Rather than dreaming up a theme for their wedding, Shannon and Jono wanted to focus on the future. They love to entertain, so the guiding principle when planning their wedding became, “Is this an item I would have in my home?” Thus, they chose wedding colors already in their home décor, and flowers they could grow in their backyard. And the plan worked!
“Since our wedding, we have incorporated our customized décor items—like monogrammed pillows and napkins—into our home,” Shannon says. “They fit seamlessly into its design and it’s fun to have a daily reminder of our wedding.”
Photo: Jen Fariello
Their big day, at Montalto, was a grand affair—with abundant floral arrangements, a custom dance floor, and a weekend full of festivities. And while the pandemic had forced a few changes (pivoting from a church to the Montalto mountaintop), Shannon says, in the end, they didn’t make a single concession.
As she puts it, “Our plan B far surpassed our plan A.”
Buzz, buzz
Guests were greeted after dinner with trays of espresso martinis to get the party started. Each one was topped with a cookie in the shape of the couple’s dog, TJ.
Photo: Jen Fariello
Two slices
For a late-night snack, the couple served personal Detroit pizzas (a nod to their impending move to the Motor City) and cheesy bread from The College Inn (a favorite from their UVA days). “I’ve been told they decided to stay open for an extra night when they received the large order for our wedding,” Shannon says.
Isn’t it romantic?
The floral installation above the dance floor was a décor highlight for the bride, who says the combination of stems dripping from the ceiling and twinkle lights nestled in the flowers created the most magical dance floor experience.
Photo: Jen Fariello
Order up
The couple wanted the dinner portion to have a restaurant vibe. Rather than choosing an entrée ahead of time, guests were presented with a menu of three options, prepared to order. Likewise, the seating reflected a restaurant experience, with banquettes and intimate four- and six-tops.
How lucky
Little did the couple know, when they met at a St. Patrick’s Day party in 2017, that they’d grown up 10 minutes apart and had both attended UVA. “It felt a little like fate when we finally met,” Shannon says, “and we quickly fell in love.”
Photo: Jen Fariello
THE DETAILS
Event planner: Just A Little Ditty/Marilyn Speight Officiant: Reverend Miles Smith Catering: Occasions Caterers Flowers: Southern Blooms Cake: Maliha Creations Music: Simply Irresistible and Melodious Strings Bride’s attire: Monique Lhuillier Shoes: Manolo Blahnik Groom’s attire: Beecroft & Bull Rings: G. Jezarian Makeup: Rouge 9 Hair: Avenue 42 Videographer: Shaking Hands Productions Stylist: The Stylish Bride Stationery: Emily Baird Design
While Lauren is a big fan of Jane Austen and was craving a wedding with a 17th-century Britain aesthetic, Reilly wanted a more whimsical feel. But they both knew that, whatever they came up with, the central theme had to be romance. They hired a harpist to play during the ceremony, and incorporated wax seals throughout the décor. They utilized free-flowing greenery and twinkle lights to amp up the playful, intimate vibe, while personalized details—like Reilly’s Pink Penelope cocktail, named for their ragdoll cat, custom welcome boxes with a few of their favorite things, and the alstroemeria Lauren held in her bridal bouquet honoring her mother—achieved a sentimental mood.
Still, the couple’s favorite moments of their big day were the ones they stole for themselves. Reilly counts among her most treasured memories of the day their first look, when she and Lauren exchanged their vows with only one another. Later, they slipped away from the party and took a quiet moment on the veranda to drink in the night sky.
Photo: Kylie Martin
Bottle service
On their first date, in the fall of 2016, the couple made homemade pizza together. Lauren brought a bottle of Charlottesville wine.
Perfect place
Residents of Washington, D.C., Lauren and Reilly often escape the city on weekends to visit Charlottesville wineries. Pippin Hill checked all their wedding venue boxes, with catering included and a list of preferred vendors to make planning from afar much easier.
Photo: Kylie Martin
Italian getaway
The couple honeymooned in the Amalfi Coast of Italy. “It was absolutely gorgeous and such a fun time, from the boat day to the private cooking class,” Lauren says.
