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Architect Rosney Co. Architects  Builder Greer and Associates Interior design Jennifer Stoner Interiors  Landscape architect Waterstreet Studio

As soon as I came up here and saw the view, I called my wife and said, ‘I’ve found the place,’” recalls Hugh Shytle. “I felt like I was on top of the world.” 

Shytle and his wife Doreen had lived in New England and raised their children there, but when it came time to build their forever home, Hugh was drawn to central Virginia. As a remote-working partner in a Richmond-based real estate development firm, Hugh was familiar with the area, and the couple homed in on southern Albemarle County close to Charlottesville. When a colleague of Hugh’s called about a lot in Blandemar, he came to check out the site, took in the 360-degree view from the hilltop over rolling hills and the Ragged Mountains, and was hooked. 

Hugh had already been networking with colleagues in the Charlottesville area for a design team. By the time the Shytles had closed on the site, they had an architect (Rosney Co.); a builder (Greer and Associates); a landscape architect (Waterstreet Studio); and an interior designer (Jennifer Stoner Interiors) lined up. “We had never built a home before,” Doreen says, “so it helped that we had a great team.” 

Having the full team involved from the start “is really our preferred approach,” says Rosney Co. architect Keith Scott. And the site was a plus—not only for its “outstanding” views, but because working on the flat hilltop made construction easier (“steep sites are a budget killer,” he says). Scott says Hugh’s experience in the real estate business helped prepared the Shytles for the hundreds of decisions they had to make—and the many blips that can cause delays or changes in plans. 

The couple had also given lots of thought to their forever home. Hugh, in fact, had a 10-page document listing everything the pair wanted. Top of the list: “maximizing the view with lots of windows.” Other have-to-haves: two home offices at opposite ends of the house (“Doreen doesn’t want to hear me on conference calls,” Hugh laughs); an owner’s bedroom suite on the first floor; lots of fireplaces; and a large screened porch. Doreen wanted a shingle-style house and a large open kitchen with a pantry; Hugh wanted geothermal heating, an outdoor kitchen by the pool area, and a barn. And, of course, room for their two children and family to visit. 

As the design progressed and “forever” choices had to be made, the original plan for 5,000 square feet ended up at almost 7,000. The Shytles hadn’t originally asked for a full basement, for example, but “we were glad to have that [workout room] when COVID hit,” Doreen recalls. (The couple came to Charlottesville in June 2017 to oversee construction, and moved into their new house in January 2019.)

The finished home feels comfortable and human-scale, both spacious and well-organized, and the stunning views are everywhere. The main entry’s back wall is the staircase silhouetted against a two-story window. The wing to the left is the owners’ suite: a calm and private bedroom with fireplace and large windows west and south; a couple’s bathroom with separate vanities and a makeup table, heated floors, a walk-in shower, and a free-standing tub; his-and-hers dressing rooms with loads of cabinets and clothing spaces (including shelves for Hugh’s hats); a laundry room with built-in storage drawers, drying racks, and even a step on which to place the laundry basket.

To the right of the entry, past the formal dining room, is the high-ceilinged great room featuring a fieldstone fireplace and a two-story southwest-facing window. The comfortable furnishings are warm neutrals, with accents of wood, and nature-themed contemporary artwork. “Our house in New England was a colonial, with dark wood furniture,” Doreen says. “We decided to get rid of almost all of it.” (They did keep several lovely bedsteads and dressers for the upstairs guest rooms.)

Off the great room is the large open-plan kitchen with its own dining area and spacious windows running along both sides. This is Doreen’s domain: “I wanted a large but well-organized space, white but not sterile.” So the expanse of white cabinets is lightened up by opaque patterned-glass inserts, the counters are gray-streaked honed Montclair Darby marble, and the cabinet under the island is a neutral lined oak. One side of the island’s large counter is a half oval that gives people gathering on the bar stools more room. The handmade range hood of burnished nickel from Thompson Traders is set off by the chevron-patterned tiles in shades of gray on the backsplash. Tucked away off the kitchen are additional working spaces—a pantry/appliance room, and a butler’s pantry/staging area across from the dining room. And, as with any country home, there’s a good-sized mud room full of coat hooks and cubbies.

The Shytles got their other must-haves as well. Hugh’s and Doreen’s offices are on opposite ends of the second floor—with a guest bedroom suite, two bedrooms and a full bath, and a game room in between. The large screened porch, with its shingled columns, fieldstone fireplace, and large-screen television, functions as an all-season outdoor gathering space. Beyond the pool area (designed by Waterstreet and built by Pool Designs by Schultz in Lexington) is a two-acre wildflower garden with beehives from which the family harvests its own honey. And yes, Hugh got his barn.

