Our goal in working with the Park Service was to return the Blue Duck to its original floor plan and purpose as a chandlery, or ship's store. Shown here before restoration, at 160+ years old, with windows and doors that had been boarded up for decades.

We demolished a 20th century apartment, removing interior walls and a bathroom.

On-site work was led by architect Hunter Hughes - who as a kid was a student with Islesford Boatworks - along with the skills and labor of some of our long-time boatbuilders. The tongue and groove pine cladding from the interior walls was reused to line the stairway and build out a utility closet upstairs.

The space after restoration. We reinforced the second story with a new pair of beams sourced from local spruce and milled on the island with an Alaskan chainsaw mill. 

New built-in pine workbenches for the boat-building program were designed in response to the original ship's store cabinetry (which you see a bit of here, in green, far left).

The doors from the demolished apartment were reused upstairs to create workbenches and cabinets. We designed our Beam Pendant, shown here, while the renovation of the Blue Duck was underway. Our take on the classic typology of shop lamps, Beam also draws references from classic boat forms, so it’s naturally at home in this historic building now being used as a wooden boat building shop.

A sink from the old apartment was repurposed as a shop sink, shown here looking out to the harbor with one of our Ada Sconces.

Today, Islesford Boatworks runs year-round programming in the Blue Duck, from summer boat building to winter master classes, morning community coffee sessions, Friday afternoon Boards & Chords jam sessions, and more, under the leadership of our executive director Anthony Archino.

Drawings from an Historic American Buildings Survey completed sometime after 1933 show the island (left) and the Blue Duck's location on the Islesford waterfront (right). via Library of Congress