Photo: Kylie Martin
THE DETAILS
Event planner: Adam Donovan-Groves Officiant: Maria Minnick Catering: Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards Flowers: Nature Composed Cake: Cakes by Rachel Music: Trademark Band Harpist: Eve Watters Brides’ attire: Alpha dress from Vagabond Bridal (Lauren), Monique Lhuillier gown, Mandi Jackson Bridal veil (Reilly, ceremony), Alice + Olivia (Reilly, reception) Shoes: Sam Edelman (Lauren), Loeffler Randall and glitter Kate Spade Keds (Reilly) Rings: Brilliant Earth (Reilly), custom (Lauren) Bridal party attire: Azazie (matrons of honor), custom Sid Mashburn (bridesman), Jenny Yoo dresses from Bella Bridesmaids (Lauren’s maid of honor and bridesmaids) Hair and makeup: Lipstick and Chiffon
Roxanne and Brad had started planning an elaborate, multi-day Zoroastrian ceremony and reception in the Virgin Islands for January 2021. Then the pandemic hit. The couple pivoted, marrying in an intimate ceremony with their families at Bramblewood Farm in Keswick, where they were riding out COVID. In the meantime, they worked on plans for a do-over reception in 2022.
Photo: Meredith Coe
“I based the ceremony and party on a traditional Zoroastrian ceremony and reception,” Roxanne says. Women were invited to wear traditional Indian sarees and lehengas, for instance, and Roxanne added in a lot of subtle traditional details, like incorporating banana leaves (often used as plates in Zoroastrian receptions) in the décor.
Roxanne says her favorite part, though, was walking down the aisle with the couple’s 8-month-old daughter to join Brad for the union ceremony.
“Brad and I are holding hands and there is a cloth separating us,” Roxanne says. “Our family passed a string around us seven times to bind us. At the end of the seventh round, the union is complete and the sheet drops. The bride and groom are each holding rice and throw rice on each other when the sheet is dropped.”
Photo: Meredith Coe
On the menu
For their Indian/Persian-inspired menu, the couple chose to highlight BAM Chips from Roxanne’s own food company. Made with a superfood bean from India called black gram, the chips were served to guests during appetizers, and BAM rotini pasta was the first course.
Let there be light
During the ceremony, Brad and Roxanne lit a candle to signify their bond. Then, the candle was moved to a table so guests could light their own from the flame, “bonding us all together in the ceremony,” Roxanne says.
Photo: Meredith Coe
Party people
Roxanne and Brad met in New York City at a party for mutual friends who attended UVA. They dated three and a half years before their September 2020 marriage.
Photo: Meredith Coe
Color pop
The bride loves flowers, and chose bold, warm, and bright-colored ones, in addition to traditional red and white garlands for the ceremony.
Photo: Meredith Coe
THE DETAILS
Event planner: Taz Greer Officiant: Xerxes Antia Catering: Occasions Catering Flowers: Beehive Events Sweets: Occasions Catering Music: Peter Markush Bride’s attire: White Lehenga from Rahul’s Couture; after-dinner dress by Alon Livne Shoes: Emmy Groom’s attire: White tux from Alan David with Feta (traditional Zoroastrian ceremony hat) Rings: Peter Reines Jewelers Hair and makeup: Moxie Hair Lounge Videographer: Peter Roessler
Kelly was getting something to eat at the UVA food court one day when a stranger walked up to her.
“He said he’d seen me around and asked for my phone number,” she says. “We went on two dates, and then I decided I wasn’t interested.” But that didn’t deter Joshua. A year later, they saw each other at a coffee shop and he suggested they meet up to catch up. That was September 8, 2018. On September 8, 2021, he proposed.
Photo: Audra Jones Photography
The couple decided on The Market at Grelen after spending a day touring the venue (rather than hiking their trail, as they’d planned to do for Joshua’s birthday), and set to planning.
“We both wanted to highlight our faith during the ceremony and include people from every stage of our lives,” Kelly says. They took communion with their guests, and braided colored cords to symbolize Jesus at the center of their marriage. And about an hour before the ceremony, the couple had a “first touch.”
Photo: Audra Jones Photography
“We didn’t want to see each other, so we met up by the greenhouse and stood back to back,” Kelly says. “We talked and prayed together. As I’d been getting ready throughout the day, I kept thinking, ‘I just want to see Joshua.’ We only talked for a few minutes, but our first touch calmed my nerves immensely.”