“We had our list of what we wanted, and the team brought it to life,” says Hugh. “People ask what we would have done differently, and it’s really very little.”

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Incorporating contemporary into classic

To prepare for decorating her new home, Doreen Shytle “spent hours on Pinterest,” she recalls. “I wanted a feeling of calm, light, airy.” Her research online led her to interior designer Jennifer Stoner.

“Doreen knew she wanted a Hamptons shingle-style house, but [for the interior] we started from scratch,” says Stoner. “I took them down to [the showrooms in] High Point, North Carolina, and she started gravitating toward more contemporary styles.”

Stoner keyed the design to the home’s stunning views: “I tried to bring in the greens and blues from nature, and focused on a warmer palette.” Choices like veined marble, textured glass, and patterned tiles in the kitchen, butler’s pantry, laundry room, and baths added warmth and texture (Cogswell Stone supplied all the stone in the home, and the patterned tiles came from Sarisand Tiles). In smaller spaces, like the butler’s pantry, the mudroom, and the powder room, Stoner and Doreen used tans and warm dark blues for the walls and cabinets.

Choosing light fixtures “was one of my favorite parts of the process,” says Stoner. Centered in the great room’s vaulted ceiling is a hanging fixture of interlocking gold-toned circles from Currey & Co. The dining room chandelier is a modern metal take on a classic candelabra, with matching wall scones in the adjoining entry. The stairway features large vertical wall scones and an unusual straight-line hanging fixture from Visual Comfort. Doreen admits she was hesitant at first, but has grown to love how they fit the space.—CD

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ou bought your house in 2021 with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 2.5 percent interest. You sure were proud of yourself as you watched interest rates skyrocket over the past two years.

Now, you’d like to move. But with that honey of a mortgage, you start thinking. Maybe you want to rent out your existing home rather than sell it.

Buy-sell decisions are complicated and unique for every homeowner. But at least one local real estate expert says it’s pretty much a no-brainer, even in today’s economy.

“We almost always encourage folks to sell,” says Brentney Kozuch of Story House Realty. “Most people want to sell so they can tap into their equity.”

Still, Kozuch admits certain circumstances could make an owner consider becoming a landlord—at least in the short term. First, the real estate market has cooled since its red-hot streak a few years ago, due in part to the rapid interest rate hikes. Average 30-year fixed mortgage interest rates in Virginia were around 7.5 percent at the turn of the year, up about 300 percent from those historic lows around 2.5 percent. Those scary mortgages are keeping some prospective buyers on the sidelines. And with most industry analysts projecting that rates will soon begin to decline, some sellers are indeed electing to hold on to their properties.

Still, the macroeconomy offers no guarantees.

“From everything that we are seeing and hearing, interest rates will drop,” Kozuch says. “But that may not be in the spring. It might be something that doesn’t happen until the third quarter.”

Second, life circumstances can dictate outside-the-box real estate strategies. Folks planning a wedding, for example, might be looking to generate cash flow without tapping into their equity. Maybe the professional opportunity to be a landlord is just too interesting to pass up. Or perhaps the tax benefits of being a landlord suit your 2024 plans.

Third, seasonality drives many housing market considerations. “In winter, buyers have more purchasing power versus in the spring,” Kozuch says. “But, prices have not dropped in our area. Charlottesville is unique compared to the surrounding counties. Prices have stayed level and even peaked in some places.” 

For homeowners trying to decide whether to wait to sell, the strong market might be a reason to unload now. But even in a relatively hot market, historical trends show sellers will be able to get more out of buyers as the weather warms.

The reality, according to Kozuch, is that most homeowners aren’t in a situation where they can rent out an existing property and move into a new home to their liking. Most folks looking to move want an upgrade, and the equity in their home is simply a must-have as they go on the market as a buyer. 

Indeed, homeowners who bought in 2021 with a mortgage at 2.5 percent are likely to have some chunky equity. “At the end of the day, they want that equity, and in just two or three years, some people have doubled what they bought their house for,” Kozuch says.

Such an equity surplus can even help new buyers balance out the hit they’ll take on today’s elevated interest rates.

“Once interest rates have settled to 5s and 6s, it’s not going to be as daunting or scary,” Kozuch says. “But if you have that 2.5 and you have the ability to rent the home out, it can be a great investment. It’s hard for the seller to give that up. We are never going to see 2s or 3s again.”

