Thirteen years ago, I found myself alone in an elevator with Martha Stewart. I’d been working for her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, for probably six months at that point, but had previously only seen her through the glass walls of her office or from a distance, surveying layouts arrayed on a giant fabric-wrapped bulletin board in the hallway. “Do you work for me?” she asked after I offered a tentative smile. I rambled for a few moments about my two editors, whom I genuinely admired. “Well,” she said as the doors opened, “I’m glad you’re here. Please don’t be afraid to say hello.”

Alas, I didn’t have another chance. I left the magazine a year and a half later, finally giving in to a nagging inner voice that had been pulling me back to my home state and the actual nagging voice of my future husband, who was eager to start a law practice in Portland. Driving north out of New York, with everything I owned crammed into a U-Haul, I believed the most exciting chapter in my career was in the rearview with the diminishing skyscrapers. But in a cyclic twist, one of my first responsibilities as an editor at Down East was to serve as the magazine’s liaison with Martha for the special April 2017 issue she was guest-editing. This year, we collaborated again, on our inaugural Maine Homes Design Awards contest, which Martha judged, along with a team of industry pros. (Check out the spectacular winning projects on page 76.)

But the highlight of my career thus far (no offense, Martha) has been creating the new magazine you hold in your hands. In conceiving the stories, I tried to heed advice readers of our Maine Homes website have given me over the years — to showcase inspirational houses with aspects anyone can emulate, to take a broad view of what constitutes a living space (I won’t be offended if you turn to page 42 right now and ogle Meag and Ben Poirier’s prison bus turned adorable tiny home), to provide practical information people can use when searching for, building, improving, or decorating their own places, and to tap into that hard-to-quantify Maine ethos that makes us all want to live here. (Writer and free pile enthusiast Suzanne Rico offers her quirky take in Free-For-All on page 38.)

To paraphrase a favorite mentor, I’m glad you’re here. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on our first issue. Please don’t be afraid to drop a line and say hello.

Sarah Stebbins
Editor