House of Lights

The House of Lights is a family-owned lighting and design showroom in Scarborough Maine. Owned by the Holmes family for over 50 years, The House of Lights was entering its 25th year in its present location at the Roundwood Business Park. With an eye toward the future and an evolving retail market, the owners wanted to expand the existing showroom and create a theater-like experience for selling lighting fixtures.

The previous showroom had low ceilings that didn’t take advantage of the expansive area above the ceiling, creating a crowded showroom, difficult for viewing and selection of fixtures.  Lighting fixtures were grouped together by use, not as families of fixtures.  Key elements of the renovation included the following: Raise the ceiling to allow pendant fixtures to be viewed optimally, expand into an underutilized warehouse area to provide additional space for the creation of lighting vignettes, open the first floor to the second to create more opportunities for viewing fixtures at different angles and encourage customer movement throughout the showroom.

With the ceiling raised and openings to the mezzanine created in the warehouse expansion, the use of “clouds” to suspend light fixtures allowed for varied height opportunities, increasing the flexibility of the new space.  Light fixtures, once clustered according to use, are now displayed as families of fixtures in vignettes designed to mimic the reality of a customer’s home.  Bath fixtures are displayed over vanities. A functional kitchen allows for multiple types of lighting to be featured. A garden area, with an operable fountain showcases the range of lighting a customer can utilize in their own backyard oasis.  A conference room “doubles” as a dining room and an operable fireplace provides the perfect environment to show niche lighting.

Within the main showroom, each sales associate was tasked with designing a vignette that explained who they were as a lighting designer and what inspired them.  This opportunity created even more opportunities to display lighting families and styles.

A “lighting lab” to showcase different light types and the effect on a room always existed; however, this renovation provided the opportunity to turn the entire facility into a light lab with all displays programmed into a control system that easily transforms the vignettes with multiple options for lighting configurations.

This expansion and renovation more than doubled the retail square footage to just over 9,000 square feet, making The House of Lights the largest lighting showroom in Northern New England.