The style of central Virginia’s wine-tasting rooms generally reflects their rural, agrarian roots. Some have a rustic, barn-like feel, because vineyards are essentially farms. Others exude the refinement and grandeur of a country estate, where one might relax with a glass of viognier after a morning on horseback. There are exceptions. Gabriele Rausse Winery built […]
The fundamental nature of art,” says Tate Pray, “is that it has no use.” But the Charlottesville-based designer seems bent on proving that maxim wrong, crafting wooden furniture that’s both functional and reflective of his playful sense of humor. Pray seems to thrive on contradictions. He uses traditional woodworking techniques to give his stylish Modernist […]
The address of the wedge-shaped building is 550 E. Water St., but it is better known simply as 550. That’s what happens when a piece of architecture breaks new ground. It becomes a symbol, and a shorthand reference is enough to identify it. Designed by Cecilia Hernandez Nichols and her husband, Robert Nichols—founders and principals […]
This can’t be real. That’s the thought that popped into my head when I saw Wade’s Mill. The rustic wood-and-stone structure, with its big water wheel and dark raised- seam roof, basked in the soft sunlight of a late-fall day. As I approached, car windows wide open, I felt as if I were moving toward […]
“I started painting moths eight years ago. Each of the first few took months to complete, but now I can paint one a week. I’ve done 110, including several of the same species; I expect that number to rise steadily, since I paint every day. “At night, on the side of the shed on my […]
In a part of the Shenandoah Valley where history is prized especially deeply, just outside the village of Brownsburg, a relocated log cabin called Briar Hill is full of a special sense of the past. It embodies its own history dating back to the turn of the 18th century, when it was originally built on […]
The house, dating all the way back to 1742, didn’t need much work. But the five-acre property surrounding it did. When Sarah Van Steenburg bought a historic house near Barboursville in 2015, she appreciated the renovation work already completed on the structure, and she was attracted to what she calls the “money shot”—the view from […]
Rob and Amylynn Johnson bought a Cape Cod on a quiet Albemarle street in 2012, knowing they’d give it a major renovation at some point. Not only was it not quite the house they wanted, but Rob is the owner of Green Mountain Construction, and the couple aren’t the type to shy away from a […]
Transforming the building that now houses Patisserie Torres was “almost like an archaeological dig,” says architect David Timmerman with BRW Architects. It was a yearlong process just to renovate the exterior of the 1820s building on the corner of Third Street NE and the Downtown Mall—a building that has seen its share of change and […]
Barbara Stettner grew up in the wine country of northern California, but she’d been in Virginia for 15 years before she found her weekend place in Sperryville. “It’s sort of like the coastal mountains [in California],” she says, looking toward the layered Blue Ridge views. In 2011, when she and her husband, Michael Ewen, bought […]
Over about a dozen years of living in their home on an Albemarle byway, the couple saw many changes. Their twin sons grew from age 5 to nearly 18, and the family’s use of spaces in the house changed along with the boys. More houses were built along their stretch of rural byway. And the […]
When Charles D’Angelo, managing director of D.C.-based Westmount Capital Group, first saw the Clifton Inn and its surrounding countryside, his initial thought was, “Wow.” “It’s a stunning property, from the 19-acre lake and Blue Ridge mountain views to the infinity pool with the canopy of trees overhead,” says D’Angelo. As a business enterprise, however, the […]
Katherine Kane had always imagined a greenhouse in a certain spot at her magnificent garden at Waterperry Farm in western Albemarle. And not just for sheltering plants. “There are two kinds of greenhouses,” says architect Jeff Bushman, who customized the kit that Kane bought from the English company Alitex. “There are purely service buildings, and […]
Tucked behind a 1920s-era house on a small Belmont lot lies a modern wonder: a water garden oasis featuring ornamental plantings, a raised deck surrounded by a black slate patio, a hand-carved fire pit and a mountainous stone structure from which a waterfall cascades gently into a tiered, purling river. The landscape plan was dreamed […]
Back in the ’80s, I ran a landscape crew at Albemarle Farm and its later incarnation as John Kluge’s Morven Farm. I kept a well-thumbed, constantly annotated 3×5 spiral notebook with a card for each month’s tasks for the areas we maintained: ornamental displays of shrubs, perennials and annuals; creekside buffers; an allee of willow […]
The house that Stacey Evans and John Grant share has been his home for 35 years; hers, for 10. It’s a pleasant, unpretentious place with a private backyard where the couple enjoys growing flowers and watching birds. For a long time they’d been living with a small, traditional kitchen that, while it overlooked the gardens, […]
The first time she saw her house, no one lived there and the doors were not even locked. For years, its previous owner had held onto it, not yet ready to sell. But in a stroke of good timing, just when the current owner got interested, the house became available—something of a rarity in this […]
Agarden’s appearance depends on its purpose, says Marlene Condon, and sometimes messier is better. “Aesthetics for me are secondary,” she says. “The most important thing is the quality of the habitat for wildlife.” Condon is a Virginia-based nature writer and photographer who has penned columns for the Daily Progress and Crozet Gazette, written for C-VILLE […]
Each season has its sounds and smells. In the quiet of late winter stinky skunk cabbage entices winged insects hungry for carrion. Spring brings birdsong and sweeter breezes although nature continues the rotting meat theme with the lurid purple hue of paw-paw flowers. As we approach the equinox of June 21, the legendary longest day […]
Though they’ve been around since the 18th century, painted floors (when done right) can be nostalgic, practical and surprisingly modern, says designer Franny Hurt. Back then, they were used in everything from modest farmhouses to Victorian mansions, helping to protect hardwoods before modern sealant was developed. Now they’re more multipurpose, used as a temporary (and […]
When your property overlooks the Moorman’s River, miles of verdant fields and finally the Blue Ridge Mountains, it seems obvious that the view is a primary attraction. Yet when one couple bought a Western Albemarle house in 2000, its siting and design didn’t do as much as they could have to connect occupants to the […]
“The pleasantest smell in the world,” wrote natural historian Robert Beverly of the Sweetbay magnolia in 1705, and its large, creamy white flowers are just as striking. Associated with nobility and perseverance, the more than 200 species of magnolia vie with dogwood, crepe myrtle, azaleas and camellias for the American South’s favorite plant. Thomas Jefferson […]
Coming from Chicago, Albemarle County can seem like a different world. When Rebekah and Adam Goldberg were hunting for a local house to buy in 2014, they were trying to strike a balance between rural bliss and the neighborhood feel they were used to. “Adam wanted land and privacy,” says Rebekah. “I also like to […]