Author: Carol Diggs

Summer in Virginia. It’s hot and humid; you’re sticky and cranky and don’t feel like moving—or even leaving the house. Wouldn’t you love to have a pool, right outside the back door? A swimming pool makes the summer fun instead of unbearable—and in this area, one that’s well-designed can create a space for outdoor living almost all year round. The ideal pool should fit both your site and your lifestyle: Here’s how three families got it just right.

LEVELING UP

A terraced deck to the pool serves many functions

An Ivy-area family whose children were reaching middle-school age asked San Francisco architect Thomas Ryan and local designer Marie Bourgeois to make their “country-Georgian” house larger and more contemporary. Ryan designed a modern-style addition on the back of the structure to add both space and a little modern flair. Then it was time to tackle the pool.

The 20’x40′ infinity pool was perfectly serviceable; the setting was “beautiful but overgrown,” Bourgeois recalls. More than that, the whole backyard looked outdated, and it didn’t fit with the more contemporary addition. There was a wooden stairway down to the pool through a bank of overgrown oakleaf hydrangeas below the back deck—but the house’s expansion had pushed the kitchen wall out into the back deck area. The challenge, Bourgeois said, “was creating more functional space without falling into the pool.”

The solution was a series of long narrow decks, terraced from the house to the pool. Each deck serves a different function: just outside the kitchen is the cooking area, with a counter and outdoor grill. A few steps down is a built-in dining table that seats a dozen; a few more steps down to its left is a large rectangular seating area. A few more steps and you’re at the pool level. 

To set up a strong horizontal feeling for these levels, the contractor (Evergreen Builders) used unusually long, custom-cut planking. “We wanted cedar for the decks,” Bourgeois recalls, “but because of COVID we couldn’t find it, and when we did it was more expensive than mahogany. So we ended up going with mahogany, which will last longer.” Planters of all-season grasses border each deck and provide softer accents amid all that wood.

Good design should be practical as well as pretty, so the seating area has a row of wall-mounted hooks for a multitude of wet towels, and hinged-lid cabinets provide storage for all the pool paraphernalia. There’s a foot shower, which means no grass or mud in the pool—or in the house; a flagstone path leads into the basement bathroom, which means no more tracking water through the kitchen to the powder room.

The pool itself is essentially unchanged, but now it’s the center of a larger, multifunctional space. That was the charge for landscape designer Anna Boeschenstein of Grounded LLC: to enhance the pool area as a living space, and make better use of the natural setting. Her site plan called for clearing the meadow beyond the pool much farther back, to open up the space. She also designed retaining walls that extend out on either side of the pool’s infinity edge, creating two 23’x32.5′ lawns on either side for lounging or pick-up ball games.

To complement the addition’s contemporary style, Boeschenstein chose plantings with a more modern look. The pool lawns are bordered with beds of allium (tall plants whose fist-sized balls of tiny blossoms have a sort of space-alien vibe) and Mexican feather grass to provide texture. She also chose the feather reed grass and little bluestem for the planters along the deck. The family wanted relatively low-maintenance plantings—and, since this is a pool area, many of Boeschenstein’s choices are full-sun fans. 

Most of all, the home’s backyard is now a place where the family and their friends can hang out—sunbathing or swimming, grilling and dining, playing keep-away (or Marco Polo). This space does it all.

EASY LIVING

The view takes center stage at this simply stunning Bundoran pool

Leslie and Lewis “Mac” McKee know hot summers—they moved here from Memphis. Mac is a Wahoo (as are two of their children, who now live in Virginia), so when the McKees decided to retire in 2018, they bought a site at Bundoran Farm. 

“Like a lot of people our age,” says Leslie, “we wanted a home that would have smaller rooms and be easy to maintain—we live basically on the main floor—but could accommodate our whole family.” In this case, “family” means 13 people, including seven grandchildren.

