The house enjoys an extraordinary location, overlooking miles of Albemarle countryside from a high mountainside perch. Throughout the day the sun makes its crossing from east to west across a wide expanse of sky, while fields and woods unroll below for what seems like forever. When the present owners came here in 1996, they loved […]
When Lincoln Perry lived in a house on Altamont Circle, he would crawl up to the roof of the Altamont apartment building to get a good view of the North Downtown neighborhood’s brick houses and church steeples for some of his paintings, including the one shown here. This painting is part of a series that […]
For the last five years, Christy Baker has made herself into Charlottesville’s go-to person for refinishing furniture in bright, unexpected colors as the creative director at Pigment, so it was just a matter of time until she got to the heart of the matter: the paint itself. With Good Bones, her line of durable, low-VOC […]
It’s a sign of a Charlottesville that’s growing and changing. On a site on East High Street, where once stood two small single-family houses, architect and developer Richard Price is creating a cluster of modern buildings to provide “medium-density” working and living space. At the moment, much of the project is yet to be built—but […]
My circle of acquaintances happily includes many who make their lives in horticulture. Their answers to my idle query, “What is your favorite tool?” ranged from humorous—a professional gardener, 5-gallon bucket and a radio—to the obscure, among them the intriguing swan hoe, an ingenious asparagus knife with scuffle attachment and a number of beloved Japanese […]
One of the most iconic images from the classic holiday film A Christmas Story is the fishnet stocking- and black stiletto-clad leg lamp that causes quite a stir when Ralphie’s dad, Mr. Parker, displays it in the front window of his home at Christmastime. With its fringe-trimmed shade reminiscent of a can-can dancer’s skirt, the […]
It’s an open concept world and we’re just living in it. And while the kitchen-living-dining layout creates accessibility (and visibility), it’s a challenge to decorate. John Kriebel, a designer at The Artful Lodger, has a solution: swivel chairs. “I use them as a great connector for entertaining,” he says. “You have two places guests and […]
Don’t call Brian and Andrea Hubbell flippers. Even though they admit what they’re doing sounds a lot like that, the husband-and-wife team behind HubbHouse think they can come up with a better term, one that conveys their more thoughtful approach. “We’re definitely not a quick-flip company,” says Brian. “Quality is really important and the process […]
Talk about seizing the day. When Anna Boeschenstein found out that a practically new kitchen was slated to be removed from a home in Farmington, she realized she was looking at a golden opportunity. The place had served as the 2014 Design House—a fundraiser for the Shelter for Help in Emergency, in which many local […]
The house in downtown Charlottesville had lived many lives. Built in the early 1900s, one of a number of similar foursquare houses on its street, it had served for decades as an office building before Gerald and Marianne Starsia first saw it in 2014. And though the couple liked the structure right away, they also […]
What does it mean for a garden to have “good bones”? Like a beautiful woman or a handsome man, it’s what remains when the bloom is gone. Some believe good bones reveal character, or perhaps it’s just a matter of chance. We know it when we see it, however, in gardens as well as faces. […]
Dave Fafara stands over the noisy machine in the back of his Shenandoah Joe’s Preston Avenue shop, coffee-scented steam rising from a batch of freshly roasted beans. A metal arm pushes through the beans heaped in the cooling tray, and Fafara occasionally stirs them with his hand, until they’re cool enough to slide out a […]
As a professional designer, Kathy Heiner is familiar with all the twists and turns of the renovation process. So, when it came time to redo the kitchen in the Bellair house she’s shared with her sons since 2012, she appreciated having the luxury of time to think about what she wanted. “Lori Randle and I […]
Perched high in the surrounding mountains of Crozet is the stunning and solitudinous modern home of Rod and Maggie Walker. Located in Albemarle County and overlooking the Sugar Hollow Reservoir, the 1,500-acre property is accessed by way of a lengthy country road that, after winding through forested hills and over single-lane bridges, arrives at the […]
The cabin sits on a steep Albemarle mountainside under a tall forest canopy. It was built in West Virginia, probably in the early 1800s; it was moved here in the 1970s, reconstructed and updated with basic conveniences like plumbing. Its owners used it only a few weeks per year as a vacation spot. Then, on […]
Home locking technology hadn’t changed much for more than a century—until a few years ago. The advent of the smart home gave folks the ability to take their front door security, and locks in general, out of the dark ages. Keyless entry houses are still buttoned up with the standard pin tumblers invented in the […]
Design trends come and go. And, sometimes, they come back again. Take, for instance, wall murals. Interior designer Karena Akhavein says she’s been getting more and more requests for 21st century versions from clients of her Gordonsville studio, Pebble Hill Design. “In grand Virginia estates, it was the tradition to use pictorial wallpaper in the […]
The house would be a surprise to any visitor. Just a few minutes outside Lynchburg proper, a leafy suburban road leads to a quiet gravel driveway curving through trees. At the end of it is a stunning, open site with a far-reaching view of the mountains. It’s quite unexpected, and the new house that perches […]
The old farmhouse in Afton wasn’t exactly ready for prime time. But it had a stellar location for the short-term rental that two young homeowners dreamed of opening. Positioned in a spot with lovely mountain views, it was right down the road from popular wedding venue Veritas Vineyards—and it boasted five bedrooms. “We thought of […]
The weeping willow and sourwood, gifts for our wedding, died early on. The Austrian pine marking the birth of our grandson, Sean, (replacing the original Japanese paperbark pine accidentally mowed down) seems to be succumbing to some kind of tip die-back 16 years later, and ever since I heard about the depredations of the ambrosia […]
Skylights get a bad rap, according to Charlottesville Glass & Mirror owner Dwight Corle. That’s because years ago, they were poorly constructed, and that blinded a lot of folks to their benefits. “Like with everything, the technology has boosted the quality,” Corle says. “Most of the new skylights are tempered glass, and they look great.” […]
In August of 2016, Three Notch’d Brewing Company turned three years old. At the time, it had already established three taprooms, including its original 10,000-barrel brewing facility on Grady Avenue, plus locations in Richmond and Harrisonburg. It was around then that Three Notch’d announced plans to build a fourth restaurant and brew pub at the […]
Ray Gaines has been involved with sustainable architecture since the energy crisis of the 1970s—long before “sustainability” was a term du jour. So when an old friend approached him about building a house with passive solar functionality and other green attributes, he was more than ready to accommodate. “We talked in generalities,” he says, as […]