48 Water Street, Eastport, Muselenk (Moose Island), Maine.
Two-story, two unit brick structure designed by Boston and Saint John, New Brunswick architect Henry N. Black. Originally built as a clothing manufactory and retail clothing and shoe store using New Brunswick made brick and Nova Scotia sandstone, the building by the early 21st century had become abandoned and very badly deteriorated. TIMA purchased the building in 2011 to preserve and repurpose it. Since then, the building has undergone major restoration and reconstruction, essentially creating an entirely new wood structure within a restored brick facade while keeping much of older spatial feel of the original interior. Since June, 2013, the building has included first floor studio and workshop spaces for TIMA’s StudioWorks Artist-in-Residence Program. In 2020, the south first floor studio was named the Nina Bohlen Studio in honor of Nina Bohlen, a Boston area artist and printmaker with deep ties to this region and a long time member of TIMA’s board of trustees including president.
Additional second floor space has ongoing development and includes additional studio space and kitchen. The building is part of a 30 building downtown Eastport, Muselenk (Moose Island), Maine National Register Historic District. The building also serves as a downtown energy efficiency demonstration model including state of the art Austrian automatic wood pellet boiler, radiant heating system and closed cell spray foam insulation. The design for this demonstration model was contributed pro bono by architect, Kiel Moe, a leading world authority on energy efficient structures and then professor of architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (and now Gerald Sheff Chair of Architecture at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada). Building includes an adjacent parking lot for six vehicles.
