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"When it was time to retire, my husband and I were fortunate to find a stunning piece of land on Maine’s Kennebec River in Bath, and twice fortunate to find Fred Hahn. Our real estate agent contacted Fred late on a Saturday morning after a meeting with our builder and another designer fell through; and Fred, who was on his way to Boston with his family, agreed to take time to walk the property with us and our builder. Ten minutes after seeing the site, he said, “I would like to design your home." Fred’s best advice to us was, “Buy a LARGE 3-ring binder, and create three sections:
(1) Everything you want to have in your new house,
2) Everything you dislike about any house you’ve ever seen, and
(3) What you absolutely cannot live without when it’s time to trim your budget.”
And we did. We finally presented Fred with the stuffed-full binder, several elements from the two homes we had lived in for the past 40 years, and three floor-plan ideas, and said, “Design our house from these.” One week later, Fred showed us preliminary plans Two months later we broke ground on a home so amazing, we still say after eight years, “We love this house! We will never leave this house!” And to finish this lovely fairy tale -- when I was a young bride I eagerly read all the decorating and design magazines I could find, cutting out ideas and putting them in files and envelopes and books -- you know how that goes. One day I came across a photograph of a house, and I remember thinking, “Someday we will live in a house like that?!” And I put the photo away. And like all photos and ideas that are put away, it traveled with us in boxes, never to be seen for 40 years. When we finally moved into our dream on the river, the time came to unpack the boxes and files and books where all of the ideas and hopes had lived during our life together. You cannot imagine my stunned surprise when I finally came across the treasured old photo of my dream house. It is our today house -- different setting, maybe even a different state, but it is the same -- right down to the bay window, and the doghouse dormers, and the light pouring into the rooms. Thank you, Fred Hahn. You delivered our dream. - Mikelle and Ken Carr
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