All together now
The couple asked friends and family to contribute to the day in special ways. Kelly’s 89-year-old Grandma Lillie was the flower girl and Joshua’s 7-year-old cousin was the ring bearer.
Photo: Audra Jones Photography
Sweet surprises
Since getting married, Kelly has discovered her husband is an amazing cook—lentil stew, pork loin, omelets? “All fantastic,” she says. And Joshua says he’s never been more excited to come home from work.
Photo: Audra Jones Photography
Hands in
When it came to DIY, Joshua’s mom made the wedding favors (gift bags with trail mix, mints, and personalized ink pens), while Kelly’s sisters created signage.
Good eats
On the menu was Groovin’ Gourmet’s flint steak (“Joshua has been pining for it since our tasting in March,” Kelly says), TNT Cakery’s almond cake, and a special blackberry cheesecake for Kelly’s maid of honor, Michelle.
Photo: Audra Jones Photography
THE DETAILS
Event planner: Johanna Allen from Orange Blossom Style Officiant: Pastor Nathan Walton Catering: Groovin’ Gourmet Flowers: Orange Blossom Style (Johanna Allen) Cake: Tanisha Chase (TNT Cakery) Music: DJ Donald Dickerson Bride’s attire: Ava Laurenne (dress and veil), Glamour Bride USA on Etsy (hairpiece) Bride’s jewelry: Emilia Rae Bridal Jewelry & Accessories (Etsy) Bride’s shoes: Lulu’s Groom’s attire: Men’s Wearhouse Groomsmen’s attire: Men’s Wearhouse Bridesmaids’ dresses: Birdy Grey Rings: Andrew Minton Jewelers Hair: Vickie Whiting Makeup: Alaina Hudson (AKBeautiful) Videographer: Sydney Koerber Films
Because they’d been to plenty of weddings where they’d shelled out money for travel and accommodations and only laid eyes on the bride and groom for a few minutes, Sophie Wolf and Brian McPherson wanted to make sure their wedding was different. They had only one criterion: The venue should accommodate all of their guests for a whole weekend.
That really narrowed their search, but when they toured Montfair Resort Farm in Crozet—with cabins that could fit around 60 people—they knew they’d zeroed in on their “I do” spot. From there, they decided to lean in.
Photo: Ray Photography
“Getting to spend the whole weekend with your best friends in the woods, it felt just like camp,” Wolf (now McPherson) says. Thus, they created Camp McWolf. But they had to walk a fine line between camp and camp-y.
“We didn’t really think of it as a wedding with a ‘theme,’” she says. “We just thought of it as a weekend at camp with our best friends…where we also got married.”
To pull it off, McPherson’s sister designed a logo, which showed up on the invitations and save the dates, then set to work on the day-of details: A custom Instagram account provided guests with info on being a camper, cabin assignments, and schedules, and when guests arrived, they were greeted by goodie boxes with classic camp snacks and handwritten letters. The rehearsal dinner featured DIY’d name plates in the style of camp flags, and guests were invited to partake in a s’mores bar and bonfire. The morning of the wedding, a brown-bag breakfast and kicked off a day of playing camp games before getting ready for the ceremony.
Photo: Ray Photography
“We lucked out all weekend with great weather,” McPherson says. “Walking around camp seeing our friends in canoes, playing volleyball, and going for hikes was such a cool thing.”
Guests leaned into the theme, too, arriving with fun attitudes that “made the weekend electric,” as well as some custom-made Camp McWolf T-shirts. All in all, the wedding turned out exactly how they’d hoped.
Photo: Ray Photography
McPherson has some ideas about how to pull off your own theme wedding. For one thing, they took inspiration from the venue for the wedding, not the other way around.
“If we had tried to turn a different kind of venue into a ‘camp’ theme, it would have felt a little try-hard,” she says. And, she says, the couple didn’t feel the need to make every detail part of the theme. The big wedding things stayed the same, but they sprinkled in things that made sense for the weekend (McPherson, for instance, wore a traditional wedding dress—with boots underneath).
Photo: Ray Photography
Her main advice for your big day, though? Do you.
