Dennis Fenton, a Lighting Designer in Rockland, Maine was having no luck with the black and white advertisements he had been running to promote his company, "17-90 Lighting". The company is located at the intersection of two highways known to locals as 17-90. Frustrated by the lack of response, he decided to run a color ad.

"We went color, and from that color advertisement we probably had calls on that for a good 3-4 months," Fenton said. "People would walk in with the ad in hand and say, 'I want that.'"

Those color advertisements payed great dividends when a property owner from the greater Portland, Maine area near Falmouth wanted some lighting done on his 1/2 acre of property as a birthday present for his wife.

Falmouth is located seven miles north of Portland on the coast of Maine. It has a population of approximately 9,500 people, and covers nearly 32 square miles from the coastline to rural areas further inland.

Falmouth was first settled in the 1600's and received its first recognition as a Town in 1658. It received its name in honor of a small village at the mouth of the Fal River in Cornwall, England, from which some of the earliest settlers came. The original boundaries of the town extended all the way from the Spurwink River in Scarborough up the coast to a point opposite Clapboard Island. This covered most of what is now Westbrook, Cape Elizabeth, South Portland, Portland and Falmouth. Cape Elizabeth and South Portland broke away in 1765, Portland in 1785, and Westbrook in 1814, leaving Falmouth the size it is today.

Path lights are used to light the planter and the top of the fence surrounding the pool area. The pool is lit with fiber optics while well lights are used throughout the rest of the backyard. Transformers are placed in inconspicuous places and all the wiring is underground as not to detract from the beauty of the light and the surrounding area.

In 1718 the Town was incorporated under the laws of the State of Massachusetts. In 1786 it was recognized as the 46th Town as part of the newly established State of Maine.

The Town is a part of the County of Cumberland, which was incorporated in 1760 and was named after William, Duke of Cumberland, son of George II. The county is comprised of three cities and 24 towns, with the city of Portland as the county seat.

This quaint New England town was the perfect place to do some special low voltage residential lighting.

After visiting with the client for a day in order to find out how they planned on using the backyard, and what elements of the yard were special to them, Fenton went to work.

"I like to find out what the clients interests are as far as what they have in the yard that might be special to them," he said. "Maybe it's something one of the children might have given them, or a hand-me-down out in the garden that is a focus piece.

"That gives an added touch to how they are using the property and how it will accent the light at night."

Different light levels were used in the sitting area, to give the area a flow. In order to get the wiring underground a pickax was used to break away the tough ocean clay that the house sits on. Because the grass was newly seeded the crew was unable to use a trencher.

Overall, 175 fixtures were used on this job and roughly 8,000 feet of wire was used throughout the front and back yard. It took a team of four from 17-90 Lighting seven days to install the fixtures, install the wires and to make final adjustments at night. Fenton hand sketched the entire design layout for the project. He said that he used to offer the hand sketches as a free service to his clients, but because of the amount of time that it took to do it right, he can no longer do that.

"Sixteen years ago I used to hand sketch everything and I didn't charge for that service," he said. "I found that it was taking 3-4 days for a decent hand sketch with me eyeing it. Now I have an estimated figure-per-fixture so I can go out and study the house for a day and then come up with a fixture count and give the client a price. If they want a design layout that is extra."

During his visits, Fenton found that the property owners liked fishing, and they have a dock that they tested their angling skills from as well as entertained guests on. The 200-foot long dock has close to a dozen lamps under the hand rails that lead out to the end of the dock where there is a 50 watt floodlamp. There are also two transformers, one at the steps of the dock and one at the end of the dock where a utility box is located. The load usage for the dock and stairs is 283 watts.

Walking on the dock, back towards the stairs, is a large oaktree. Fenton sat in the house at night and looked at the setting before him and figured out how to make the most out of lighting the tree.

"We put flood lights up in the crotch of the tree to underlight the cavity," he said. "When people are sitting in the house they can see that the whole tree is lit, even the under cavity is lit."

Behind the oaktree is an arched window that is back lit with a 12-volt mini lamp around the arch of the window. The lamp is on a pre-set dimmer so that the light level around the window can be brought down even with the landscape lighting outside.

"That balances things and allows you to see out through the window," Fenton said. "You don't have a light level where it is creating a mirror affect."

On the postlights in front of the arch are three candelabra baselamps that were disconnected. In the cavity of the postlight, Fenton put in another lamp that throws light down onto the area.

Fenton explained that if those candleabra lights were lit, a person could not see past the postlights because there would be a lot of ambient light in that area, causing loss of depth perception and washing the scenery out. To cut down on the glare going up the stairway, Fenton installed honeycomb filters into the fixtures so when walking up the stairs there are "not any glare factors coming back into your eyes so everything is nice and subtle through there," he said.

The pool area of the backyard, a main area of interest at any home, is lighted with path lights that are placed in a planter that surrounds one side of the pool. The path lights and lights atop the fence draw attention to the various plant species that inhabit the planter. The pool itself is lit with fiber optics while assorted well lights spring up throughout the rest of the backyard.

The brick sitting area was an area that the homeowners wanted as a place for family and friends to gather to enjoy a nice spring or summer Maine evening. In this sitting area Fenton wanted the area lit at different levels.

"If you are in the sitting area, you will notice that the birch tree is lit at one level with a lamp called a 44-14 or a 44-06 which is a low level lamp light," Fenton said. "As you look farther back we upped the lamp to the next wattage, so it would cover the tree as we went further back so the sitting area would have a flow going out."

All of the wiring in the backyard was underground, and required some crafty maneuvering in parts.

To get underneath the patio to the stair landing, Fenton went around and underneath the steps of the dock and came back up. He used a waterjet to go up underneath the walkway.

Before all of that could be completed the 17-90 crew had to figure out how to get the wiring through the ocean clay that the house sits on. A pickax was used to break away the clay. Fenton had access to a trencher but the grass in the backyard was newly seeded so they had to do it all by hand. Also, the trencher that Fenton had only went down 18 inches, and because of the wiring being used, they needed to go deeper.

"With the 110 volt, our code calls for 24 inches down," Fenton said. "Where with 12 volt you can go from 0-6 inches and then we put it all in conduit."

For switches, Fenton used all powerline carriers that enables the homeowner to turn on the system from inside their car if they choose. The circle drive at the front of the house has a photo eye and time clock system that automatically goes on and off that the homeowner can override with a button system from inside the house.

Fenton said that controlling the system was a real challenge because there wasn't much 110 volt to place transformers outside and he had to find inconspicuous places to hide the transformers.

"Underneath the dock area there is four transformers and on each end of the enbankment," he said. "We put the ones on the enbankment way down underneath and we had a landscaper come in and put bushes around it so they would grow and cover it up."

One important thing in any lighting design is hiding the fixtures and control boxes that make the system work. Most of the fixtures at this residence are covered up with growth.

Fenton said that about 80 percent of the jobs they do have service contracts. Those clients that have a contract with 17-90 get bushes cut back that surround fixtures in the spring and fall and lamps cleaned out, providing a brighter illumination at night.

When this project was complete and the final alterations made to the positioning of lights, Fenton found that this gift of light was one of the more rewarding projects that he had worked on.

"This was a birthday gift for the homeowners wife," he said. "We walked into the house and she was in tears. It makes you feel good." LASN