LOCATION

Wardensville, WV

 

This generous 2 Bedroom 2 ½ bath mountain home strategically set on 2 ½ acres of heavily wooded mountainside bordering the George Washington National Forest, was designed and sited to maximize the passive solar gain the site offered and to leverage the stunning mountain, stream and wildlife ambiance of the adjacent national forest. This mountain home was designed to accommodate the owners growing family, their love of nature and hate of home maintenance. The house is virtually maintenance free with a standing seam metal roof, Hardi siding, aluminum clad wood windows and concrete porches, built to be open and airy on the interior, with high vaulted ceilings and generous natural light but built to maximum energy standards. With wide plank wood floors throughout, wood detailing, wood doors, monumental stair to the second floor loft and bedrooms, the house retains a warm, cozy feeling as the house fills up with family and friends at holidays and special events.

The house features a wide and welcoming 6 x 30 open front entry sitting porch; a large master bedroom suite with large vaulted master bedroom with wood burning stove, bath with roll in shower, walk in closet, home office and covered sitting porch built over a natural spring fed creek; large vaulted living-dining-kitchen space with wood burning stove and 8 foot tall french doors which open out to the forest and onto a 15 x 20 screen porch over the creek adjacent to the house. Above the kitchen and utility rooms is a large open loft overlooking the living room, bedroom and bath. Finally, there is also a large powder room, full laundry/mud room, pantry, 2 car garage, grilling deck and a full attic above the garage for storage.

Overall the house was designed to comfortably accommodate 2 or a raucous gang of 12. Designed as a weekend retreat to evolve over time into a retirement home and family retreat center, the house was built with sturdy, energy efficient bones and lots of space for the family to grow into over the years and decades to come. With it’s adjacency to the national forest this retreat transforms seasonally from a secluded summer haven from the urban life of the family, into a fall color spectacular, winter wonderland full of wildlife and natural beauty and a blossoming spring wildlife and bird sanctuary.

Photographer: Andy Ramirez

LOCATION

Amatanth, PA

 

This new farm house was built to replace a century old family homestead that burned down in a tragic, all consuming fire in the winter of 2003. The new house was designed to replace the original house not in form but in spirit and function. With an artist in the household, the house design needed to include a large art studio and commanding views in all directions to take advantage of the wonderful light throughout the day for landscape painting. The house was situated, in nearly the same spot as the original farmhouse, with every effort made to maintain and protect the mature elm and oak trees and the rear yard fruit trees around the house that were not destroyed by the original fire.

The design was created with full accessibility in mind. The custom mahogany 4 foot wide front door welcomes you into a light filled central stair hall which distributes you to the coat hall, powder room, guest suite, master bedroom suite and lofted great room which houses the living dining areas with adjacent open plan kitchen. The stair hall leads you to the second floor guest bedroom suite, bunk room for the kids and the art studio with both covered and open decks for painting, reading or sunning.

The living room features an enormous 4 foot by 5 foot Eldorado Stone fireplace with a slab pear mantle that was cut from an old tree lost to the fire that destroyed the original house. There are 2 custom fabricated 20m arm black iron chandeliers hanging from the cathedral ceiling and a full wall of glass flanking the fireplace to the east which bring in the morning light. There is a 40 foot wide open porch with arts and crafts stucco chimney with random placed Pewabic Pottery storey tiles. Several porch swings that were rescued from the original house hang here for evening story time with the grandchildren.

The large family style kitchen features a large open counter to the dining area with custom fabricated iron brackets featuring frogs, lizards and grass hoppers. Off the kitchen is a full laundry room and pantry. Thru the kitchen to the western sunset is a screened dining porch with a fireplace for those lovely evening dinners when the temperature dips just a little below comfort level. This screened porch is shared by the Master bedroom suite.

The Master bedroom suite features a large walk in closet, heated stone tiled Master bathroom with walk-in shower and linen closet. The bedroom has a modest wood burning fireplace adjacent to the whirlpool bathtub bay window niche to the west, for that romantic wind down at the end of the day. There is a screened porch to the south and an open porch to the north depending on your mood for enjoying the views.

