Historic Coastal Home Renovation | Great Northern Builders

When a coastal home has been in your family for generations, deciding to remodel is never just about adding square footage or taking the easiest construction route. Memories live in the proportions of the rooms, the morning light over the ocean, the original fir floors, and the architectural quirks of a house that has evolved over a century.

Keeping an older home does not mean leaving it stuck in the past.

When the homeowners approached us to restore their early-1900s Perkins Cove cottage, other builders had recommended tearing it down and starting from scratch. But starting over erases history. Our mission was to preserve what made this home familiar while solving serious structural vulnerabilities, upgrading its building science, and reconfiguring the footprint for modern family life.

What We Discovered Behind 100-Year-Old Walls

One reality of renovating historic New England homes is that they were never built to modern structural or life-safety standards. Once we opened the framing, our team uncovered several hidden conditions:

Severely Sagging Floor Systems: We uncovered an undersized 2×6 floor member spanning nearly 20 feet, which had caused significant deflection across the floor. Instead of merely leveling the finished floor on top, we reinforced the framing itself to establish a solid structural foundation for the next century.
Fire Safety in Balloon Framing: The cottage was built using classic balloon framing, where open wall cavities run continuously from the foundation to the roof, creating rapid pathways for fire. Opening the walls allowed us to incorporate proper modern fire-blocking and framing assemblies.
Unconventional Structural Support: Portions of the original roof were framed with actual tree logs, and a rear bedroom addition sat on what amounted to a dry-stacked rock foundation. We carefully jacked up that addition and poured code-compliant concrete footings underneath.

True preservation is not about ignoring these discoveries. It requires the technical skill to understand what can remain, what needs structural reinforcement, and what must be modernized so the home can safely serve future generations.

Reimagining the Interior: Engineering an Open Floor Plan

Modern coastal living centers on connection, which required removing one of the cottage’s primary load-bearing walls.

Opening an older structure is entirely different from simply knocking down a partition. Working from the architectural design in close collaboration with the structural engineers at Haley Ward, we engineered a load-redistribution system to safely reframe the interior. This opened the living areas while preserving the integrity and scale of the original great room.

Furthermore, coastal properties often sit on legally nonconforming lots, which place strict limits on expansion. By taking advantage of the local one-time footprint increase allowance of up to 30%, we designed and built an expanded kitchen addition. The new space features cathedral ceilings and modern cabinetry, creating a central gathering area for holiday dinners without overwhelming the historic cottage proportions.

Rebuilding the Building Envelope for Coastal Durability

To ensure the cottage can withstand harsh oceanfront weather for decades, we stripped the exterior down to its original sheathing and rebuilt the envelope from the framing out:

Moisture Management & Siding: We installed a modern rainscreen system behind premium 50-year cedar shakes, protecting against salt-laden coastal moisture while retaining the classic weathered-shingle aesthetic of coastal Maine.
Architectural Windows: We carefully restored and reglazed the home’s historic glass picture window. For the rest of the house, we installed Andersen 400 Series wood windows, custom-ordered with distinctive diamond-pattern grilles to recreate the cottage’s original window details.
Preserving Original Flooring: Rather than replacing every floor surface with new materials, we carefully refinished the original fir flooring in the historic great room, maintaining its authentic character and patina.
Modern Mechanical Systems: We updated the entire building envelope with high-performance insulation, complete rewiring, new plumbing, and multi-zone HVAC systems for comfortable year-round coastal living.

The Screened Porch: The Best Seat in the House

Running along the front of the home is a 300-square-foot screened-in porch overlooking the water.

To ensure the new porch felt native to the 1900s structure rather than looking like an oversized addition, we proportioned the support columns to mirror the original aesthetic. Because standard screen assemblies would not align with the custom column spacing, our carpenters built the screen panels in place, finishing the space with durable natural mahogany decking and rail caps.

The result is a low-maintenance outdoor living room designed to handle harsh coastal weather while framing unobstructed ocean views.

Preservation as a Long-Term Investment

Preserving a historic home is not about freezing a structure in amber. It is about identifying the elements that give a home its identity, resolving the structural and safety deficits beneath the surface, and modernizing the layout for modern family living.

Through our Safe, Happy, and Predictable pre-construction process, we eliminate unknowns using collaborative planning and transparent communication on JobTread before construction begins. This ensures complex coastal restorations stay on schedule, on budget, and built to last.

Tour This Perkins Cove Renovation in Person

Want to see how historic New England character and modern building science come together? Join the Great Northern Builders team this September for the Ogunquit Home & Garden Tour, where you can explore this restored coastal cottage in person while supporting Rett’s Roost. Reserve Your Ogunquit Home Tour Tickets Here →