While a home’s public-facing (and public-gathering) rooms, like kitchens and dining areas, often call for more staid or timeless design, a powder bath—or even an ensuite—is the perfect opportunity to show a little personality. These three luxe loos (and their surprising wallpapers!) nailed the assignment.

Welcome to the jungle

This powder room off the home’s main entrance wasn’t part of the initial project, a whole house renovation in the Venable neighborhood, but Mandy Oliver, whose firm Oliver Falder oversaw the interior design, is so glad the homeowners changed their minds.

“We had great bones to work with,” says Oliver, who runs the business with her sister, Heidi Falder. “It was one of the most fun bathrooms we have done.”

And, to the designers’ delight, despite their initial hesitations the homeowners placed no restrictions or limitations on the design. They began by choosing the floor (sourced from Sarisand Tile).

“We were trying to find a wallpaper that held its own against it,” Oliver says. “When we suggested the one currently installed she immediately said ‘yes!’ It worked out beautifully.”

For the trees

It’s not unusual for rooms to work double duty—guest rooms often are used as offices, dens take on a second life as playrooms—but this North Downtown basement bathroom had to take on three roles: bathroom to the guest bedroom and basement living area, as well as powder room fill in for the main level.

“Because of this,” says designer Betsy Kraft, “I wanted to ensure that it was punchy and bold but also highly functional.” The first step, given the poor shape the room was in, was ripping everything out and starting fresh. The minimal square footage proved to be a challenge, too (“originally the shower clearance was only about seven feet,” Kraft says), but Kraft worked with Peter Johnson Builders to finagle the shower casing and make the space a bit more roomy.

The showstopper, though, is the wallpaper. It was the colors that spoke to the homeowners, says Kraft. They loved that the orange and blue was a subtle nod to their alma mater, UVA. 

“They thought it was the perfect amount of whimsy surprise,” Kraft says.

Bathing birdies

Two decades ago, Dalgliesh Gilpin Paxton Architects designed a French-inspired home for a couple who’d lived in Paris. So when it came time for the current owners to renovate the space for their own needs­—to suit their active lifestyle, three teenagers, and two dogs—they turned to its original architects. 

The resulting addition comprises a primary bedroom suite, home office, guest bedroom, and adjoining guest bath. The guest bath, in particular, was one where designer Chloe Ball of Kenny Ball Designs, felt the family could do something a bit unexpected. 

“We wanted to create a fun vibe but still keep the space luxurious for guests to experience and enjoy while overnighting,” Ball says. “In Japanese culture, the crane symbolizes good fortune, longevity, and happiness. It’s considered a symbol of hope and healing as well. Perhaps this is the wish for all the guests who stay?”

Building and designing your dream home is usually a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Hours upon hours are spent researching and deciding on every detail, from where to store the KitchenAid to the right shade of white for inside the coat closet. If you’re lucky, you move in and everything is just as magical as you imagined. More likely, though, you’ll wish you’d done some things differently. After all, taste changes and hindsight is 20/20. 

So, what if you got to build your dream house twice? You could keep the things you liked, fix those pesky little problems, and drop any passé trends that old you loved.

Helen Kessler is so lucky. 

Kessler and her family moved from Norfolk to Charlottesville in 2016, when she built her first dream home, a modern barn-style dwelling. After living there for five years, the family decided to move. A piece of land popped up in Greenwood, they got an offer on their old home, and suddenly they had the challenge of building a new home from scratch in the midst of the pandemic with a tight deadline. 

Mitchell Shifflett of Evergreen Builders was brought on as project lead, and Kessler’s friend Kristin Cory as architect. The team got to work using photographs and drawings of the original home, and by summer 2022 the Kesslers had moved into their new one. 

Sitting neatly atop nearly 22 acres of the land, the dream house 2.0 is a sleek testament to the beauty of contrasting forms and materials. Dark, concrete composite boards in the shade Midnight Oil wrap the house, broken up by a wall of pale stone. The rich hues of the concrete seamlessly carry up to the gabled roof. 

“It’s a very sort of taut, minimalist feel to the outside,” says Cory. “There are minimal overhangs on the roof and minimal trim. Everything’s very clean.” 

More contrast can be found in the French gravel patio that leads from the driveway to the front door—a glass window that lets visitors see straight through the house and through the windows at the other end.

