Living in this house is like inhabiting a sculpture – even our 5 - year old granddaughter Helen notices. She said the other day “looking out this window is like TV but better.”

The design and functionality of our new Camden residence is spectacular. Every room and feature works as intended with lots of light and openness and ambiance. The overall aesthetics fit nicely and unobtrusively within our bayside site. It’s a new pleasure every time we visit.

As a New Yorker and painter, my get-away-from-it-all summers have been spent in Maine. When the time came for me to build my summer home and studio on Great Diamond Island, I turned to Van Dam Architects for the designs. Sam Van Dam’s sensitive approach to my special needs, his intelligent talent and his ease in handling our demands, was a perfect fit for me and my family. In reality, Sam truly made our dreams come true.

Working with Sam Van Dam on the custom design and construction of my home was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. Sam is a consummate professional and, among architects, has a unique ability to translate the client’s own design aspirations into material form, while still implanting his own special design hallmarks on the project. Throughout the entire home design and construction process, Sam was accessible, professional, thoughtful and stimulating, and always a delight to work with. I would even hope to build again someday, just to enjoy the creative collaboration with Sam one more time

Some desired features for the house were: open, light, spacious, solid and comfortable against a backdrop of coastal Maine views. The outstanding result was due to Van Dam Architecture and Design’s conceptual depth, financial sense, managerial competency, and outstanding efficiency.

Sam Van Dam did excellent work on designing both our barn, with its natural and open character, and a bay window in our cottage, both in Islesboro, Maine. He was original, timely, fair, on schedule and within the proposed budget.

Our comments about Van Dam Architecture and Design don’t begin to describe the joy we experience every day living in this house that they designed. Our beautiful home was designed by Sam to fit our life style (open) and our furnishing (family treasures) and our location (spectacular views). He did this with sensitivity, creativity and superb architectural skills.

We had never worked with an architect before, but Sam made it easy. We had a list of what we wanted – exposed framing, hight ceilings, and openness – he listened to us and he delivered. The cottage has changed our lives.

Sam designed a house for us on a dune by the ocean and a river. A difficult environmental agency made the design process highly challenging, but the final product fits in as if it had always been there.

The firm designed a modern addition to our antique farmhouse which faithfully preserved the character of the original home. Sam also renovated our outdated kitchen bringing light, spaciousness and functionality back into the space. We could not have been more pleased.

Sam designed my summer residence and the renovation of my winter residence, on the Maine coast. He has an uncanny ability to really listen to his clients and direct his art toward their dreams. I am enthralled with both houses. When I build in Europe, Sam will be along.

We imagined a “Maine Lodge” built of superior materials and executed with meticulous craftsmanship. Van Dam Architecture and Design realized our concept in ways we could not articulate, and in harmonious collaboration with the landscape architect, builder, and interior designer. For us, the result was a masterpiece of design and execution and an experience we look back on with complete satisfaction.

Sam was a wonderful collaborator with us when we renovated our 1906 John Calvin Stevens row house, and gave us many useful ideas, all of which enhanced and maintained the integrity of the original design and were both simple and elegant.

We asked Sam to help us with the renovation of our apartment in a historic row house. In one visit, he reviewed the existing floor plan and came up with a brilliant solution. We love the results.

Van Dam Architecture and Design was flexible about collaborating with us and happily incorporated our ideas. Other architects we interviewed seemed to view their designs as reflections of themselves. Sam was willing to suppress his ego and make our house a place for us to live in. Coming home to our house is a pleasure.