About Haystack

Located on Stinson Neck in Deer Isle, Maine, the award-winning campus, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in February 2006.

Built on a cliff overlooking Jericho Bay in the Atlantic Ocean, Haystack’s campus has served as a muse to many who have come here to create. The school is located on forty quiet, wooded acres in the small island community of Deer Isle. The campus was designed in 1960 by noted architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, and in 1994 was awarded the American Institute of Architects Twenty-Five Year Award, one of only forty buildings in the United States to receive this distinction. In 2006 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The dramatic central stairway, cascading down to the swirling waters below, grabs your attention first. It is flanked on either side by weathered cedar-shingled studios, a spacious dining hall, and the student and faculty cabins. Standing at the top, one can view the white and pink granite shores along Merchants Row, an archipelago of 30 or 40 islands peppering the horizon. The 100-seat Gateway Auditorium is a central gathering place for lectures, performances and end-of-session auctions. Haystack’s library, rebuilt in 1997, holds over 1000 titles, including fine craft books, exhibition catalogs, art journals and scholarly monographs. Also on site is a well-equipped store that provides artists’ supplies and quality books.

Between June and August, please consider joining us for a Wednesday tour of the Haystack campus if you are in the area. See more photos of Haystack's campus in our Photo Gallery.

“Haystack is like a marina that floats over land instead of water, a village of shingled pavilions – workshops and dormitory cabins – all lifted up a couple of feet on posts and connected by a network of decks and walkways… The building was instantly accepted as a classic and became a major influence on the American architecture of the 1960’s.”

 

~ Robert Campbell, The Boston Globe