Cape-Cod-HOME

Coastal Calm

Cape Cod Home  / Spring 2026 /

Writer: Leslie Hatton / Photographer: Michael Lucas 

 

Coastal Calm

Cape-Cod-HOME

Cape Cod Home  / Spring 2026 /

Writer: Leslie Hatton / Photographer: Michael Lucas 


This dreamy Nantucket home is luminous and airy, designed with the spirit of imagination and a quiet playfulness.

There is a moment when flying in a plane when you glance outside the window and see the clouds—a moment when you feel suspended in mid-air amidst the fluffy, floating wisps—a sensation that for an instant feels surreal and freeing. It’s this feeling that interior designer Melanie Gowen felt reflected in the Nantucket home that sits slightly elevated and invites beautiful sunset views, transporting you from the every day. She named the home SeaCloud, a fitting tribute to its airy perch and the sense of calm it evokes.

SeaCloud feels less like a house and more like a mood—one that Gowen has infused into every corner with a painter’s eye and a subtle touch. Inspired equally by Nantucket’s coast and her own limitless imagination, Gowen created a palette that is bright and refined, but playful. The result is a home that doesn’t just reflect its surroundings, but becomes them, inviting you to step inside, take it all in, and discover how sophistication and creativity can live side by side. 

Gowen, the daughter of concert pianists/piano teachers, whose creative and artistic sense she obviously inherited, would take one family vacation every summer, usually to Mount Desert Island in Maine. It was from these vacations that a deep love and respect for the ocean, islands, and the sense of place they create was born. What began as an unplanned trip to Nantucket felt almost instantly like a home she hadn’t realized she’d been searching for. Though she studied interior design at Cornell and briefly detoured into the structured world of financial consulting, a chance encounter with an architect during...

Want to read this article and more?

Subscribe today to our Digital Edition to gain full access to this article plus every issue of LIFE or HOME for only $9.95.

Leslie Hatton

Leslie (Horne) Hatton enthusiastically joined Cape Cod Life in October of 2022. Educated in Mashpee and Falmouth, she graduated from Assumption College and received her Master of Education degree from Lesley College. A former teacher, she has taught middle school, preschool and most recently, fifth grade. She and her husband Tom have three children: Aidan, Colin, and Erin. Their newest family member is Millie, an outgoing, outrageously happy chocolate lab. She loves to talk about all of them so better not ask. One neat tidbit about Leslie is that she is the author of the locally best-selling children’s book Cape Cod ABCs, with over 10K books sold on Cape Cod, the Islands and across Massachusetts. Happiest in the summer with a little sun on her face, she loves being with friends and her family, laughing, drinking and eating all over beautiful Cape Cod.