When Jim Burton began designing a weekend home for Burton and Yardly Gray, he took a cue from the direction they’d be traveling to reach the house from their primary home in Washington, D.C. The getaway would be an hour and a half south, and a world apart from the city. Its site, overlooking a 275-acre parcel of land along the Rapidan River, immerses the Grays and their three children in a landscape of woods and fields.
The house needed to nurture a connection to the outdoors and to function well in the local climate. “In the South, you spread out for light and ventilation,” says Burton. He wanted the house to take advantage of the panoramic views from its hillside, without dominating, as though it were a castle. “How do you nestle a design into the hill?” was a key question.
The eventual answer was to splay out laterally, with the master and guest suites located in opposite wings, and to berm the bedrooms into the slope. Meanwhile, the two-story center of the house contains the public spaces, and opens a tall, transparent face toward the best of the views.
“You break the massing down so it doesn’t feel too big on the land,” says Burton, “and you get more natural light.”
It’s a sizable house, but it’s deceptively low-profile, especially from the rear, where one stands uphill and looks down past the house to the view. Installing living roofs on the two bedroom wings made them visually blend in with the ground.
In this spot, just behind the house, stands a storied white oak—a wide shade tree with a massive trunk. The family had established it as a special spot long before construction on the house began; Burton’s brother had even gotten married there. “The house feels smaller from up there,” he says. “It’s not ruining the view from that tree.”
New angles
One thing that’s clear from the vantage point under the oak is that not-exactly-90-degree angles abound throughout the structure. Rooflines pitch slightly downward; an overhang widens from one end to another; the cut-flagstone chimney leans away from the house as though tucking its chin.
And, though they are in part inspired by those at Monticello, the long lateral wings of the house do not extend straight along the axis of the central volume. Instead they bend backward—one very subtly at its extremity, the other more noticeably. “We bent the bermed wing to the south, which welcomes people to the entrance,” says Burton. Pushing the south wing back into the hill lets in more daylight, creates room for the monumental chimney and funnels foot traffic from the parking area toward the oversized cedar-clad main door.
The unconventional angles also prevent clear sightlines between the guest and master suites, allowing for more privacy.
Burton worked to make the house efficient through simple, passive-solar principles: protecting the interior from daylight in summer, while inviting the sun to soak concrete floors and walls in winter. The main public spaces face west, and the roof overhang is calculated to exclude
summer afternoon sun. During the hours when the sun does enter the windows directly, sliding wall sections form a screen that can shade the kitchen.
Double-height ceilings allow heat to rise out of the living space on hot days, but in winter, radiant floor heat keeps the warmth grounded in objects and people.
A turn on tradition
Across the bucolic landscape that fills these big windows are vernacular, rural structures. “You see standing-seam roofs, gray siding and concrete,” says Burton. In homage to the neighborhood, “We used very traditional, common materials in different ways.”
One example: Board-form concrete walls were poured so they retain the texture and rhythm of lumber. In this they echo the wood-clad portions of the house’s walls—cedar on the exterior, and horizontal fir inside.
Concrete, cedar and flagstone appear on both sides of the tall glass walls, visually tying inside and outside together. Concrete and fir also dominate the bathrooms. “We were very subtractive in the palettes,” says Burton. Lime-green upholstered dining chairs provide one of the few moments of non-neutral color—though they, too, connect irrevocably to the green surroundings outside.
The Grays wanted an ultra-minimal kitchen, and white Glassos countertops, white Snaidero cabinets and white resin walls provide the cool, clean look they sought. On the sculptural central island, white cabinetry cantilevers slightly from a concrete base.
Many appliances are hidden around the corner in the butler’s pantry, along with laundry, storage and access to the outdoor grill. Fir doors can close off these functional areas to eliminate clutter, or open to provide multiple paths of access.
The family has been using the house for about a year—sledding down to the river in winter, tubing and fly fishing in summer. Having waited years to build after buying this property in 2006, Burton Gray says they are glad they took the time to find Carter + Burton Architecture. “Right from the beginning, the first set of preliminary ideas, we were really excited,” says Burton Gray. “It felt like things worked.”
THE BREAKDOWN
River House
5,416 square feet
Structural system: Steel, concrete and wood framing, including slab on grade with partial mechanical basement
Exterior material: Concrete and cedar siding
Interior finishes: Concrete, fir, cedar, tile and resin panels
Roof materials: Galvalume standing seam and living roof system
Window system: Custom cedar
Mechanical systems: Geothermal and radiant heat