Photograph by David Clough
Winners Circle
Architecture & Design
From mod architects to L.L. Bean’s old crib, Maine pros and projects have been racking up home-and-design awards left and right.
Architecture
Honor: Architect magazine’s annual Top 50 list, a nationwide ranking of firms in the categories of business, sustainability, and design.
Recipients: Portland’s Kaplan Thompson Architects placed 38th for sustainability and GO Logic in Belfast took 43rd in design.
Highlight: In Portland, GO Logic’s modern twist on a townhouse, featuring a two-story main residence, with an apartment and a garage below, helped clinch the firm’s win.
Interior Design
Honor: The New England chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers’ annual design awards.
Recipient: Linda Banks, of Banks Design Associates in Falmouth, won the competition’s Whole House category.
Highlight: Banks’s project — a gut renovation of a 1960s Falmouth Colonial — features pops of fire-engine red, the homeowner’s favorite shade.
Historic Preservation
Honor: Maine Preservation’s annual Honor Awards, recognizing standout buildings and champions in the realm of historic rehabilitation.
Recipients: Thirteen statewide revitalization projects, along with preservationists John G. Morse IV, Jane Morse (posthumously), and Frances Bowen, all of Bath.
Highlight: The Queen Anne–style former home of Leon Leonwood Bean in Freeport, designed by famed Portland architect Francis Fassett. Built in 1888 and purchased by Bean in 1912 — the year he founded L.L.Bean — the residence underwent a meticulous, 12-year restoration. It’s now the Leon L. Bean Home and Archive Center (sadly, not open to the public).
