If you were a former Special Forces operative who’d founded a geothermal firm that made you well, let’s just say, comfortable, where on the Maine coast would you choose to locate your ultra-high-tech hideaway?

So often the most defendable positions–perched on cliffs, facing the sea–have been snapped up by forts. This private residence is nothing less than “a stunning architectural composition of wood, copper, stone, glass, and steel, with soaring window walls framing awe-inspiring panoramic oceanfront vistas,” according to Sotheby’s listing agent Linda Briggs. Here, above the boom of the surf, when you take a deep breath of the salt air, prepare to be shaken and stirred. In spite of its impossibly meditative geographic advantages, it whispers with the kind of understatement that’s only possible when the most skilled artisans are involved.

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