Successful merger After decades apart, Bangor couple reunites, finds common ground in decor

The more things change, the more they stay the same – just ask the Leonards.

In the early 1960s, on their first day of college at the University of Maine, Ted Leonard and Sandra Blake sat next to each other in English class. Though they were fond of each other, they had different priorities. Sandra wanted to get married – that’s what everyone did in those days, she says – and Ted wanted to be a lawyer. So after graduation, they went their separate ways.

Fresh out of law school, Ted arrived in town for his first day at Eaton Peabody without a place to spend the night, let alone live. That day, he ran into a friend who knew of a farmhouse for rent on Kenduskeag Avenue. The year was 1969.

“I came here that night and I’ve been here ever since,” he said over tea in the dining room of his home, which he bought outright in 1974.

In time, Ted became a partner at the Bangor law firm and Sandra married a military officer. He put down roots while she traveled the world. When she returned to the area in 1992, Sandra and Ted rekindled their old flame and she moved into the farmhouse two years later. Since then, they’ve meshed their decorating styles to turn it into a home.

“We had the good luck of having a second chance,” Sandra Blake Leonard said, smiling. “I came late to the game, but thankfully, it was more or less a blank canvas.”

The merging of two decorating styles at any phase of life is difficult, but because the Leonards had several decades to hone their own tastes, it could’ve been a disaster. Instead, it was a revelation.

Ted’s taste tends toward the Shaker while Sandra “never met a tabletop I didn’t want to load up with things,” but they’ve found common ground somewhere in between. The most striking example of this is a first-floor renovation that improved the floor plan dramatically. Several years ago, they knocked out a wall between the living room and dining room and unified the two rooms by staining the wooden floorboards in a checkerboard pattern.

For Ted, who has a fascination with structure and formal elements, the change added character to the home’s vernacular.

“Because the house isn’t architecturally significant or even interesting, I thought it’d add a lot of interest, almost architecture, to do this floor,” he said.

Sandra’s interest lies more with pattern and color, and she has decorated with that in mind. Fresh flowers adorn the tabletops and her collection of blue and white china is on display in a glass-fronted cabinet near the dining room table. Muted green walls in both rooms are the perfect backdrop for the couple’s collection of mostly regional artwork.

In their time together, they have amassed a deeply personal collection of paintings, photographs and prints, which they rotate among their home, their condominium at Sugarloaf and their offices downtown. They are so passionate about the visual arts that the Leonards successfully led the fundraising campaign to move the University of Maine Museum of Art from Carnegie Hall in Orono to Norumbega Hall in Bangor.

The museum’s director, Wally Mason, was there when the couple decided to buy the Evelyn Hofer photograph on display in their dining room.

“They take each of these purchases pretty seriously,” Mason said. “They might think about its placement before they buy it, but they oftentimes just find a home for it because they have to have it. Not only is it the art they pick, but how do you choose to display it? They have astute taste and a real sensitivity to the images they choose.”

A cluster of small works – including two tiny landscapes by June Grey – is on view in the kitchen, where the walls are covered in a rich blue toile pattern. It gives the small room a gracious feel. So, too, do the warm crimson walls in the library, which opens on to a spacious deck.

“When you think about how a house reflects the people who live there, Ted and Sandra’s house is a perfect fit,” said Mason, a longtime friend whose family has spent many holidays with the couple. “Sandra’s enormously warm and gracious and that’s exactly what the house feels like.”

As a true architecture buff, Ted says he’s always been a little shy about the house. It’s small by today’s McMansion standards and certainly humble in its design. But in several years, he and Sandra plan to do a major renovation to make their home more conducive to entertaining and to open it up to 3 acres of gardens, which they carved out of an overgrown hillside.

The addition will allow Ted to take the whole house up a few notches, architecturally, which he has wanted to do for years. It will also give the couple a place to showcase their design synergy – though Ted says his Shaker side may really shine through.

“You just have to keep a sense of humor, as with most things, and then you discover a new style identity,” Sandra said. “A joining of our tastes – that’s rather fun to think about, what kind of new identity you can develop rather than catering to your own taste.”

“It’s never been a competition,” Ted added. “I don’t drive the decorating but I have much more than a passing interest. It’s collaborative.”

The Leonard House

Owners: Ted and Sandra Leonard

Where: Kenduskeag Avenue, Bangor

Built: Late 1800s

Interesting features: Checkerboardstained floor in living-dining room; spacious library overlooking 3 acres of gardens.