There’s a part of Maine, the part where I live, where it’s not Katahdin that is king. No, down here in the Sebago region, Mount Washington looms large. The New Hampshire peak that towers over 6,000 feet above sea level looms on the horizon, blue and stately, distant and domineering. It’s no wonder that artists have been entranced by its form, but it’s not every day that you see a house designed with the mountain in mind.

A few years ago, Stephen and Victoria Gilbert were living in a small townhouse in Auburn, near the offices of their branding agency, Anchour, while they looked for the right place to build their home. They had a good sense of what they were after; both Stephen and Victoria are trained and practicing designers. “I’ve always valued design and thought a lot about its influence on spaces,” says Stephen.

A few years ago, a Maryland-based couple started looking for a home in Maine. Their youngest daughter was living in Portland, newly married with a small baby; with three other daughters and a growing flock of grandchildren, they wanted a place where the family could come together by the water and where they could eventually retire.

The house sprawled languorously along a sandy beach and commanded a promontory overlooking blue ocean that stretched to the horizon. The shingle-style demeanor gave it a quintessentially New England coastal cottage aspect. From the outside, at first glance at least, this 12,000-square-foot, five-bedroom home on the southern Maine coast appeared to be just what this fifty-something couple wanted in a second home.