While reviewing architects’ portfolios online, Leslie came across a photo of a tennis pavilion—two square buildings with round windows, connected by a hipped roof—designed by local architect John Voight. “I saw that photo and said, ‘That’s our man!’” Leslie recalls. “She fell in love with the windows,” laughs Voight, who came on as architect for the project, with Element Construction as builder. 

“The steep site was definitely a challenge; we had to terrace everything,” Voight says. He placed the house and garage higher on the slope, close to the road, with the pool lower down the hillside. 

The McKees wanted a pool that was not too large and easy to take care of. “We had a lap pool in Memphis,” Leslie says, “so we’re over that.” Voight agreed. “I wanted to keep the pool area simple, and let the landscape and the views play a key role.” 

The result is a 14’x24′ saltwater pool, with one end deep enough for diving, and a retractable cover. The gunite lining’s gray plaster finish helps the unheated pool stay warm and useable into the fall months. Voight likes a gray finish because “it softens the pool’s look, and reflects the color of the sky.”

On the north side of the pool are two square wood-clad pool houses, with the round windows Leslie likes so much. One houses a kitchenette and powder room, the other the pool’s mechanics. The buildings are connected by a pergola constructed of white oak, creating a shaded sitting area. This spot, the nearby dining area, and the poolside deck have a comfortable mix of old wood, wicker, and open-work metal furniture, perfect for cushions, loungers, and cold drinks. There’s even a wooden porch swing hanging from the pergola.

The bluestone paving of the pool area is also used for the path to the kitchen’s back door. Oddly enough, Mac says that bluestone was one of the only construction elements affected by the pandemic. “The factory in Pennsylvania shut down,” he recalls, “so we had to wait on it.” The couple is mulling over adding a walkway up the slope to the house’s screened porch as well.

By October 2020, the McKees had settled in and started having family gatherings; while the pool is finished, its landscaping (by Beebe Landscape Design) is still evolving. Mac, with environmental concerns, wants to make sure the trees and plants they use are native and noninvasive. For the moment, the pergola can be covered on hot days with a mesh sunscreen, while the couple decides whether to plant climbing vines for shade.

In the meantime, the McKees spend these long summer evenings in their new outdoor living space, sipping wine and enjoying the view of pastures, woods, and mountains. “It was so flat in Memphis,” Leslie says, taking in the vista from poolside.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Retirees take a 1980s home and pool space into the present day

An ex-pat couple who had decided to retire here—they had both personal history and family in the area—bought a lovely estate in Greenwood over a decade ago. Its house, pool, and pool/guest house, however, were 1980s-vintage and undistinguished. “We wanted something more like a Virginia country house, to fit in with the setting,” says the owner. The couple hired Bob Paxton of DGP Architects to revamp the property and take advantage of its spectacular views.

The first stage was building a whole new residence, a Georgian-style brick home in which almost every room and a full-length loggia look out over beautiful mountain vistas. The next stage was remaking the pool area, which cried out for some TLC.

The pool/guest house’s gray wood siding and paneless windows were less than inviting. The pool just sat in front of the house, with no plantings or seating—and no views. “My first impulse was to tear the pool house down,” says the owner, but Paxton saw that its bones could be used to create a more attractive building and a whole new space. 

The site presented a challenge. The guest house (on the northern edge) was linked to the main residence (at the southern edge) by a brick-and-iron paling wall on the western side bordering the drive. The eastern edge was determined by a steep drop toward the pastures below. The owners still wanted a pool—but also wanted a parterre garden. “It was quite the puzzle,” says Paxton. 

He pulled all these elements together into a space of walled serenity reminiscent of The Secret Garden—it feels like it’s been there for a century at least. The pool was moved right to the site’s eastern edge, which made the garden the central feature, both a secluded front yard for the guest house, and an outdoor space accessible from the main residence’s master suite and loggia. 

Paxton, working with contractor Shelter Associates, remade the clunky guest house into a garden cottage, faced in a golden local fieldstone, with traditional windows and wooden shutters. The addition of a front porch and one-story wings on each side gave the building scale and better integrated it with the setting. The wings also provided practical spaces: the pool’s mechanical room and bathroom, and the owner’s gardening shed.

