When she set out to build a custom house on Bailey Island in Maine, Natasha Durham didn’t just want a home to live in. “I wanted to build a sculpture,” she said.

Ms. Durham, 62, the founder of Rough & Tumble, a boutique handbag company, already owned other homes in Maine with her husband, Steve Durham, 76, a boat captain. Those properties included their primary home, in Portland, and a few others they used as getaways and investments.

ImageNatasha Durham had mostly lived in older homes before the project on Bailey Island.Credit...Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA

“I always lived in big old houses, with noisy radiators, molding and history,” Ms. Durham said. But ever since she studied sculpture at what was then the Maine College of Art, she dreamed of creating something else: a monumental new house that was more about spatial experience than creature comforts.

The project began when the couple found a rugged 1.6-acre lot on Bailey Island on a rocky outcropping leading to the crashing waves of Casco Bay. They bought the property for $750,000 in 2017, and got to know the land while staying in a ramshackle cabin without insulation on the plot.

ImageThe 1.6-acre lot, leading to Casco Bay, cost $750,000 in 2017.Credit...Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA

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