When the Kesslers built their first home, they decided to lean into the new-for-the-time modern farmhouse look. The home featured two stories, a flat roof section, an “H” shape, and a white exterior. Since then, the white farmhouse has certainly had a mainstream moment, so Helen looked to Europe for some fresh inspo. 

The new build—with its single story, “L” shape, and unique hues—is inspired by Suffolk barns found in the South of England and Scandinavian barn homes.

“It’s a Nordic kind of look and feel without it feeling too architectural or too cold,” Kessler says. “We did want it to feel like a warm and inviting, natural family home, not something that was really stylized and overly designed.”

The doors open to an open-concept living, dining, and kitchen area, which at once feels minimal and clean, yet lived in and homey. Kessler achieved this by using a warm-toned white for the walls and a vaulted ceiling, clever lighting with dimmers (like the white resin antler chandelier by Kathy Kuo Home), and texture through rugs, overstuffed furniture, and pops of color. 

One way Kessler incorporated color and added depth into the space is through sparingly placed opulent wallpapers.

“I do love minimalism and that clean, Nordic aesthetic, but I also enjoy some of the richer, more dramatic English wallpapers that you get in some of the country homes,” she says. 

Though the front door opens right into the open living space, Kessler was able to create the feel of a separate foyer by papering a botanical wallpaper with flowers and bees on two walls facing each other right inside the door. The bathroom backsplashes also come alive with trippy wallpapers, like the kaleidoscopic pattern in the primary bedroom’s ensuite bathroom, and pink alligator print in the powder room.

In the kitchen, the cabinetry is kept entirely below waist-level, drawing the eye upwards to the dark soapstone countertops and a backsplash made from the same concrete boarding found outside. The center of the kitchen boasts two custom-built islands from local maker Mike Conway of Conway Custom Woodworks, topped with thick slabs of Carrara marble. 

Raw materials continue to make appearances in the restoration hardware table, and the radiant-heat concrete floors, which give an earthy feel to the space, and fun details, like a wood-burning stove from Malm, give the house a charming feel. 

“I think about, as an architect, what I would love to do differently with a project once it’s done,” says Cory. “That’s what Helen’s been able to do with this house. She lived in the old house, it was her dream house, and she had it exactly the way she wanted. Then she was able to do everything she wanted to do differently, and you can feel that.”

The renovation of Keswick Hall gave new owners Molly and Robert Hardie a chance to rethink every aspect of the luxury hotel, including moving the resort’s spa from the members-only clubhouse to its own building. The result is a reimagined facility with more service rooms, a more private setting, easier access for hotel guests and the local community, and a whole new ethos.

The new Keswick Hall Spa takes full advantage of its setting on a side road away from the main hotel. While the building was designed by the same firm that did the resort’s renovation (Hart Howerton), its look and feel are completely geared to its “away from the world” identity, beginning with its exterior—warm fieldstone, dark seamed metal roof, and large windows, as distinct from the creamy stucco and terracotta tiles of the Italianate main complex.

“The materials inside and out were chosen to be reflective of the setting,” says spa director Molly Flora. The interior palette created by Howerton designer Philippe Gozlan echoes the greens, blues, and browns of the natural environment that’s visible through all the large windows. There’s even a meditation walk of tan gravel and slate borders set in the grounds nearby.

The entrance/reception area says “spa” right away—light filled, creamy neutrals and blond wood, soft chairs. For guests stopping by to shop, the boutique is just off the lobby. Big windows, a vaulted ceiling, and muted lights show off the skin and hair-care products—­“all organic and natural,” says Flora—plus sleep and lounge wear from local designer Gillian Valentine.

Across the lobby is a waiting area with manicure stands and private rooms for pedicures and hair treatments. Here too the setting is soft furnishings and carpets, toss pillows, calming blues and grays. The fabrics and art are natural themes, including several stunning depictions of flowers created by Richmond paper artist Daphne Lee. 

Patrons enter the service areas through the women’s and men’s locker rooms, where the hallways and bathrooms feature heated stone floors, smooth marble counters, muted lighting, and arrangements of fresh flowers. Both infrared saunas and steam rooms are available, as are individual dressing rooms for those who want privacy. Guests then emerge into an octagonal midnight-blue foyer with tiny lights like stars winking in the ceiling. Beyond, is The Overlook, where guests wait to be fetched for their individual services. 

