“We like salt air, matters a minimal undone, and just treasured plenty of.”
So reads the Instagram bio of Kate Jones, the designer powering cult favourite jewelry co. Ursa Key. For Kate, re-settled on the coastline of Maine following stints in New York and San Francisco, what she phone calls a type “somewhere involving the earlier and the present” is a way of being—and, naturally, her laidback-satisfies-sophisticated, unfussy-classy sensibility interprets not just to her subtle, timeless parts but to her studio and workspace way too.
Kate and her partner, Chris Reardon, also a New England transplant, have been residing in San Francisco in 2015 when they began hunting for a position to get throughout the country. “I constantly knew I desired to transfer back to Maine but did not truly assume to so shortly. I think we both of those surprised ourselves with how completely ready we were. In the long run, after two many years of searching, we discovered a place on the extremely very same small cove I grew up on in the Damariscotta River. Pretty serendipitous.”
There was the kismet of returning to a spot she understood, and then there was the land by itself. “We had two key credentials when on the lookout for home: will have to have waterfront, but—most importantly—when we drove in the driveway there experienced to be an factor of ‘magic.’ A little something that grabbed us quickly. A twinkle in the land.” This residence and smaller outbuilding, Kate states, was “located at the stop of a very prolonged, densely wooded driveway that winds down a quarter mile, emptying out into an open up area with scattered pines and a granite ledge, significantly of it lichen lined, that sets the horizon line overlooking the cove. The travel in usually captivates us, no make any difference the year.”
But daily life on the cove quickly took a transform. “In October 2019 a major storm blew by means of, with unconventional winds coming from the east that swept up from the cove,” Kate states. “The winds had been only about 60 or 65 miles for every hour, but many thanks to physics and the ravine, they were most likely 80 miles for each hour when they hit the home and peeled off the steel roof. The subsequent rain harm was more than enough to make us rethink our initial programs to renovate the framework and in its place create new.
“Ultimately the storm was a great blessing in disguise,” Kate states. “We by no means imagined we desired to create from the ground up, realizing way too very well what it would entail. But immediately after possessing lived on the home for two decades, we experienced these kinds of an knowledgeable idea of how we would construct in a different way: to establish with the land, as opposed to on it. We understood how the light-weight moved across it all instances of the 12 months, how we moved across it, and also that we could build greater and with the upcoming exclusively in intellect. It was in maintaining with the thought that we are just stewards of this land, but what we do leaves a lasting influence.”
The couple’s new, sustainable property is now in progress, and in the meantime, they’ve designed, with each other, a little outbuilding on the land to serve as Kate’s studio, with a wood stove, generous home windows for “good jewelry-get the job done lights,” plaster partitions, and lots of areas to seem for inspiration.
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Images courtesy of Kate Jones, other than wherever famous.
“Chris was the main designer (along with myself) and builder for the studio,” says Kate. “He also intended our household, with our very good good friend Andrew Frederick consulting as architect and structural engineer. Chris excels at being familiar with efficiency of movement within a place, as well as how light travels within. His qualifications is in established design/making and commercial photoshoot manufacturing, but this dwelling feels like the real culmination of his passions and talents.”
Chris also created their home-in-development alongside with Andrew, who launched Maine-centered Croft the dwelling is “straw insulated, constructed from pre-fabricated panels assembled in Rockland,” Kate suggests. “It captures 50 tons of carbon! And much of the wood employed in the construction is from our have property.”) Andrew assisted construct the studio as nicely, as did Joe Nelson of Croft and the couple’s pal Malcolm Browne. “Our good buddy Joe McSwain, a former steeple jack, helped build the studio cabinets with Chris,” Kate suggests. “Both areas are crafted by good friends, and absolutely nothing is quite so attractive as that.”
The studio was finished in January 2020. “Prior to that,” Kate claims, “my mother permit me borrow her small (and still left-handed) studio set up in East Boothbay. Perks bundled coffee and lunch produced by mother, as very well as an ocean check out, but it wasn’t established up for production and was a challenging two years.”
Kate and Chris did the plastering operate them selves, “albeit rough and our 1st time,” Kate notes. “But as Chris generally claims: It’s a working studio it shouldn’t be best.”
“I love the intention that is essential to are living in Maine,” Kate says. “I love when I’m in the town, with the magic of spontaneity, but for day-to-day everyday living, I like currently being in a spot now in which what I do with my working day, my space, my time are my choices.” Her most loved matters about this area? “Space, salt air, how grounding it feels to be back again on this cove, walking barefoot all working day if I want, my backyard, and the privateness.”
Just take a search at Kate’s get the job done by means of Ursa Major.