In his upcoming book At Home in Nature: American Country Interiors (Monacelli), FREDERIC senior design editor Hudson Moore takes readers on a visual journey through an unforgettable collection of rural retreats, ranches, and cottages designed by some of today’s leading tastemakers and creatives. Among them is the Maine home of Jamie Wyeth, the renowned painter whose converted lighthouse is an ode TO New England summer simplicity. Read on for an exclusive excerpt from At Home in Nature before its release on September 16—and make sure to pre-order your copy today!
Standing on top of the lighthouse at Southern Island, Maine, artist Jamie Wyeth (yes, of those Wyeths) can see the edge of his domain. The breadth of it is small—a matter of acres, ringed by the cold gray Atlantic—and that is the magic of it. “There’s something about standing on top of the lighthouse and seeing the perimeters of your world,” he says. “It gives me a sort of funny sense of omnipotence.”
A painting by Wyeth of his terriers hangs in the main sitting room; on the wall above the fireplace is a piece of driftwood carved into a seagull.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior Archive
A painted pine cabinet holds a bare-hulled ship model.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior Archive
A ladderback chair hangs from a peg on the wall, as utilitarian in its placement as everything else in Wyeth’s home.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior ArchiveHe bought the island in the 1990s from his parents, Andrew and Betsy, who had purchased it in 1978; he is now here year-round, back and forth by boat when the weather allows, provisioned in part by local fishermen who leave fresh catch on his float. The island earns its keep as muse.
People come out and invariably ask whether he’s run out of things to paint. He says he could live three lifetimes here and still not scratch the surface. That same economy of means extends indoors, where the decommissioned keeper’s house holds its objects close and deliberately.
The sitting room’s tufted leather sofa was a favorite perch for Wyeth’s late Jack Russells—Tiller, Homer, and Voler.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior Archive
From the hooked rug to the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment banjo clock on the wall, nautical influences abound.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior Archive
A La Cornue range dominates the kitchen, its brass fittings gone dark with use, copper pots ranked above it on a hanging rail.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior Archive
The coat, hat, and breeches of a naval dress uniform passed from the illustrator Howard Pyle to Wyeth’s grandfather, N. C., who used it in his illustrations; then to his father, Andrew, who painted it; and finally, to Wyeth, who hung it here.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior ArchiveGetting anything to the island requires effort—boat, weather, timing—and that effort requires discernment that confers a certain weight. “They’re imbued with something,” Wyeth says of the things he brings across the water and often paints. A naval uniform hangs from a hook on the white plaster wall, generations old, looking as if it materialized there rather than was placed. A painted pine cabinet is topped with a ship model, both worn to their bones and beautiful because of it.
In the living room, a ship’s figurehead crouches in a corner standing sentry over it all, none of it collected for collecting’s sake and every single piece of it earned.
Two Windsor chairs flank a bedroom window like sentinels.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior Archive
A massive painted armoire, its surface worn through to bare wood at the edges, commands a corner of the room.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior Archive
A plaque lists the names of the former keepers at Tenants Harbor Light, decommissioned in 1933.
Michael Arnaud/The Interior Archive
To see this and more beautiful country homes, pre-order At Home in Nature: American Country Interiors by Hudson Moore, out September 16.
