Caite Hamilton

Every house is a passive solar house, by the simple fact that every home that is built sits in the sun. But architect Jeff Sties argues that that isn’t enough. “We live on a finite planet with a finite amount of affordable resources,” Sties says. “The alternative is to incorporate the free, abundant natural energy […]

Until moving back to Charlottesville two years ago, designer Alexandra Bracey spent most of her life—professional and otherwise—in larger cities, having attended the New York School of Interior Design and working there as a senior designer for Alan Tanksley. No wonder, then, why the Washington, D.C., native says she’s more “city” than “country.” “While I […]

Architect Cathy Purple Cherry started her practice, Purple Cherry Architects, in a 1,000-square-foot home with two children underfoot and two employees. Back then, as now, her focus was custom, luxury residential projects—the kind you’d see featured in home and garden magazines—and over the next few years, she hired more employees and expanded the work space […]

This month’s issue of Abode is on stands now—with a peek inside not one but three local houses, a look at a western Albemarle landscape designed in phases, a chat with designer Alana Woerpel and more. Here’s what you’ll find: Landscape architect Mary Wolf‘s recent work. Warming up to the idea of new insulation. Designer Alana […]

Just as a home has a history, so, too, does a landscape. Only, a landscape’s story, as Mary Wolf attests, is multilayered. Take, for instance, her grandmother’s property, a Civil War battlefield site where she spent her weekends growing up. The appeal of that spot of land—that it connected our national, geological and human history […]