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The three-story Provincetown cottage of former Superior Court judge Maria Lopez has unique interiors, evidenced by the interplay of architectural design, neutral palettes, and an eclectic art collection.
Adrian Catalano
She once presided over Massachusetts courtrooms. The colors were somber and serious, the furniture—lawyers’ tables, juror boxes, witness seats—weighty. The mood was focused, sometimes strained, always contentious.
She now looks out over an expansive bay sweeping around to Truro and Wellfleet on one side and to Long Point, on the Cape’s very tip, on the other. Instead of holding court over witnesses and defendants, she now enjoys the presence of fishermen casting lines from dinghies, young men with flowing hair riding horses along the beach, seagulls trawling for shellfish at low tide, dogs pulling their walkers, seals floating in the harbor, and the occasional whale breaching at the bay’s edge.
Inside, the palette of her recently renovated home is neutral—walls are white, fabrics camel—an accommodating backdrop for both the ever-changing scene outside and the colorful, eclectic works by local artists and artists from her native Cuba inside. Though she is not currently holding court, judge Maria Lopez finds the Provincetown home she shares with her husband, Boston Phoenix founder and publisher Stephen Mindich, the perfect place to reflect on her career as she is working on the final chapters of a judicial memoir.
Her once rigid schedule as a Superior Court judge and then as a judge on a television series left her little time to enjoy, never mind rethink the spaces of the Provincetown home she and her husband had bought in the mid-1990s. Originally built in the late 1800s, the three-floor harborside cottage had been renovated in the ‘80s. Since that decade was not revered for its architectural or design aesthetics and thirty years have passed by, the place needed a facelift. To help them, the couple contacted Stephen Magliocco, a Boston-based architect who shared their love and knowledge of Provincetown and had designed their primary home in Newton. “The house is one of the more historic houses in the area,” says Magliocco, who was trained in modern architecture but who has worked on many historic renovations, “but the previous owners had created a more ’80s contemporary look. It was really a hodgepodge.” The house needed to be edited, updated, and made more accessible inside and more traditional outside.
“Stephen knew we wanted something contemporary inside but something that fit with Cape Cod,” says Lopez, “We didn’t want it to be like our house in Newton. We wanted it to be relaxed and have a ‘beachy’ feeling.”
“It all started with the staircase,” Magliocco says. “The risers of the old staircase were all off.” The previous owners had gotten the town’s okay on the home’s three-story height, but the access to the other floors proved disorienting—the staircase’s risers were not uniform. Now they are all the same size and cut from bamboo, a light yet durable wood now found throughout the home. Through the new skylights, sunshine streams over the stairs and through the tempered glass balustrades.
Key to the renovation was the redesign of the kitchen. “Before it was broken up and congested,” Magliocco says. “It was more like a rabbit warren.” Walls were removed to open up the space, which now looks out across the living area to the water view beyond. Light from the kitchen skylight plays with the colorful glass fish poised on newly added open glass shelving. While the sink, Corian counters, and wood island top—chosen to add warmth and texture—are custom-made, Magliocco is particularly pleased to point out that the simple, sleek white cabinets are from Ikea. “We mixed customized and off the rack cabinets. They have a modern look, go well in the spaces, and are sturdy and well-built.”
Though the view outside constantly draws attention to it, many of the interior elements arrest the visitor as well. There is the tile floor in the entryway and front hall that mimics the look of a sisal carpet. There is the tile in the powder room that looks like scattered pebbles and shells and the opalescent tile that like mermaids’ tears flow all over the master bath. Then there is the elevator. It’s a fair bet to say that elevators are uncommon in Provincetown, but a customized elevator with an interior clad in maple and meant to display art, and wrapped in shingles outside to look like an enclosed chimney, is for sure a rarity.
“Before the roof deck was almost inaccessible,” says Magliocco, pointing out that the original access was via a narrow, twisting staircase in the master bedroom. “Now with the elevator, it is easy to get up to the deck, and it is easier to get things up to every floor.” Standing on the roof deck, made of composite materials—better to withstand the variable and often punishing coastal weather—Maria and her husband can look over to the towering Pilgrim Monument. The view of the monument, of Long Point at the Cape’s tip, and of the sea beyond is largely unimpeded from the deck, thanks to the Plexiglas balustrades, a design that echoes the interior railings. The inside of the deck’s knee walls are shingled, as is the cottage’s exterior, a more appropriate choice and decided improvement over the dark clapboards that covered the house prior to the renovation. In fact, Magliocco redesigned the fenestration of the home, giving it what he calls “a major exterior facelift.”
Steps away from the home, Provincetown bustles with summer activity—a film festival is starting, throngs of tourists stroll the gallery—and shop-lined streets, and the smell of seafood is everywhere in the air. The gallery scene is one of Maria’s favorite aspects of town; when she is not working on her memoir in her window-lined second floor office or enjoying the company of sons and grandchildren (accommodated by two guest bedrooms also on the second floor), she can be found shopping for art. She frequently patronizes places like the Berta Walker Gallery and the Schoolhouse Gallery, looking to add to her collection of local works by such artists as Tabitha Vevers or the late Michael Mazur.
Having spent the early part of her youth in Cuba, leaving the country when she was eight just after the Bay of Pigs invasion, Maria gravitates toward art that is always colorful and often whimsical. Maria first visited Provincetown when she was in college, and she loves its vibrancy: “It has a strong community of people, and it is active,” she says, adding that she agrees with writer Norman Mailer’s assessment of it. The long-time resident once said, “Provincetown is the freest place in America.”
When she is in “chill” mode, Maria loves nothing better than to sit in her zebra print chair, surrounded by three walls of windows unimpeded by muntins or grills, or out on the awning-covered first-floor deck, watching as the high tide rises up to the house and marveling at the changes in the light for which Provincetown is famous. The scene calls for no judgments, just amazement.
