$9m North Shore mansion resembles modern art. Garage is a nod to Denver airport. (2024)

Real Estate

Colors including lime green and bright red brush the Manchester-by-the-Sea home's exterior walls. Bold blues, raw stone, and rustic cuts of wood mark elements of the home’s living area.

By Victor Stefanescu

March 27, 2024

There’s a famous Piet Mondrian painting one might consider an archetype of modern art, with its sharp angles, clean lines, and popping blue, yellow, and orange boxes. A $9 million Manchester-by-the-Sea mansion made up of 56% glass with a standalone garage resembling Denver’s airport feels like a nod to this canvas.

Marcus Gleysteen Architects — which refers to the 370 Summer St. mansion, built in 2001, as the “Ridge House” — designed what the original owner called a “organic contemporary” home with a Frank Lloyd Wright feel, said the listing agent, Lanse Robb of LandVest | Christie’s International Real Estate.

“Obviously, you’re having trouble focusing on your dinner partner,” Robb, a principal and North Shore regional director, said of attending social events in the home, “you’re always looking towards the water.”

Colors including lime green and bright red brush the exterior walls that aren’t composed of glass. Bold blues, raw stone, and rustic cuts of wood mark elements of the luxury home’s 5,258 square feet of living area.

Through the front frosted-glass double door, one can immediately see the ocean through the living area’s floor-to-ceiling glass “curtain wall.” A stainless steel fireplace sandwiched between two multi-ton granite boulders shoots up to the ceiling like the suction tube of an alien spacecraft.

A floating staircase with maple treads lines a wall of the living room. The other side of the room opens up to a dining area with a red birch floor. This space leads into the home’s stand-out kitchen.

Blue tones make up the large checkerboard tiles composing the backsplash and the wall of the huge island with a live-edge big-leaf maple bar top. The blue matches the royal color of the glossy cabinets. The colors of the home, Robb said, remind one of the ocean, which is half a mile away.

“If you’re reminded of the colors in the environment, it keeps you in it,” Robb said.

The kitchen also includes the luxury appliances expected in a $9 million home, such as two Bosch dishwashers, a double Wolf oven, a Subzero fridge, and a five-burner stainless steel cooktop.

A living area and office that can be converted into a bedroom also sit on the first floor, which leads to a patio and deck. Three of the home’s five bedrooms are upstairs.

The private balcony off the primary suite, Robb said, would be a great place for the homeowner to hang out at the start of each day. A stainless steel bath sits snug in the corner of the bathroom, underneath windows that open toward the forest.The home has four full baths and one half bath in total.

The floor’s second bathroom also has a unique setup, with a ceramic tub and a shower with tiny blue-and-green tiles making up its walls and black stones composing its floor.

The mansion’s garage, added in 2006, isn’t like your garage. A fabric, tent-like roof rests above its glass walls. Its two sliding doors are “blown-up versions” of Mondrian paintings, according to the home’s profile.

The seller hired the same company that created the mountain-range roof of the Denver airport to create this garage, Robb said, adding that he thinks the owner hosted his daughter’s engagement party in the space.

“He just loved it,” Robb said of the owner’s perspective of the see-through garage. “And, you know, it obviously made him keep his garage clean.”

A snaking driveway leads up to the home on a wooded hilltop. Its dozen or so acres connect to an additional 2,000 acres of largely protected land featuring trails.

“He’s sort of built this really incredible place in its natural environment,” Robb said of the home and its landscaping, with features such as boulders.

The mansion is close to the water but not in a flood zone, Robb said, pointing out that it takes pedestrians seven or eight minutes to get to Black Beach and White Beach.

“This is gonna have to catch somebody and say, ‘OK, this is pretty cool, and it’s more my style than the, you know, the conservative sort of shingle stuff.’” Robb said.

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