The Overlook is the heart of the spa. One end is a two-story window, as though guests are ensconced in the surrounding meadows and woods. Chairs with plump ecru and beige pillows and daybeds with lush blankets are positioned to take full advantage of the views. The walls are pale cream, with only a few nature-themed abstract art works; the vaulted ceiling is slatted wood paneling in a warm tan; the pendant lamps are golden teardrop-shaped glass. The abstract patterned area rug, manufactured in India, uses the same cream, blue, green, and gray shades as the ones in the foyer, waiting room, and boutique, “but each pattern is a little different,” Flora says. The hallways leading to the service rooms are screened by panels of leaded glass roundels. 

One of the benefits of creating a spa from the ground up is that the service rooms can be designed for the needs of both guests and service professionals. One room is specifically geared for couple’s services (with its own two-person shower), and another for ADA access. Every service room has those touches that make for a luxury experience—counters with plenty of drawers to keep products accessible but out of sight; wall panels that enable quick and soundless adjustments to lighting and music; a warming rack for the guest’s robe. The massage table’s face cradle is gel-filled “so you don’t get that pressure on your sinuses,” says Flora.

And, of course, there are fresh flowers here, too.

For a lot of us home-decor lovers, the bones of a house are sometimes the least exciting part. We give some thought to what windows will get the best light, and how we want the kitchen to flow, but it’s the finishing touches—patterns, colors, furniture—that make designing a house fun. 

Crozet couple Bob and Bev LoPinto have a different outlook. For them, good bones make a world of difference.

The couple started building their home in 2020. They chose Crozet to be close to family, and decided to do a custom build in a Stanley Martin community. Going custom was essential for the LoPintos, who wanted to build their house according to ancient Indian building principles that connect inner spirituality and social harmony with dwelling construction (think feng shui).

The principles go by various names, including vastu shastra (“structure science”) and sthapatya veda (“establishment knowledge”). It all roughly translates to the science of architecture, and it includes directives on orientation, placement, symmetry and proportion, and more. 

From the outside, you might not even be able to tell that the LoPinto home is steeped in such ancient traditions. According to Bob, that’s because surface-level design doesn’t really matter, it’s what’s beneath that counts. 

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity for personal preference,” says Bob. “We went with a Mediterranean, Italian-like stucco exterior for our house.”

It’s perhaps easiest to incorporate vastu into a new build where you have total control over all variables, but if you’re renting or buying, Bob says there’s one rule that’s most important to follow. 

“The most important principle of vastu and sthapatya veda is the orientation,” says Bob. “That it’s true east or true north, any other orientation is not ideal. The rest [of the principles] make it even better, but if one has a choice, look for true east and true north.”

The LoPintos chose to face their house east to take advantage of the nourishing influence of the rising sun. Connection to nature is another big part of vastu, and a lot of the rules are designed to help residents take advantage of the benefits of the natural world. 

Moving past the unassuming exterior, the house opens into a massive, two-story entryway atrium. While most atriums are grand, and meant to impress, the LoPinto atrium serves another, more intentional purpose. 

In the center of the atrium—in the very center of the house—sits a table with flowers, which marks the brahmasthan of the house. The brahmasthan refers to the “silent center,” which is where the intelligence of the house is believed to live. The space is meant to help distribute positive energy, and serves as another reflection of nature, mimicking the “silent” center found in the heart of a cell, a seed, or even a hurricane.

The rest of the house flows from the atrium, and features 10-foot ceilings, lots of symmetry, and plenty of natural light sources. All the dimensions are precisely calculated, and the LoPintos made an effort to be energy efficient and sustainable where they could by installing triple pane windows, a high-efficiency heat pump, all-natural wood flooring, and limestone details.

The kitchen can be found in the southeast corner of the house.

“As the sun goes through the sky, its highest point is in the southeast, and your largest meal of the day should be lunchtime,” says Bob. “So the orientation of the sun coincides with the peak of your digestion, it’s in synchrony with nature.”

If the LoPintos need to take a moment away from all the hustle and bustle, they head to the meditation room in the northeast corner, another area known for conducting good vibes. The 12×12-foot room features soft lighting, and has metal-clad wiring with a built-in power kill switch.

“The bedrooms and the meditation room are all built with power kill switches, so when you’re sleeping you can turn off all the outlets so there’s no electromagnetic influence,” Bob says.

The most notable part of the house is the lit cupola that sits atop the roof and glows different colored hues. A glowing cupola isn’t mandated by vastu—”that was for fun,” says Bob.

For the LoPintos, it’s a design they can feel. 

“You walk in and feel uplifted, not imposed upon,” says Bob. “I wouldn’t live in any other kind of house, and once you’re in it you won’t want to leave.”