The parterre’s formal geometry, designed by landscape architect Rachel Lilly, creates a web that ties all the elements of the site together. The paths’ central crossing features a Japanese cutleaf maple, whose bronze foliage contrasts with the greenery of surrounding trees, shrubs, and the ivy-covered pillars of the guest house porch. The garden beds are laid out with boxwood, yellow roses, and cages for climbing purple clematis. Lilly even managed to incorporate some of the site’s oldest trees, particular favorites of the owner—who, as a gardener himself, calls Lilly “a genius, in my humble opinion.” 

As for the pool, it’s far more attractive in its new setting. At 18′ x36′, it’s just the right size for cooling off and enjoying the view, and, what’s more, there’s a small hot tub attached. The pool benefits from being one part of an integrated space. “In this area, pools have to be covered [in winter], which is not the most attractive thing,” Paxton notes. “This way, it becomes a water feature and complements the garden.”

And from every corner—the cozy guest cottage, the formal garden lovely in all seasons, the serene pool—the residents and their guests can sit and contemplate the ever-changing vistas of rolling fields and wooded mountains.

“My husband and I used to take walks along Locust Avenue, and we just adored this one old house,” says Bryant Taylor. “It had an amazing yard, with lots of green space—and both of us love a project.” For the Taylors, “project” is an understatement: Alan is co-founder and president of Riverbend Development, and Bryant works for Studio Figure, an architectural and interior design firm. 

In spring 2020, the Taylors’ Locust Avenue dream house came on the market—and the couple put a bid in before they had even seen the inside. There was no doubt the house needed work. Built in 1903, its structure was still sound and many historic details were still there, but a renovation about a decade ago had left issues. An extension had been added on the back of the house to create a kitchen and master bedroom suite, but a remnant of the house’s original exterior wall cut the galley kitchen off from the adjoining family room. Still, the rooms were spacious, with large windows, the exterior was in good shape, and the unfinished attic could be turned into a great playroom for their daughter and her friends. And then there was that huge back yard…

“We dreamed of making it the exact home we wanted,” Bryant recalls. And living in a townhouse with a toddler and three dogs was getting a little cramped. So the Taylors took on this new project. 

The major challenge was taking out the brick-bearing wall between the kitchen and the family room and installing a huge I-beam to carry the load. Alan says Bryant acted as general contractor for most of the renovation work, but for this particular task the couple brought in Ace Contracting. In updating the kitchen, they kept the appliances installed in the earlier renovation, but replaced the counters and lighting to create a unified look for the newly joined spaces. 

Much of the rest of the work needed was to be expected in renovating an older home. The entire interior needed repainting (which meant removing some pretty dated wallpaper in places) and all of the bathrooms needed upgrading with new fixtures and tile. The Taylors wanted hardwood floors, which meant replacing much of the heart pine flooring on the first floor. Luckily, the upstairs flooring only needed to be stripped and clear-coated. All the lighting was replaced (“These are all LED now,” Alan points out), even the chandeliers that the Taylors hoped were period but turned out to be plastic (“from Lowe’s,” he notes with disappointment.)

These tasks brought both Bryant’s organizational skills and her design instincts into play. While she hadn’t trained in interior design, Bryant had worked closely with Jeannette Andamasaris, principal partner and director of interior design at Studio Figure, on the Taylors’ previous home, a townhouse on C&O Row. Working together regularly “had given us a shared language,” says Andamasaris—so much so that Bryant is now on staff at the firm.

“Bryant wanted to bring in more color while keeping the [historic] feel” of the house, Andamasaris recalls. Most of the house’s original touches—two leaded windows, the decorative trim, glass-fronted built-in cupboards in the dining room, pocket doors between the dining room and the front parlor (now a den/music room) with its wall of built-in shelves—remain. But Bryant’s eclectic design style gives the interior a contemporary and whimsical feel. 

