CALEB JOHNSON: Personality-wise, I just
can't run from a challenge.
It's more like just run straight at it.
That's what my life is all about, is visualizing
and then going ahead and making it happen.
And that's very rewarding.
It's really special to work on a small house
because you can, to a degree, have what your heart wants.
I'm an architect by profession.
That's what I spend my time doing--
drawing, then making and thinking about how
it all affects us as humans.
[water sloshing]
Come on, baby.
It's all good?
Let's go.
Don't worry.
It's like a ton--
[engine starts, revs]
[water splashing]
It's so nice and clear right now.
CALEB JOHNSON: We're located in southern Maine.
Maine stretches in all of these very jagged coast
hundreds of miles north of us.
And we are perched right at the north side
of what's called Biddeford Pool
Biddeford Pool is this beautiful harbor.
It's a really lovely place to live.
[water splashes]
SHANNON: Want me to cut it?
It's a big reason I didn't want
to, like, tear the house down, because I
knew it would just, like--
with a blank slate, you would--
you just get something that might call more attention
to itself than it needs.
Like, you don't need the house to draw any attention.
This is what should have the attention.
[music playing]
My son came home one day while we were building the house.
He said to me that it has the proportions of a blowfish,
kind of squat and fat.
So I thought-- I thought he was kind of right.
We have a 50-by-100-foot lot.
So it's tiny.
It's barely a lot.
You know, it's enough for two cars
to park on and enough to put a 400-square-foot footprint
of a building on.
Because we needed it, we managed to get
a four-bedroom home out of that, which is really unusual.
[water sloshing]
My ex-wife and I separated six years ago
and needed a new home, but wanted to stay right here,
stay put, continue to grow roots.
And so my partner, Shannon, and I found
a little cottage on the beach.
I have three kids, and Shannon has three kids.
We're here for one week, and then we're
in Portland the following week.
This is a half-time home for us.
It's designed to just be a constant place where
we can get out into nature.
[birds squawking]
[music playing]
A typical day here usually involves
a pretty spectacular sunrise coming
up next to the lighthouse.
Shannon and I tend to get up really early,
make coffee as a first priority, play a game of tennis
down the road, sit and read on the couch,
and then the kids start to filter down.
And we'll make plans to go out on the water, take a boat ride.
This house landed here as a result of a whole kind
of New England tradition motel.
There is a primary house here and then a bunch
of tiny little 300-square-foot cottages that were
rented out as a roadside motel.
[music playing]
I purchased the property in 2016, and the house at the time
really was not sensible to renovate.
It was just very dilapidated, rotten.
The area where I'm sitting right now,
the floors were really bouncy.
We were actually concerned that someone would put, you know,
a hole leg through it.
It would have been faster to just crunch
this thing up in a half a day, stick it
in a bunch of dumpsters, and wheel it off and then
build a brand new frame.
It was not a logical--
more of an emotional decision to just do a full renovation here.
I remember making my first tree house
and fell in love with woodworking at that moment.
You know, it was probably in the third grade.
I've been interested in woodworking ever since.
And woodworking is a big part of this house.
We custom-built the primary oceanfront window here,
and then I carved the pieces that are the window stops that
hold the glass in, with some local history
and some family history.
We're still working on this panel.
I'll carve this someday.
We have lots of little mermaids and other things carved
here and there, just for fun.
[music playing]
At 850 square feet, this house feels much bigger than it is.
It has a lot to do with where you're leading your eyes.
If you're making moves that draw your eyes to the horizon, then
all of a sudden, that space becomes
part of the small space, and a small house could
feel bigger than a big house.
The house, may be on the inside, were only about, I think,
17.5 feet wide.
And for any space, usually 10 feet is the bare minimum.
So we had to get a living room and a dining room in 17
feet, which just isn't enough.
So the only way that we could do that and still
walk through, get outside, and have both functions
was do a banquette.
[music playing]
We have a very special kitchen here,
from a woodworking standpoint.
What I set as a parameter is there'll be no plywood.
We won't use screws.
Glue is only put in place to hold joints together.
This length here that's just hanging on a French cleat
on the wall is just one piece.
From front to back, it's all solid walnut.
Normally, you would have a plywood panel here,
and instead we got the strength with a diagonal,
creating triangles, which gives you structural strength.
And an artist who's well-known here in Maine,
he has done everything for 15 or 20 years only out of nails.
He came into our shop, and he's like, I should
make you a panel for that.
So John Bisbee made us this.
We didn't set out to make a beachy home
or a nautical-feeling home, but if you fit as much
into a small space as we did in this home,
then you start using some of the same tricks
you would use if you were designing
a three-cabin sailboat.
You've got to get two or three functions out
of almost every element of the home, and that's very nautical.
So it just kind of happened by default.
As you walk around this house and live in this house,
storage is just tucked here and there and everywhere.
The primary bedroom, kind of fun.
Built-in bed.
Believe it or not, our wardrobes are on each side of this.
Really tight.
It makes you have to think about the clothes
you're going to keep.
To fill out any primary suite, you need a good bathroom,
so we fit a full bathroom in the size of a small shower.
The toilet, the sink, the whole bathroom
is right in the shower.
So taking a 400-square-foot footprint, which then means
you only get a 400-square-foot second floor, getting four
bedrooms and two full baths in it
means that every little nook and cranny,
you have to think about storage.
You have to think about the flow.
In this room, this started as my daughter's room, m we decided
to turn it into a little den.
These lamps here came from the original house,
and I just found a way to repurpose it,
keep that story and narrative moving.
[chatter]
[laughter]
CALEB JOHNSON: One of the most important things
that buildings and places do for us
is remind us of the importance of spending time
with people we love.
Cheers, babe.
SHANNON: Thank you, honey.
I think the children have all grown up to love this place
and have really nice memories, and I
think they're going to want to continue coming back
here to make more memories.
It's special.
CALEB JOHNSON: As our family goes through different phases,
thinking ahead to how this will evolve with the family
in a flexible way.
So this is designed to work over decades and over generations.
[fire crackling]
[chatter]
Oh, OK.
One or two marshmallows.
Do you want, like, a sandwich version of the chocolate?
Yeah.
CALEB JOHNSON: The story of this home
really revolves around being together in a beautiful spot,
doing things that are meaningful,
doing things carefully and thoughtfully,
and just enjoying our time here.
[music playing]