“What no one ever tells you about wedding planning is that there really don’t have to be any rules,” she says. “You can take the traditions that you like and leave the ones that you don’t. The bride can stand on the right because that’s her good side, you can spend the whole morning of your wedding with your fiancé, you can serve assorted Oreos instead of wedding cake. …Think about the weekend that will make you, your partner, and your guests the happiest, and go create that weekend.”
There’s no denying that photography is one of the most important parts of a wedding. Months of planning come together for one perfect day—which tends to fly by. Couples might not even get a chance to appreciate the ceremony backdrop or centerpieces they took such care designing. That’s where wedding photographers come in—while you’re busy saying “I do,” they’re busy capturing all the important moments, so you can relive your wedding for many years to come.
The list of can’t-miss wedding shots includes everything from invitations and accessories to first looks and first dances. Not to mention the most important pictures of all—the portraits. There are a million different ways to do wedding portraits—pre-ceremony, during an after session, editorial, photojournalistic, the list goes on. Photographer Jen Fariello’s fine art-inspired take on wedding portraits gives couples a spontaneous, unique experience—and, of course, the shots by which to remember it all.
While the newlyweds are enjoying dinner, Fariello will sneak away to a spare room to prepare her setup. Using a softbox light, studio backdrop, and a medium format film camera, Fariello snaps her signature black and white fine-art portraits. At first glance, you might not even be able to tell that Fariello’s portraits are from a wedding. They’re classy and utterly timeless, “almost like an old-fashioned take on the photo booth,” Fariello says.
Photo: Jen Fariello
Fariello, who won Best Wedding Photographer in the 2022 Best of C-VILLE readers’ poll, began her photography career in the ’90s, after graduating from UVA with a fine arts degree. She worked for C-VILLE Weekly, where an assignment to shoot Peter Griesar from the Dave Matthews Band launched her into portrait work. Fariello shot her first wedding in 1997, and eventually went to work for The Hook, where her pictures filled the wedding issue for years.
“I’m a people photographer, a portrait photographer, and my aesthetic are these moody, artsy, black and white photographs,” says Fariello, “That’s translated well into weddings.”
Now, Fariello shoots about 40 weddings a year, and she likes to surprise couples with a bonus portrait shoot whenever there’s time. (“Time is precious, and I don’t ever want to take anything away from the wedding day,” Fariello says.) Once everything is set up, she’ll grab a few wedding guests and let them play around while she gets some test shots, then she’ll bring in the bride and groom.
These kinds of portraits are also venue-dependent, she says. There needs to be an extra room that can fit all the equipment. Fariello’s found local venues like Pippin Hill, Veritas, King Family, and Mount Ida to be the perfect size. As for when to take portraits, the wedding day is best. Even though wedding and reception dresses are only worn for a couple of hours, they tend to get pretty disheveled by the end of the night. Brides already have their hair and makeup done, plus there’s that bridal glow that can only be captured on the wedding day.
Most wedding visions include the perfect life partner, the ultimate dress, the romantic setting, glorious weather, and wonderful food—but what about the dream motor coach?
“Transportation is a really important part that clients don’t often think about,” says Hannah Dubit of Hannah Rose Event Design. Fellow wedding planner Marilyn Speight of Just a Little Ditty agrees: “[Transportation] is one of our top priorities, and it’s often overlooked.”
Many couples—and wedding planners—have horror stories about a member of the bridal party getting lost, or a car full of guests becoming stuck on a country road behind a tractor. “We encourage our clients to provide transportation for their guests to and from the wedding and reception,” says Speight, “and we prefer to manage that, as part of their experience.”
Smart couples begin lining up vendors a year in advance, and this should include transport services. Charlottesville is a very popular wedding destination, and that means calendars fill up fast.
Charlottesville also poses transportation challenges. That lovely small-town feel means there aren’t a huge number of taxis or driver services to tap into. The majority of wedding venues are out in the country, which means longer travel times, rural roads, and erratic cell service. And many venues have their own access issues: gravel roads, narrow or winding drives, steep hills, and no parking lot. There’s no use arranging charter buses if the vehicles can’t make the turn into your charming wedding site.
For planning purposes, the number of guests is important—including whether any attendees have physical limitations or access needs. Then, fitting the vehicle to the venue is key; if 55-seat charter buses won’t fit, better options might be mini-buses seating 20 to 40, or even 12-seat executive vans (often used for the wedding party, or the couple’s families). Charlottesville has a wealth of bus charter companies—Easy Riders, Albemarle Coach, Charlottesville Charter, and Quick’s, among others.