The original large windows on the north-facing façade, and more large windows added to the house’s east and south sides in the earlier renovation, provide lots of natural light. That light, along with high ceilings and the newly refinished hardwood floors, allowed Bryant to use dark, high-intensity colors on the walls—a warm grayish teal in the dining room, and matte black in the den/music room—without making the spaces feel closed-in. The kitchen/dining/family room space, on the other hand, is all windows and white walls, with contrast provided by the black I-beam across the ceiling, the black spindle dining chairs, and the galley’s black-and-white Cambia quartz counters. 

Those zebra-striped counters are one of Bryant’s signature touches, because she’s made sure there’s a little wildlife in every room, whether it’s the antler centerpiece on the dining table, the oryx head over the den’s fireplace, the longhorn skull in the master bedroom (Alan is a University of Texas grad), or the mounted whitetail deer’s rump in the bathroom. There’s even an animal’s head over their daughter’s bed—it’s a pastel unicorn, as befits a 5-year-old girl.

“We did a lot of funky stuff,” Bryant admits. But it was all part of making this dream house into their unique dream home. The den has plump cushioned chairs with moveable arms, so Alan can more comfortably play guitar with his music buddies. The attic was made into the perfect child’s play space—indestructible carpet tiles, a pull-down screen and a popcorn popper for movie night, a kitchenette for snack supplies, built-in alcove beds for sleepovers. “We want this to be a place where the kids want to come, and their parents know we’re here,” says Bryant.

To keep that home entertainment vibe going, the couple is adding a pool and pavilion in their large backyard for family and friends. And “both our parents live far away,” Bryant notes, so construction is already underway to replace the tiny garage and small outbuilding with a two-car garage-cum-guest house. All of which still leaves plenty of open space for the kid-sized moveable soccer goal, all the play gear, and the coop for the free-range chickens. 

After all, the Taylors love a project.

“You gotta love old houses to live in one,” says master stonemason Mike Ondrick. “If you keep it anywhere near correct [to its era], you’re going to live with cold walls and damp in the basement sometimes.”

Ondrick should know: He’s a founder and project manager for Dominion Traditional Building Group, which specializes in restoring historic structures using historic methods. He’s currently working on a mid-19th century house in Charlottesville’s North Downtown neighborhood—because the home’s owners love old houses.

“We bought this house because no one had screwed it up yet,” says the current owner, who purchased the Civil War-era residence in 2018. The family has been living there ever since—through the pandemic, and in the midst of replacing the roof, fixing gutters, and restoring windows. Because the house is part of a designated Historic District, any work to preserve or upgrade the building has to be approved. 

After the roof, the owners tackled the four-room basement, which had been ignored for decades. The previous owner had started to create an apartment there—pouring a concrete floor, sealing the walls, putting up drywall, and hanging electrical wiring from the ceiling—but the space was still a dank, dark disaster. The current owners, seeing the value of a basement apartment, resolved to do it right.

The wiring, heating and water pipes (the house’s original water system was gravity-run) were concealed in the walls and ceiling. Most of the window openings had been covered up with plexiglas or plywood; the original windows were removed, cleaned, and repainted, then reassembled and reinstalled. The bricked-up fireplaces were re-opened and reconstructed. All the wall sealant was removed so the brick could be cleaned, prepared for new mortar, and repointed.

Most of the contractors he asked for estimates kept talking about sealant and drywall, the owner says. “Dominion came in and said, ‘We can fix this basement.’ And they did.”

The first rule in working on historic masonry, says Ondrick (who has worked on more than 1,800 historic buildings in his 30-year career) is “don’t introduce any modern materials. Modern cement mortar is too strong—it sets up too quick, it won’t let the water out of the brick [to bond with the mortar].” And sealant? “You don’t want to seal your structure up—these old buildings need to breathe.” Ondrick mixes mortar specific to each particular building, using only lime and sand. 

Ondrick is just one of the “old house-lovers” who has put his skills into this restoration. “One of the best things about doing this house,” says the owner, “has been the people you meet.”