The second floor art studio is a light filled lofted space with south facing windows, west covered deck and north open deck, each space with the best commanding views of the farm and the swimming pond across the field to the west. From here the painter in the house can see for miles in any direction and has adjacent farms, extended valley views or mountain views to choose as her subject.

The exterior metal roof echoes the original house while the new double insulated aluminum clad wood windows and doors and cement horizontal plank siding and shingles provide a virtually maintenance free shell to protect this wonderful new homestead which will be enjoyed by generations to come.

LOCATION

West Virginia

LOCATION

Georgia

LOCATION

Yellow Spring, WV

This modest 2 Bedroom 2 ½ bath mountain retreat nestled deep within 20 heavily wooded acres, was designed to create a cozy, maintenance free retreat replete for a busy urban family with a wide and welcoming 10 x 20 open front entry sitting porch; 2 master bedroom suites; a large sleeping/storage loft; an large open plan, high vaulted living-dining-kitchen area with a large wood burning fireplace and adjacent 15 x 30 screen porch; and a full walk out basement with laundry, workshop and family recreation rooms. The retreat has standing seam metal roof, aluminum clad wood windows, Hardi siding, cedar decks and poured concrete foundation and is virtually maintenance free.

LOCATION

Falls Church, VA

LOCATION

Warrenton, VA

This “green construction” mountain retreat was created as a mountain retreat from the hustle and bustle of nearby Washington D.C. The house is nestled on a heavily wooded 21 Acre site on a plateau in the mountains in West Virginia. The house was sited to exploit an 3 acre clear cut scar on the mountain left from the previous ownership by a timber company who used the site to sort and store timber for transport off the mountain. We sited the house at the top of the scar facing east to capture the sunrise, dug a new 100 foot diameter, 10 foot deep Koi sanctuary and planted the remainder of the scar with annual wild flowers to provide the house with fresh flowers during the entire growing season.

The symmetrical design of the house was created around a central entry-stair hall on the west elevation with a view axis thru the house to the sunrise in the east over the pond. The vaulted living room space to the north with anchoring stone and brick fireplace with a timber mantle harvested from the site, with adjoining open plan dining room and kitchen balancing to the south. There is a 15 x 15 screen porch with a massive stone and brick fireplace off the living room to the north balanced by a 15 x 15 screen dining porch off the kitchen to the south. A 15 x 50 wood deck with custom hand wrought metal railings flanks the east side of the house with a commanding view over the property onto the distant national park across the valley to the east.

The standing seam metal roof caps a the cedar plank sided house, with cedar shingles at the dormers and house ridges to articulate scale and add visual texture. The arts & crafts style brick and stone chimney anchors the house with a large 4 foot by 5 foot fireplace opening in the living room and a more modest fireplace on the adjacent living room screened porch. This brick and stone design also anchors the custom steel “rooster gate” at the main entrance to the property. All the stone used in the house was harvested from the property.

The house hosts 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths with the master suite on the first level and 2 guest rooms, full bath and sitting area on the second level. The interior walls and ceilings of the public spaces are birch paneled to amplify the acoustical effect of the baby grand piano in the main living room. The custom made 4 foot diameter iron chandelier dominates the high volume of the main living room, with custom titanium ceiling fans circulating air to eliminate the need for supplemental heating and cooling in the house. The adjacent open kitchen-dining room plan filling out the view side of the main floor plan. The custom fabricated steel “Rooster Gate” was commissioned from and designed in collaboration with the famous, late french sculptor Lucien Ferrenbach who resided nearby with his artist wife BeBe. “LuLu” also created the sculptural deck railings, roof brackets fireplace tools and andirons as well as numerous landscape follies for the house.

The landscape and hardscape was designed using native plant materials, site harvested stone and the existing natural contours of the land to create a virtually maintenance free bounty of fresh flowers, privacy screening and herbal gardens amidst the dense pine and oak forest background.

Photographer: Andy Ramirez

LOCATION

Yellow Springs, WV