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"View Slideshow\n\nSimplicity has its own complications. Architectural designer Len Morgan's mandate sounded straightforward enough: a shingled house with a shingled roof. Getting there was anything but.\n\nThe first hurdle was the property. Yes, the views are winning, facing south toward Maine's famed Frenchman Bay, the horizon punctuated by the Porcupine Islands and Mount Desert's Cadillac Mountain.\n\nBut the lot is small, less than an acre, and the owner was used to elbow room. His previous outpost in Maine was an 1860s farmhouse on 55 acres. How to create, on this slash of Maine coast, the five-bedroom home he had in mind without overpowering the property?\n\nThe decision was made early on not to try to replicate a house that might have existed at an earlier time but to design a modern house that sympathetically blended in with the locale: The sturdy barns and plain sheds that dot the countryside provided his inspiration, says Morgan.\n\nOwner and designer quickly agreed that the house should be positioned as close to the bluff as legally allowed to take advantage of the view. But their familiarity with the challenges of Maine weather\u2014the wind, the fog and the damp\u2014made them decide that the view might be best appreciated if the house itself became part of the view, a frame, if you will.\n\nAnd so Morgan designed a series of pavilions, which break up the mass of the 5,500-square-foot house and provide a variety of open and sheltered places for dining, reading and just plain sitting. The view frequently includes the house itself, as the exterior boasts 32 corners.\n\nThe owner, a New York art dealer specializing in old-master drawings, knew that in hiring his friend Morgan he had selected an unabashed perfectionist. Morgan's designs are marked by a penchant for clean lines and stripped-down detailing. On the outside, the shingles keep the lines crisp. On the inside, the entire house is paneled in Douglas fir. The beauty of the wood led to a firm directive from Morgan: no seams. So each board has been cut to reach from floor to ceiling or wall to wall. Morgan can't help but point out the single \"flaw,\" the one seam in the living room necessitated by the 30-foot expanse.\n\nThe effect? \"A house that is fitted together like a well-crafted box,\" says Morgan, who credits the local construction team, Bellows Woodworks, headed by Dexter Bellows. \"You can see in the craftsmanship a long tradition and love of wood-working and boatbuilding.\"\n\nTo avoid wasting the precious wood, every cut was made to count. Morgan recalls the process of sorting boards by length and knots turning the construction process into a giant puzzle.\n\nIndeed, the entire house was built with an emphasis on custom touches, from the French doors with their wicket windows (the better to get the crisp Maine air circulating) to the bath and kitchen fittings.\n\nThe house's folly, though the term is belied by its charming usefulness, is the \"lantern,\" a box of a structure off the dining room. A glazed porch, the lantern is a place for sitting and dining or merely for enjoying the 180-degree views.\n\nThe house is used most often during the summer months, says the owner, who enjoys filling the four guest rooms with friends. With four porches in addition to the lantern, there are numerous places for guests to gather or go off on their own.\n\nInside the house, the palette is muted. White wool draperies frame the library, dining room and living room windows. The three rooms make a long sweep across the front of the house. Apses at either end allow circulation and make the transition from the peak of the living room's 20-foot ceiling to the other rooms. The wood walls are both backdrop and attention grabbers.\n\nIn keeping with the restrained tone, the fireplaces in both the living room and library are slabs of soapstone, minimally detailed. The living room sofa and its striped pillows provide the only vivid color. As the owner is both collector and dealer, the display of his paintings was an important design consideration, says Morgan, who used a bronze rail at the roofline from which to hang chains for the paintings without damage to the wood.\n\nSo in the end, the owner got his wish. It is a shingled house with a shingled roof, not simple, but serene, with a fit like a custom-made suit."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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