To re-create the basement fireplaces’ wooden mantels, Bruce Courson—who with his wife Virginia Robinson owns Blue Ox Custom Builders in Mineral—copied the one remaining original in the first-floor parlor. Blue Ox also made the custom cupboards and cabinets in the basement stair hall, as well as the replica moldings and baseboards. (Bruce happens to be the brother of Glen Courson, a plasterer on Dominion’s crew.) 

The search for period hardware led to Ed Donaldson—“the king of American locks,” the owner calls him—who restored 25 rim locks throughout the house and supplied four restored 1850s locks to replace ones that were missing.

Restoring the basement windows—and all the others, 60 in total—was handled by Justin Pincham, owner of Halcyon Contractors; he invented a steam-box, which made it possible to remove the lead paint safely and salvage the remaining original glass. The disassembled windows and glass were shipped to Shenandoah Restoration in Quicksburg, where owner Mike Watkinson and his team reglazed every sash with linseed putty, primed, and painted them. 

“You do feel like they are coming in and taking up where the workmen from 1861 left off,” the owner says. Admittedly, restoring the house has taken over their lives—and they still haven’t started on the first and second floors. But that’s what happens when you love old houses.

Over the last few years, Beth Ann Kallen, co-owner of home furnishing and interior design firm Folly, has been helping a client redecorate the family’s home in Blandemar Farm Estates room by room. For the latest project, the master bedroom, Kallen (a mother of three) knew just what the mother of four needed: “I wanted her to have a refuge.” 

Kallen’s design process always starts with a fabric. This time, her jumping-off point was a Sanderson floral in blues and green, with daisies and butterflies providing yellow accents. “Just a lovely palette,” says Kallen. “I like bringing in colors from nature, and I’ve been working with this client for years—I know she loves blue.”

The fabric became drapes for the windows on three sides of the room, set off against walls in a warm white. The Matouk Schumacher bed linen (white with a blue-and-green geometric trim) is keyed to the drapes’ colors, with a cadet blue wool on the headboard as a darker accent. The Stark carpet, a pattern called “Kubra,” in soft blue and white, picks up the theme: “I wanted the rug to fill the whole room, to give it warmth,” Kallen says. (Of course, the fireplace helps there, too.)

Another restful feature is a window bay with a small Hickory Chair sofa, upholstered in an easy-to-clean Crypton fabric—after all, this is a household full of kids and dogs. Blue-and-white floor-standing ginger jars at each end reinforce the motif, while the client’s dresser was repainted a muted blue and fitted with antique brass pulls. 

Every room needs some accent pieces, and Kallen included two she’s especially fond of: a curvilinear cartouche-shaped mirror bordered in a buff rattan, and a dresser lamp made from an ochre Italian ceramic jar Kallen found at an antique shop. Both of these pieces pick up the yellow in the fabric that inspired the whole décor. 

And the result? A cool and quiet space to relax and regroup.

When the kids leave home, what are the choices: Rent out the basement? Move? Retire to a warmer climate? Sean and Gineane Stalfort rejected all those options. “We thought about downsizing,” says Gineane. “But we do a lot of entertaining, we host family holidays, and we wanted to have our sons come back here.”

The couple loved their hilltop site in Blue Springs Farm, west of Charlottesville—their three sons all attend UVA, and the family is big Hoos sports fans and active in the Charlottesville community. So in 2017 the Stalforts decided to renovate the home where they had raised their family.

At least, that was the plan. 

They asked architect Roger Birle of DPG Architects to design a more open, contemporary home where they could host social events, family gatherings, their sons’ college activities, and eventually their sons’ families. But the architects found serious—and expensive—structural issues with the existing house, built in the 1990s. So the Stalforts chose to raze it, and build a completely new house on the site. 

“Once they had made that decision,” recalls Birle, “the design of the new home could be much more cohesive.” Or, as Gineane says, “a million good things were possible.”

