant from the Paris flea market hanging above. The cabinets are painted in Farrow & Ball’s White Tie; the sink and fittings are from Waterworks.
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Decorative artist Mary Meade Evans painted a pine-branch motif around the perimeter of the kitchen floor.
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Paintings by some of the A-list architect members of the “Whiskey Watercolor Club”—Tom Kligerman, Michael Imber, Ankie Barnes, Doug Wright, and Steve Rugo—fill the stair hall; lantern, Rose Tarlow.
Francesco LagneseOne of the not-so-funny punch lines of the early renovation was that Millner hadn’t clocked the home’s seven-foot Homasote board-covered ceilings until after the purchase. Millner pulled down the boards to reveal an extra six inches of height; the now-exposed floor joists were wrapped in wood panels with pencil moldings to create pretty box beams.
The honest approach overhead and the softness underfoot perfectly envelop the decorating. With plentiful artwork and comfortable upholstery, the house feels more “put together” than decorated. Many of the pieces had been waiting for a place to live and settle in, like Millner herself. Some were pulled from her longtime Atlanta home, others from her mother’s place in Rhode Island, and more from storage—she had always shopped with a Maine house in mind.
A portrait from Millner’s childhood home hangs over the Waterworks tub in the downstairs bathroom
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Cushions in a Christopher Farr Cloth fabric fill the upstairs bunk room; pillows in Faye Ikat and Roman shade in Erindale, both by Schumacher.
Francesco LagneseThe joy of decorating an old house comes to life in the kitchen and dining room. The former was pared back to handsome utility and adorned with a hand-painted pinecone stencil on the floor perimeter to create the ultimate country kitchen without a hint of kitsch. The latter has a Morris & Co. wallpaper chosen because it reminded the decorator of her own brood—a bird with three chicks—and a ceiling dark enough to blur the actual smoke stains from this candlelight-only room. So real is the period authenticity of the room that, before the house was fitted with storm windows, winter drafts caused the lit candles to spit wax all over.
Designed to feel like a ship’s cabin, son Wesley’s room—the smallest in the house—is decorated with Sailboats wallpaper by Boråstapeter (available through Schumacher) with millwork in Benjamin Moore’s Beneath the Clouds.
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Wyatt’s room is enveloped in Farrow & Ball’s Green Smoke; the bed is in a Zak + Fox stripe.
Francesco LagneseBut those are minor irritations, much preferable to outfitting bedrooms and rebuilding a family pantry each June. “For 18 years, we would pack it all up and store it, and then unpack it all,” says Millner. “Now when I walk in this house and my clothes are there—sometimes I can’t believe it. I can just walk in, put my keys down, go to the fridge, open a bottle of wine, and sit in front of the fire. And that’s what I do every time I go up. It’s the ultimate luxury.”
A vintage Woodard bar cart sits ready for guests.
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Chairs and tables by Munder Skiles surround the firepit out back.
Francesco LagneseTHIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 21 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
