Carol Diggs

How often do architects get asked to redesign their own work? For long-time Charlottesville architect Robert Paxton, principal at Dalgliesh Gilpin Paxton Architects, a home he had designed near Ivy in the late 1990s had been purchased by a new owner who loved its style but had some other elements in mind.  The qualities that […]

Have you ever wished that you could test drive a home? Or that you could hire someone to move in and get the first-time kinks out? Meet Mike and Isobel Sadler of Charlottesville Area Builders. Charlottesville Area Builders is a third-generation design/build business now in its fourth decade. Mike found his Marine Corps background in […]

Visitors come to Charlottesville to explore its long history and enjoy its thriving contemporary culture. So why not stay somewhere that offers a taste of both? That’s the ethos behind the Jefferson Guest House, a newly renovated 1920s residence in the heart of downtown.  Owner Reid Nagle wanted to renovate the building as a short-term […]

“We weren’t looking to move,” recalls Britt Davis. It was April 2019, the Davises had recently renovated the kitchen in their house in Ivy, and Davis had been away on a trip. “When my husband picked me up at the airport, he said he had something to show me and drove straight to this house. […]

Daniel and Meghan Edwards dreamed of building their own home. As committed environmentalists, they wanted it to be both livable and sustainable. Their budget was minimal, their commitment unwavering, and after almost 10 years, they have settled outside Stanardsville on their own little patch of land—in a home built of earth. “It’s is the first […]

When Peter Hunter was growing up in Cismont, his father would take him out driving along the back roads in the Southwest Mountains, where the young boy felt drawn to the old derelict houses scattered through those woods and fields. Years later, Peter took his son Blake along on his drives through the Blue Ridge […]