The Cuckolds Council is pleased to welcome new volunteers and talents to the Rescue Team: Interior Designer Tracy Davis, the Principal of Urban Dwellings; Senior Landscape Architect Arek Galle, with Gates, Leighton & Associates; and Builder Steve Malcom, Owner and CEO of the Knickerbocker Group. These new team members join Eric Marden, Eric Dolloff, Jeff Blaisdell, Nick Whatley, Skip Rideout and others to ramp up construction activities on the Cuckolds.

As we approach the home stretch, and prepare for opening in spring 2013, we will be accelerating the pace of the Cuckolds Rescue. With the expanded team, we are adding professional capacities, new ideas, perspectives, and possibilities to the Cuckolds, and together the Team is embracing the unique opportunity to create a place of beauty, adventure, wonder, and memory-making for everyone to enjoy.

Stepping into a Wyeth painting 

“I learned to sail in Maine, and sailed a schooner out of Bass Harbor. That was the first lighthouse I ever experienced, and I was captivated,” says Tracy Davis, Principal of Urban Dwellings. “When I stepped ashore at the Cuckolds — well, actually, because the pier was not operating, when I crawled across the seaweed and rocks — I felt as if I were stepping into a Wyeth painting.”

Davis believes that good design is a means of communication, and good design can create spaces that everyone will continue to enjoy. “I’m inspired by the Cuckolds, as an opportunity to make history come alive. At the same time, I believe we can elevate the experience. Although it will be respectful of the past, it is no longer a government facility that houses two Coast Guard families. This will become an adaptive-use facility, which focuses on present uses and needs for everyone, young and old, rich and poor, visitors and guests from near and far. Design is all about layers; there’s a hospitality layer, a rugged maritime adventure layer, a layer that allows for the austere and the beautiful. This will be a nineteenth century treasure with 21st century guests in mind.”

Bringing people to a previously inaccessible place

“I was initially drawn to the Cuckolds through my friendship with Steve Malcom, and encouraged to become involved by Paul Coulombe,” states Arek Galle, Landscape Architect with GLA. “The public access goal speaks to a lot of people. Bringing inspired design to a public property makes it irresistible. The topography and the setting, the historical renovation, the interpretive factors, and the model of community activism all serve to make this a one-of-a-kind project, a most intriguing and compelling proposition. This kind of opportunity doesn’t come along every day.”