How a Cape Rosier Barn Became a Soaring Kitchen with a Four-Star View

From our Winter 2022 issue

“Funnily, it was the barn that sold us on our house,” says Brooklyn- and Blue Hill-based designer Christina Salway. She and her husband, John Moskowitz, found their former 1800s farmhouse in Cape Rosier in 2018. Taking in the attached barn, with its hatchet-marked pine floor, weathered beams, and piles of lawn equipment and broken furniture, “We thought, this is the magic,” Salway says. The home’s existing 8-by-8-foot kitchen was less enchanting, so the couple (who have since relocated) set to work transforming the barn into a cookspace. Dismantling the hayloft and raising the collar ties allowed for a 17-foot-tall vaulted ceiling and 10-foot-tall windows trained on Penobscot Bay. Channeling a white-and-wood nautical vibe, Salway incorporated salvaged cabinets with Douglas-fir fronts, an antique walnut pantry cabinet from a neighbor’s basement, and vintage-inspired appliances. Pops of emerald green on the stove, antique marine pendants, and handmade fireplace tile “pay homage to the brilliant, mossy forest right outside,” Salway says.