Seawall Road · Southwest Harbor, Maine
Color, whimsy, and a little salt air. Four one-of-a-kind homes on Seawall Road, a block from the harbor.
328 guest reviews · 4.98 average · Superhosts
Acadia Maine Stays
All sit along Seawall Road in Southwest Harbor, on Mount Desert Island's quiet side — near the Seawall shore, a short walk to the Cranberry Isles ferry, a mile from town.
132 Seawall Road · ★ 4.95 · 128 reviews
A boutique home & writer's studio
A former schoolhouse reimagined by Wake Design in a Scandinavian-modern key, a block from the harbor. A separate studio offers a private escape for work or solitude. Bosch and Café appliances, Ann Sacks tile, custom woodwork, Loll and Hay furniture on the porch, and a fire pit on the stone patio.
6 guests · 4 bedrooms · 3 baths · Vespa charging
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Seawall Road · ★ 5.0 · 106 reviews
A modern oasis
A Wake Design conversion of a former auto-body shop, with soaring ceilings, walls of glass and effortless indoor-outdoor flow. Boutique-hotel interiors, a shaded deck, and an enclosed carport with ping-pong and a basketball half-court.
8 guests · 5 bedrooms · 2.5 baths · EV charging
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126 Seawall Road · ★ 4.99 · 94 reviews
Modern mansard by the sea
A mansard-style house with a glass addition on an acre, a duck pond out back and the harbor a block away. Original local art, an open plan for long dinners, and a private porch and patio within the family compound.
8 guests · 4 bedrooms · 3 baths
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126 Seawall Road
A former playhouse grows up
A Wake Design house with a full kitchen and a sleeping nook in the loft, and toward the pond, across a glass breezeway, the Wreck Study: two private studies side by side.
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The grounds
Granite walls spilling catmint, a fern-ringed fire pit, a stone terrace for long dinners, and a basketball half-court. The gardens tie the houses together, and after dark the birches light up.
For saleSouthwest Harbor, Maine
A mature, wooded building site near the village of Southwest Harbor, minutes from Acadia National Park. Public water at the road, with public wastewater lines extendable to the lot. Architectural plans drawn during our ownership are available to the buyer.
Listed with Laura Pellerano, Legacy Properties Sotheby's International Realty · MLS #1684858
Harlem, New York
One finished and ready to move into; one with approved plans, waiting for its next chapter.
For saleRenovated townhouse · 1910
A fully renovated single-family brownstone that pairs classic New York character with contemporary design. Private garden and terrace, central air, hardwood floors throughout. Move-in ready.
$4,000,000 · 3,910 sq ft · 4 bedrooms · 3.5 baths
Listed with Jed Lewin, The Agency · As featured in Curbed
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For sale128 West 121st Street · 1901
A townhouse ready to be finished, with approved plans, Landmarks approval and a Certificate of No Harassment (CONH) in hand for a single-family home of nearly 7,000 sq ft by Garnett DePasquale — a commercial-grade elevator with seven stops, serving all six floors and the roof, multiple bedroom suites, a rooftop terrace, and a garden-level bedroom and study.
$2,950,000 · 6,935 sq ft · 100' × 20' lot
Listed with Stanley P. Montfort, Serhant
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Coming nextMount Morris Park Historic District
A Romanesque Revival townhouse with four churches in view, and DSG's next chapter in Harlem.
Journal
Fabric samples, landmark approvals, old buildings coaxed into new lives. A running account of how these houses come together, delivered by Substack.
Subscribe to the journalThe studio
Our touchstones are the Experimental hotel in Biarritz and the films of Wes Anderson. We embrace color and whimsy, texture and layering, down to every wall covering, light fixture and piece of local art.
Materials
Why the hall landing gets olive and the entry walls get slate, and how a single chair can set a whole palette.
Pieces gathered over years of travel: Mexico, Bath, Charleston, Maine, New Orleans, California, Cadaqués and elsewhere in Spain, Vieques and South Africa.
About
DSG Inc · Harlem & Maine
DSG is a small, family-run design and property company led by Catherine Baker-Pitts, but its story begins with a hosiery worker who laid floors at night.
Catherine’s grandfather passed on his eagerness to roll up his sleeves to her father. When her father finished high school, the first in his family to do so, his daddy’s graduation gift was the earnings from a house they restored together.
By the time Catherine and her three sisters came along, their parents were bringing home discarded furniture and working through layers of varnish to reveal the beauty underneath. Their father could lose an afternoon searching an antique shop for the perfect brass sconce. Their mother enlisted her daughters to move art and rugs and reimagine spaces, favoring an evolving eye over a settled one.
Their resourcefulness extended to travel. On academic salaries, their parents arranged elaborate swaps of houses, cars, dogs, and occasionally even jobs. Long stays in Europe and a stint in Australia gave the girls the chance to settle into other people’s homes and, for a while, other people’s lives. Home could take many forms, and its doors could open onto a much bigger world.
After careers in academia and Democratic politics, Catherine’s parents took on a rambling Victorian overlooking the water in Bass Harbor, Maine. It became the family’s gathering place, filled with guests, long meals, and an evolving assortment of furniture and art. Eventually, their daughters began taking on their own houses.
Today, DSG restores and reimagines homes in two places Catherine loves: the brownstone-lined streets of Harlem and the birch-filled shores of Mount Desert Island, Maine. Working with architects including Wake Design and Garnett DePasquale, DSG gives old houses new chapters, choosing everything from light fixtures to vintage finds to local art with the people who will stay there in mind.
It remains a family undertaking. Catherine and her sisters—Christina, Cynthia, and Clara—each maintain homes in Maine, with Clara overseeing the family properties. Furniture moves between houses, samples pile up, and opinions are freely offered.
Fun reading
An Island in Maine, Four Sisters, Four Houses — Christina Baker Kline, The New York Times
A (Rediscovered) Joy of Cooking — Christina Baker Kline, Real Simple
Dreaming of Maine — Catherine Baker-Pitts, Maine Women Magazine
An Airy Harlem Brownstone Keeps Things Playful Yet Practical — Curbed New York, 2018
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