For smaller weddings, limousine services are an option—especially for the couple to get to the reception, and get away at the end. Stretch limos are not as popular as they once were, but firms like A&A Limousine, Albemarle Limousine, or Richmond-based James Limousine Service have a range of vehicles.
Depending on your wedding theme, trolleys can be a fun way to go; try Taylor’s Classic Travel or Crozet Trolley. But Dubit notes trolleys may have trouble on hilly sites, and an open-air vehicle might not be practical for that all-white winter wedding.
Want to go with more style, or a little novelty? Consider classic or antique cars, or perhaps even golf carts. Speight had one client who got married on the family farm and squired guests around in all-terrain vehicles. For these more individualized modes, check with Albemarle Limousine or Camelot Classic Cars.
Whatever mode you go with, wedding experts say, preparation is key. Dubit says transportation is one of the most stressful aspects because “so much is out of our control.” Speight recommends doing a dry run well in advance, with the chosen vendor, to scope out the route. And she will also check just before the big day for road construction or closures, missing road signs, GPS accuracy, and cell dead zones. It may be wise to consider the low-tech option: providing written directions.
Most wedding planners will assign staff to be at the pick-up site to make sure everyone gets on the right bus at the right time. Some planners even have a staffer ride along to communicate any delays or changes, since the drivers can’t call or text while at the wheel. And remember to factor in transportation arrangements when you’re planning wedding insurance.
In the end, transportation—like most logistics—means a lot of work ahead of time so on the day it seems effortless. After all, what you want everyone to remember is the wedding itself.
This is it—you’ve found The One! You’re ready to hold the ceremony in which you tell each other, your families and friends, and the world that you are beginning a new life together, and you want the occasion to be perfect.
But to get there, you face months of decision-making—finding a venue, choosing vendors, negotiating calendars, cross-checking every detail—and signing lots of checks.
“Weddings are wonderful, but they’re still a pain to plan,” says Adam Healey, founder and CEO of Novela. “It’s hard to know what things cost and who’s good. The vendors all have different offerings and terms of service. And it’s also expensive.”
Healey started Novela in January 2022 to help couples navigate this process: “We see ourselves as a wedding concierge.” Novela does the up-front market research and pre-vetting in order to connect its clients with venues and suppliers that fit their style—and their pocketbook. The goal, says Healey, is to put the right couple with the right partner for the perfect wedding.
Novela begins with an intake interview to go over what the couple wants, what they need, and what they want to spend. Then Novela develops a customized list of recommendations for wedding planners, venues, caterers, and a host of other services. The plan provides three options for each category—all of them pre-qualified to make sure they fit the budget and have availability for the couple’s date. “And we’re there to help guide you through the entire process,” says Healey.
To do the interview and plan development, Novela charges an up-front fee of $295; that fee is fully refunded once the couple hires any of the recommended vendors. The company’s business model is based on the referral fees paid by vendors, all of whom have been pre-vetted and agree to a best-rate guarantee.
“Charlottesville is our hometown, and we have a lot of relationships here,” Healey notes. He has a background in the industry; in 2011, he founded Borrowed & Blue, a Charlottesville- based wedding marketplace bought by Zola in 2018. Unlike Zola and The Knot, which are essentially vendor listings, Healey describes Novela as “a more curated service—really a new concept for the wedding industry.” Eventually, he hopes to expand the Novela model to other markets.
Why not just hire a planner straight off? “There’s a wide variety of tastes and personalities among planners,” says Healey. “And they offer different levels of service—some just handle event management for the day of, others will plan the event soup to nuts, or they offer everything in between.” For the full-service option, fees can vary from $10,000 to $15,000, he notes.
Chimney House doesn’t announce itself. Turn onto the gravel road, drive under a few trees and up a short grassy slope, and the house is revealed, silhouetted against the sky and the Blue Ridge in the distance. The exposed hilltop, the almost windowless white brick walls and steep dark metal roof, the rustle of tall grasses—it feels like a beach house on a dune, immersed in ground and wind and sky.
