Sarajo | Portland, Maine

After seventeen years on Greene Street in SoHo, the Owner of SARAJO, a collector of antique textiles, costumes from around the world, Anglo-Indian and Islamic furniture and tribal art, decided to move his business out of New York City. After visiting many cities in the US and Europe, he chose Portland, Maine.

Moving the gallery presented an opportunity to create the spaces he had always wanted: a gallery, textiles storage, office, library, and photography studio. The addition of a loft, placed in the center of the gallery, accommodates the office and library above, divides the photography studio from the gallery on the street level, and creates an intimate space below for textiles with lower light levels. A spinnaker cloth curtain on recessed hospital track encloses a dressing room. It can be completely pulled out of the way to add to the transparent quality of the open stair, glass railings and loft that hugs the west wall, leaving the iron 17 foot-tall Corinthian columns standing free.