ABOVE Molly Walpuck gave up on living Christmas trees a few years ago. This artificial one, from Balsam Hill, “is easier and so much less messy.” The wicker tree stand is from HomeGoods. Molly scored the antique sled at LT Auctions, in St. George.
By Virginia M. Wright
Photos by Danielle Sykes
From our December 2021 issue
“I love the morning sun,” Molly Walpuck says, and her three-year-old home takes full advantage of it, not to mention its glorious perch on Mosquito Harbor, in the peninsular town of St. George. “I’ll come downstairs on a cold winter morning, and the entire place is lit up. It’s like a warm hug.”
It’s even cozier at Christmas, when Walpuck, a lifestyle Instagrammer with more than 87,000 followers, decks the halls (and the mantels and sideboards) with greenery, candles, and collections. “My mom used to give each of us an ornament each year,” she says. “They were personalized, such as hockey skates for my son, a swimmer for one daughter, and a ballet dancer for the other. We also collected ornaments on trips. Many people do themed trees, but ours is a hodgepodge of memories.”
Exterior
Molly and John Walpuck fell in love with Maine when two of their three children attended Colby College, in Waterville. They purchased the St. George property in 2016. The following year, Molly, newly retired from a career as a Russia analyst in Washington, DC, moved into one of the lot’s two rundown cottages and worked with Lincolnville architect Matthew Silverio to replace the other with a 2,300-square-foot Shingle-style home. “I wanted it to be like an old-time Maine coastal cottage with modern amenities,” she says. The green globes on the stone wall’s pillars are glass fishing floats that Molly displays with holiday trimmings.
Living Room
Molly cuddles with her springer spaniels, Maddie and Cisco, in the living area, which shares an open-concept ground floor with the dining room and kitchen. Behind her, a wooden dough bowl filled with seashells sits atop an antique chest of drawers. Shell illustrations, picked up at an estate sale, are grouped on the wall, which is painted Benjamin Moore’s Brittany Blue.
Fireplace
Rockport mason Shawn Lachance built the two-sided fireplace from granite-quarry remnants unearthed when Tenants Harbor builder Scott Tardif dug the home’s foundation. On one mantel sits a World War II European artillery basket, now with a peace-time mission of holding greenery. On the other side are 18th-century English platters and pub mugs.
Dining Room
Sunlight streams in the windows that dominate the east side of the house. For the holidays, Molly drapes faux juniper on the Visual Comfort gilded-iron chandelier and displays forest-green candles and glass cloches filled with pinecones on the reclaimed-pine table made by New England Joinery, of Monmouth.
Bath and Bedroom
Molly acquired her love of blue and white from her late mother. She papered the downstairs bath in Serena and Lily’s Priano print and turned her parents’ antique washstand into a vanity. For the guest bedroom’s walls, she chose Benjamin Moore’s Old Navy, a crisp contrast to the white slanted ceilings.
Pottery
While living in London, Molly’s mother amassed a large collection of 18th- and 19th-century blue-and-white transferware, shown here on living-area shelves. Molly now mixes in her own finds, including salt-glazed stoneware Santas by Pennsylvania potter David Eldreth, purchased from a fellow Instagrammer. An inveterate decorator, Molly regularly switches out her accessories so her home — and feed — always look fresh.