From this side, the house appears long and low, anchored to the earth by the three 30-foot chimneys for which it’s named. A flagstone path leads to a tall plain black door set in the angle where two long white brick walls intersect.
Photo: Joe Fletcher
Inside, the house’s geometry becomes a way of drawing visitors in and through the spaces. The exterior white brick wall extends into the entry, then a short stairway leads down, opening into the Main Hall. This two-story kitchen/dining/living area is centered around a massive free-standing white brick chimney with two fireplaces, one facing the living area, one facing the dining area/kitchen. Along the western wall is a series of huge fixed windows and sliding glass/screen doors framing (and proving access to) a vista of fields, woods, and mountains.
“This is what we sited the house around,” says architect Thomas Ryan of T.W. Ryan Architecture. “The site is set up so that the mountains are very present.” The owner expresses that feeling in different words: “The sunsets here never get old.”
Three Chimney House was designed to embrace its setting—literally. From the Main Hall, two wings extend westward: the family’s residential wing is angled to the south, while the northern wing holds a guest room and studio. The more private rooms are thus set apart, while still connected visually and spatially to the core living areas.
Photo: Joe Fletcher
The owners of Three Chimney House both have roots in central Virginia (one attended UVA), but had lived for years in the New York City area and had seen Ryan’s work there. With professional changes and two young children, the couple wanted to live closer to family and in a more rural setting.
They moved to Charlottesville in 2016 and were house-hunting when a tract of land in Ivy became available. The listing didn’t look promising—“there was nothing here but a cabin with a porch, built in the 1980s,” says an owner. But when the couple came to check it out, they were stunned by the possibilities of the 44-acre site.
Photo: Joe Fletcher
The couple contacted Ryan about designing a new home for their family. They liked that Ryan had grown up in the South, and had an appreciation for the area’s history and architectural traditions. But the couple also knew they wanted “a modern interpretation of a traditional home.” As a result, Ryan combined a contemporary design with materials appropriate to this area, from lime-washed brick and copper roofing to slate and bluestone, white oak and black cedar.
While Ryan’s design references Virginia’s historic architecture—he especially cites Stratford Hall, the Lee family home in Westmoreland County, with its forthright geometry and distinctive chimneys—his layout draws inspiration from Mies van der Rohe’s 1920s Brick Country House. van der Rohe’s goal was to organize a residential space in such a way that doors were not needed; “I’ve always loved this idea,” Ryan admits. The clients, however, wanted a few doors—so in several key places, pocket doors allow for privacy while keeping the home’s open feel.
At 5,800 square feet, Three Chimney House offers a lot of living space without feeling overwhelming, largely due to its modular organization. In the residential wing, the bedrooms are not large, but each has both a substantial fixed window framing lovely views and a smaller, operable window capturing the breezes. At the end of the wing is a master double bathroom, walk-in double closet, and bedroom with a corner balcony and a wall-sized picture window facing the mountains.
Photo: Joe Fletcher
The joy of a custom house, of course, is the customized touches. Just off the entry is a sky-lighted mud room full of cubbies, coat hooks, and benches—after all, a real family lives here. A glass-lined passage off the Main Hall leads to a sequestered library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a fireplace (Chimney No. 2) and a window seat. The two-story staircase in the residential wing is hand-crafted of white oak. And off the kitchen is a tiny patio with a built-in pizza oven (Chimney No. 3)—“a prerequisite,” the client says, from time spent in France.
While Three Chimney House has won Ryan several national awards, it presented him, and Evergreen Construction, with a few headaches. Ryan says the weather on the site seems to have a mind of its own. One memorable storm tore the newly installed roof off the residential wing (“it lifted up like a sail and flew away,” he recalls ruefully), adding another month to the construction timeline.
The house, like a family, continues to evolve. Phase II—a driveway/garage, pool and in-law suite downslope from the western lawn—will start this fall; designing plantings and screening trees will be handled by landscape architect Anna Boeschenstein of Grounded LLC.
But the kids have already added their own design extensions. In the side yard, where the old cabin used to stand, there’s now a treehouse, tree swing, and stumps for chairs around a fire pit.