Among those good things: re-orienting the house to take advantage of the spectacular views, laying out a new drive up the hillside, and creating an outdoor courtyard with a dining area and fireplace, saltwater pool, and freestanding “party barn” all connected by loggias.

Birle describes the design as a modern interpretation of the Georgian architecture that’s part of Virginia’s heritage: a central door/hallway through the house, with four major rooms/areas on each side. “The Stalforts didn’t want a [traditional] brick house,” he says, “and we didn’t want to design a [ultramodern] white house with a shiny roof.”

The resulting house has the massing of a Georgian building—a two-story center block with one-story wings on either side. But its sand-colored stucco exterior, steeply pitched synthetic slate roof, and multitude of large windows make the 14,000-square-foot house look contemporary, open, and compact at the same time.

Inside, the marriage of formal layout and contemporary style helps make the house both spacious and human-scale. The center hall forms one strong axis, from the entry through to the living room, while the cross-hall that leads to the master suite on the right and the kitchen/family dining area to the left helps both define the spaces and connect them.

Birle used openings and windows to create visual axes through the house as well. In the foyer, a floating stair passing up along a two-story window leads the eye upward. Ahead, a wall of windows in the living area draws you into the space and then out towards the dramatic mountain views (and literally out, to several seating areas on the covered porch). A see-through fireplace serves as a partial wall to both separate and link the living room and kitchen.

This “kitchen” typifies the Stalforts’ lifestyle. The cooking/food preparation area is a large island parallel to the countertop and cabinets along the south wall. In the center is a casual family dining space (the formal dining room is across the hall, just off the foyer). Then there’s a seating area, complete with wet bar, for anyone hanging out while Gineane is cooking. Several doors open on the outdoor dining area, fireplace, and pool—more room to socialize. “Our first Thanksgiving here,” she recalls, “we had 23 people, and this space worked beautifully.”

The first floor also has home offices for Sean and Gineane, and a mudroom complete with washer and dryer, lots of cubbies, and a dog door. Upstairs are four bedrooms, each with its own bath; downstairs are the play spaces—gym, home movie theater, rec room with a golf simulator—as well as a wine closet and the shelf-lined storage room every home has to have. 

Then there are the personal “want-to-haves” possible in a custom home. The master suite’s bathroom has two cabinet sinks, a stall shower and a steam room with shower, a soaking tub, and killer views. The room-sized closet/dressing room for two has three walls of floor-to-ceiling hanging space, built-in drawers, and storage. 

Truly one-of-a-kind is the closet/tunnel/hideout—complete with toss pillows and stuffed animals—behind the wall of the lower floor stairwell. This space was salvaged from their old house, where the Stalfort boys grew up, and re-installed exactly as it was…waiting for the grandkids.

Gineane has happily taken on the role of interior designer. She chose steel gray for the walls throughout the house; using a darker neutral keeps the light streaming through so many windows from bouncing around too much, and having one continuous color helps the spaces flow. 

But all gray can be too…neutral, so Gineane added sparkle by using a silver-and-gilt theme throughout: wall décor, light fixtures, upholstery, even the place settings in the formal dining room. A wall of small mirrored tiles surrounds the kitchen’s large south-facing window; the first-floor powder room combines silver textured wallpaper with a marble-and-gold chevron-pattern tiled floor. The striking silver-and-gold foyer chandelier was custom-made by Ilanel, an Australian firm, based on one of its models Gineane saw on Pinterest. “I love lights,” she says. 

The Stalforts have been in their new home almost a year, and it’s still a work in progress. Gineane is almost finished decorating the party barn—a combination game room/sports bar for adults, similar in design and décor to the main house. They plan to finish off the guest quarters above the garage, and build a casita next to the pool. But their beautiful new house is already the gathering place the Stalforts envisioned.

“That first year [once the house was finished], my sons would come home with their friends,” Gineane says. “I’d wake up in the morning and there would be four cars parked out back, and I’d think, ‘My plan is working!’”

