FALMOUTH — Jenn Davies knew The Residences at Falmouth Square didn’t have the right ring to it and had been racking her brain to come up with a different name for her colleagues’ new luxury condo development on Route 1 — something simple, like The Ritz, but related to Maine.

“I just personally kept coming back to the idea of something not being too wordy, something identifiable to people,” said Davies, of Compass Commercial Brokers, whose president, Steve Baumann, is the project’s developer.

One night after work, she was grabbing dinner with Baumann and investor Jonathan Cohen at Sicilian Table, in the same plaza as the building, when it came to her.

“I was like, ‘Hey, you guys, what if we call it The Wyeth?'” she said.

Both fans of the family of famous artists that’s spent summers on the Midcoast for more than a century, they loved the idea.

“It immediately stuck,” said Baumann, who is particularly fond of patriarch N.C. Wyeth, best known for illustrating books like “Treasure Island” and “Robinson Crusoe.”

 

So, what did the developer hope the name would convey to potential buyers of the condos, which went on the market for $569,000 to upwards of $1 million?

“We wanted this building to feel like it was elevated and curated when we designed it,” said Baumann, pointing out the coffered ceiling and travertine marble fireplace in the common area, and felt the name fit those qualities, even if the more modern furnishings and feel don’t exactly match the artists’ aesthetic.

WHAT’S IN A NAME

While trying to come up with a name, Davies said she thought about Portland apartment buildings The Casco and The Hiawatha and how they reflected something unique about Maine.

Both are projects of Redfern Properties whose managing partner, Jonathan Culley, said their buildings’ names “all have meaning. They are all intentional, and, of course, we want them to sound like nice places to live.”

The Casco, their tallest building, was meant to reflect its commanding views of Casco Bay (with its rooms named after Maine islands), while The Hiawatha, overlooking the statue of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Longfellow Square, borrows its name from the warrior in his poem “The Song of Hiawatha.” Nightingale, in the redeveloped former Mercy Hospital campus on Portland’s West End, is named for nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale and meant as a tribute the nurses who once worked there.

Although Redfern usually comes up with the names “right before we put up the for-lease sign,” Culley said, the developer was more proactive with Tavata, workforce apartments planned for inner Washington Avenue. A Finnish word meaning “to come together,” the name reflects the building’s Scandinavian-inspired design, emphasis on common spaces and intention to attract graduate students coming to the nearby Roux Institute from all over the world.

“We try to do something that’s authentic and speaks to us and speaks to the building,” Culley said.

The team behind the redevelopment of Scarborough’s former horse-racing facility into The Downs has had to come up with names not only for its buildings but for whole neighborhoods within the mixed-use community of housing, businesses and shops.

Dan Bacon, development director for The Downs, said the site is divided into districts with different themes, and its buildings and streets are named accordingly.

In the Innovation District, an industrial park that’s home to Costco, an audio-visual company and incubator spaces, street names include Dynamic, Immersion and Inspiration.

The to-be-built Town Center will use traditional names like Market, Cross and Middle streets — like you can find in the Old Port.

The residential areas have taken inspiration from a former grist mill nearby and the site’s harness racing history. There are the Hayloft apartments and Frontrunner condos.

Every name gets researched, vetted by the team and run by real estate agents.

“We try to select names that sort of stand the test of time, that are fun and playful,” Bacon said.

Dave Miles, president of Milesbrand, an award-winning branding and marketing firm based in Colorado that’s named housing communities nationwide, said a good name is easy to say, easy to spell and tells a story.

He said he had a positive response to The Wyeth the moment he heard it.

“It’s very memorable,” said Miles, adding that Andrew Wyeth is one of his favorite artists and that the name conveys style and prestige.

As flattering as that might be, how do the Wyeths feel about their family name being used as a brand?

Jamie Wyeth, the son of Andrew and last living artist in the line, didn’t respond to a request for an interview sent through his assistant. His niece, Victoria Wyeth, who gives lectures on her family’s art, said she was too busy between business trips to discuss it, though Baumann said she had reached out with an offer to come to the building and give a talk.

As to whether he felt like that constituted having the family’s blessing, Baumann shrugged at the notion that he needed it: There are already other business ventures that use the Wyeth name, including an apartment complex in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a pharmaceutical company founded in Pennsylvania, the family’s other home state.

Miles considers the Wyeth name to be part of the public domain. If the family cared enough about how it was used, he said, they could trademark it, like Picasso and Einstein have been.

Will Coleman, director of the Andrew & Betsy Wyeth Study Center at the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, said he’s seen a “larger pattern” of reference to the Wyeths in pop culture and has heard about people getting tattoos and naming their children in homage to the family and their work.

“It’s a fascinating story of people who have come to identify deeply with this American creative dynasty,” he said.

He believes the name evokes nostalgia, a sense of quality and “the good, old ways” but couldn’t speak to what the family might think about that.

“I can only imagine what it feels like for your name to become a valuable brand,” he said.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The art hanging in the building includes photos of sailboats and paintings on loan from the nearby Moss Galleries.

“We can’t have a real Wyeth hanging in here,” said Baumann.

But there are other references to the family. A common area for residents has books about the Wyeths and their work prominently displayed on tables and shelves. A couple small prints of N.C. Wyeth illustrations stand next to a book of postcards of his work on a console table in one of the three model units, each with a different decor theme, from Bauhaus to bachelor pad (complete with a mug shot of a young Frank Sinatra on the wall).

“We want to target everyone,” said Baumann, who himself plans to relocate there with his wife from their single-family home in Falmouth now that their kids are grown.

As of early February, less than two months after the building got its certificate of occupancy, 11 of 43 units had been sold and three more were under contract.

The buyers range in age from their 20s to their 90s, Baumann said, the vast majority coming from within Greater Portland. About half are downsizing, a couple are relocating from downtown and there are even first-time home buyers.

Baumann said The Wyeth offers “an alternative to what’s available” — single-level living away from traffic congestion but still within walking distance of shopping and dining, like new locations of fast-casual Mediterranean spot Jaffa and, coming soon, coffee shop Cafe Luna and Japanese restaurant Sapporo.

It’s also right next to a strip mall — though its website, which markets the condos as “coastal living” and features images of a sailboat and a dock, seems to imply that it’s closer to the ocean than an Ocean State Job Lot. But Baumann doesn’t see that as disingenuous.

“We are a coastal town,” he said. A coastal town in the same state that the Wyeths have made their home. In other words, close enough.

Copy the Story Link