Photo: Joe Fletcher
ROOM WITH A VIEW
A “must have” item for Three Chimney House was a studio space for one of the clients, artist Cassie Guy. After a career as a fashion designer, Guy has branched out into works on wood and paper, illustrations for children’s books, and multimedia pieces. She’s working now on a series around the theme of motherhood, as well as some commissions and one-off pieces for exhibitions. (Her studio art and design background also made her a good partner for Ryan on many of the home’s design and materials decisions.)
As both artist and work-from-home mother, Guy needed her own space, accessible but away from the bustlwe of family life. Ryan therefore put the studio above the guest room in the northern extension, close to the Main Hall but only reachable via an outdoor stone path and an external fire-escape-style stair.
Being on the second floor made the studio more spacious, with a cathedral ceiling and a half-attic space for Guy to store her finished work. It has a northern exposure, for the best working light, and another west-facing window, which gives Guy an inspiring view of the Blue Ridge.
Having a studio separate from the house means that Guy can spread out and have her paints and materials at hand. She also gets lots of floor space—“I often do my work on the floor,” she says, since many of her pieces are wall-sized. Which is also why the access stairs are outside—“otherwise I’d never get my work out!”—CD
It wasn’t love at first sight for Brian Tuskey and the split-foyer, two-story house that would eventually become his home. But now, with a recent reno that modernized and maximized space especially in the kitchen, the local architect has made the house his own.
“It was this ugly tan brick, the split foyer turned me off, and I didn’t want to live in it,” Tuskey says. “But it’s a simple rectangle, with no dormers or fluff. It’s just form and structural systems.”
Tuskey knew the house had been built at a time (around 1975) when construction materials were high-quality and craftspeople took pride in their work. And he figured it would be simple to knock down the walls that cut into the open concept he and his family desired.
And then there was the attic. It was a smallish space that was all but unused when the Tuskey family bought the place. Rather than continuing to use it as a storage space/junk repository, the architect envisioned popping the top—raising the second floor ceiling to the roof to maximize space.
It was more than 10 years before the Tuskeys got around to the project, but by Thanksgiving of last year, they had completed a full kitchen, dining room, and living room renovation. Now, the second floor areas feature clean lines, increased natural light, and wide open space. The cabinetry, all composed of uniform white oak with 100 percent horizontal graining, ties the three rooms together, and the newly raised ceilings, reaching 12 feet at their apex, allowed Tuskey to increase storage space and window size.
“It’s all the same palette,” Tuskey says. “I wanted it to be the same material throughout the space—super clean and modern, but a wood tone to bring softness and visual texture. Rather than being modernism with a capital M, it’s still warm and lived in.”
Photo: Stephen Barling
Tuskey has never found his 2,400-square-foot home too small for his family of four, so he felt no need to add square footage during the renovation. But the open concept, increased glass surfaces, and larger openings all contribute to a feeling of more room to breathe.
Tuskey and his team refinished the home’s red oak floors and, in the kitchen, did away with its old plastic laminate countertops to bring in Virginia mist granite counters and backsplashes. The material, quarried in Culpeper, lends the kitchen dark gray tones and active white swirls. “The whole thing needed new life,” Tuskey says. “If we hadn’t gone to the extent we did in the renovation, we still would have wanted a new kitchen.”
Photo: Stephen Barling
The new kitchen layout features significant counter space stretching around into a breakfast bar, a large stainless steel refrigerator, double ovens, a built-in microwave, a fully vented range, and an additional drinks fridge. A single-basin sink looks through a large single-pane window into the backyard. The fixtures are stainless steel and angular, completing the modern look.
The kitchen’s sharp lines and stark colors highlight the aesthetic Tuskey has been drawn to since architecture school. He credits his wife with contributing to the project as well, playing the role of customer in asking the right questions and making him think outside the modern box.
“It was sort of a first … going completely on one of my own designs,” he says. “My wife jumped on board and loved it, but she was also a great sounding board and said so when something didn’t make sense.”
Now, while one of the Tuskeys cooks dinner, they can look out into their living room and feel connected to others, whether it’s one of the kids doing homework or making a friendship bracelet. But does the fantasy of open concept match reality? Tuskey says he selected the millwork and designed the cabinetry to create some spatial delineation—plus, there’s always running away.
“Our lower level serves the purpose almost of a basement,” he says. “The idea of an open living plan can sometimes backfire, but we knew that by opening this up, we could also find places to have alone time. We can always retreat to the downstairs.”
