of Atlantic fog and weathered shingle. In Boothbay Harbor, where clapboard and cedar have silvered under decades of salt air, a panel of Black Limba introduces a startling vitality—those golden brown heartwood tones and dark, vein-like streaks reading almost like navigational charts against the muted palette of a Maine coastal interior. The wood does something remarkable here that it could never do in Boise: it becomes the warmest surface in the room without competing against sunlight, because in harbor towns the light itself arrives diffused, pearlescent, and every grey-black streak in the Limba absorbs that coolness while the surrounding golden field pushes back with an almost lantern-like glow. As the veneer ages and its color deepens, it begins to mirror the tonal range of the harbor itself at dusk—and it is precisely this capacity for dialogue with local light that makes Black Limba so compelling as it moves down the coast toward Boston, where the architecture shifts from intimate waterfront cottages to