When David and Nancy Hughes retired in 2017, they needed a big change. 

“We had lived in Delaplane on 21 acres,” says Nancy. While they loved the place, the couple decided they wanted a smaller, newer home and an urban vibe—so they moved to Charlottesville. “We were looking forward to travel, lots of dinner parties,” says Nancy.

The Hugheses rented in City Walk to get to know their new hometown, then in 2019 purchased a detached C&O Row brownstone. They liked that the development was close to downtown—and that Evergreen Builders was open to customizing its basic floor plans. 

After living for years in a renovated farmhouse, the couple wanted a clean and modern look. But there were certain elements of their former home they didn’t want to give up—especially in the kitchen.  “We’d had a kitchen/great room that was a real gathering place,” Nancy recalls.  

Designing the brownstone’s main floor as a kitchen/dining/living space began with the couples’ request for a kitchen island “long enough to seat four.” Then they commissioned master woodworker Craig Dubose to design and build a custom oak dining table; it’s longer than most, to fit the room, and narrower than usual to allow space between the diners and the island bar seating. The linear pendant above the table (a model called Parallax made by Tech Lighting) was picked to fit the table—and getting it placed perfectly before the table was delivered, David recalls, was an electrician’s challenge.  

Making sure they got the kitchen details right was a big focus for David: “Everybody wants to be in the kitchen,” he says, “and I’m usually the one cooking.” That meant not only a clean look, but also a handy place for everything. The couple turned to Evergreen’s interior design contractor, Dovetail Design & Cabinetry. 

Nancy recalls that Amy Hart, owner and principal designer with Dovetail, “really lit up when we said contemporary.” And Hart says, “Nancy loves the design process—she was very involved and specific in what she wanted. David’s the cook, but Nancy’s the stylist.” (In fact, Hart says, Nancy selected and purchased most of the new home’s furnishings, many from The Artful Lodger; a large portion of the furniture the couple had purchased over the years for the Delaplane house had been sold to its new owner.)

To unify the elements of the kitchen, Hart recommended using a light beige veined quartz (specifically, Cambria’s Brittanicca Warm) as countertops on both the cabinets and the island. “[Using the same material] helps the eye to flow from place to place without distraction,” she says. But for variety, the Italian-made Wellborn laminate cabinets under the counter are a textured woodgrain, while the ones on the island have a glossy finish that’s directional, so the color changes slightly depending on viewpoint.

Nancy didn’t want the visual clutter of wall cabinets, and Hart agreed: “It’s a more modern feel” to leave the wall space open. With less cabinet space (and thus less storage), Hart had to get creative. Short floating shelves on one wall of the corner fit with the kitchen’s open look, and keeping dishes or vases there adds a spot of color. A built-in silverware drawer right above the dishwasher makes it a cinch to unload the clean utensils.  

Hart is proudest of her solution for the microwave: “You want it at the right level and easy to reach, not too high, or under the counter. So we put it on its own little tower, with several drawers under it.”

One nifty touch that David appreciates is the under-counter corner cabinet. In most kitchens, this space is either useless or really difficult to access. But Hart recommended a two-shelf unit that rotates completely out of the cabinet. “It’s a mechanical unit, so it’s not cheap,” she notes, “but we use it a lot.”

A big part of the couple’s design program was focused on entertaining in their new home. Although there’s a wine storage area on the lower floor (taking up an entire wall—“we like wine,” Nancy notes with a smile), they also wanted to have wine on hand to serve their guests. So, in consultation with Hart, they designed a wet bar at the end of the dining table, along the wall between the kitchen and the living area.

With the bar right there, everything needed (refrigerator, racks, glassware, etc.) is conveniently placed while Nancy and David are cooking, chatting, and dining with their guests. The nine-foot-long table, its eye-catching chandelier, and the bar—backed by a wall of 4-inch by 12-inch mirrored tiles from Glass Works that play back the light—defines the dining area as the center of the open floor plan. It makes a lovely place to entertain…once we can gather again.