Though they both went to high school in Newburyport, it wasn’t until they were home from college that Brandon Holben and Elisa Winter connected.
“In high school, he was this hockey player, popular guy, who had all the parties, the crazy, fun guy with a big, huge mohawk,” Elisa, 49, recalled.
Back then, Elisa was quieter and more studious, and they hung out in different circles. But during a chance meeting one summer at the Thirsty Whale, she learned that Brandon was studying architecture, and a spark ignited.
“I realized how smart he was, and I've always loved art and design,” she said.
Elisa was working toward a biology degree and minoring in art, so his interest in design intrigued her. At the same time, Brandon, 50, admits he had always been curious about Elisa in high school.
“I had always seen her in the library studying, and you know, I was not doing that, but I always wanted to know her,” he said.
The two have now been married for 21 years, have two children, and are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their boutique architecture and design firm, Winter Holben. Elisa segued into graphic design after college, while Brandon worked for other local architects before they launched their firm.
“Why this works is because we really have the same philosophy,” Elisa said. “We both respect each other's background a lot. Because he's an architect and I'm the other pieces of design, we work together well.”
Their first collaboration happened when they worked together to design 3S Artspace in Portsmouth, and continued with their reimagining of an abandoned gas station on Islington Street to the Getty Bagel.
Both agree their most significant project on a personal and professional level is their new headquarters at 3 Walker St., in Kittery’s Foreside area. The building combines the firm’s studio with a street-level art gallery, along with apartments.
“The pinnacle of our career and working together was doing this project,” she said.
Initially, they had been designing the building for a developer with a plan to locate their office there, when the developer suggested, “If you're going to have two floors of the building, you might as well just buy it from me.”
Brandon said they wondered, “You know, can we do this?”
They made it work and began to both design the building and find a way for it to become part of the community. The new building aimed to improve the area where a dilapidated, abandoned building previously sat vacant for years.
“We were trying to complete the square. That was the concept,” Brandon explained.
Their design embodied their philosophy about the role architecture should play in a community.
“Properties like this that are central in a community should have multiple uses,” Elisa said. “This is a mixed-use building, and that's really important to the health of communities, even small towns like Kittery.”
They felt the size of the building was important to complete the square. “It’s pretty much right to the inch, the biggest size it could be on purpose, so that it would have the value it should have here in our town and for where it's sited,” she said. “It’s a funny-shaped property, so the shape of this building is really unique.”
Brandon described how the design shifts off-axis and tilts toward the square, which is the natural shape of the site. “We could have been more traditional with it, but I was like, let's just have fun with it, make it more dramatic and respond to the context better,” he said.
While the building is more contemporary than its neighbors, the design was intentional from the shingles on the outside--a modern interpretation of traditional architecture in Kittery--to the metal siding, which is a nod to the shipyard and working waterfront.
They were the first in Kittery to include the two smaller affordable apartments. “It wasn't easy for us to fit those apartments in here, but people were so psyched to have them, they rented right away,” Elisa said.
While they lived in Portsmouth earlier in their marriage, Kittery is home.
“Coming here, it felt like a little more alternative than Portsmouth,” Brandon said.
Elisa added, “It's a very close-knit community. It's a small town, and we love the people.”
They’ve seen the Kittery Foreside area grow to include favorites like the Black Birch, Lil’s, and Anju. “When we first moved here, there was nothing down here; it was just a corner, and that was it,” Brandon said. “Since then, things really started to pop up more; it felt like it was this innovative culture that I liked.”
All that makes them glad they persevered with their latest project. “There's just a lot we did in this building that wasn't easy,” Elisa said. “We could have just put an office here, and that's it, but we did all this because we feel like it has a value to the community and to the downtown.”
“The pinnacle of our career and working together was doing this project,”