BAR HARBOR – The architect behind some of Mount Desert Island’s most distinctive structures retires this month, after nearly 40 years behind the drawing board.

Roc Caivano, who has worked side-by-side with his wife Helen and a small staff for the past two decades out of the Old Police Station building, said that working within the environs of Bar Harbor and the surrounding towns has been a great gift to him.

“It’s been very, very interesting and humbling and educational and addictive to live here and do this for a living,” Mr. Caivano said. “This is just a really unusual, special place in the handmade building environment.”

Among projects designed by Mr. Caivano and his firm are the Somesville Bridge, the Wendell Gilley Museum in Southwest Harbor, and a number of buildings in Acadia National Park, including structures on the campus of the Hulls Cove visitor center and the fee stations on the Park Loop Road. More recently, Mr. Caivano’s firm took on the transformation of the old naval base on the Schoodic Peninsula and helped to create a new interpretive center for the park.

“A lot of the people I’ve worked for say they just want something that feels graceful,” he said. “But to find what’s special about the people and the land and the place, and keep that going, that is the job of the designer. And this is a very special place.

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