Erika Howsare

When Carl and Khabira Wise spoke to us for this story, it was late afternoon and they were sitting in their pool. “We normally have pool time around 4 o’clock,” says Khabira. That’s a routine the couple has quickly established just this year, in the brand-new pool that was just installed behind their Barboursville home. […]

The first time Staci Vinson and Robyn Templeton walked into their house—even though it was still under construction—they had the feeling they’d been there before. “We’d been drawing this house on napkins at happy hours for 10 years,” says Templeton. The serendipitous part was that Jason Roberson, owner of the design-build company Builderbeast, had independently […]

The couple was not looking to revamp their pool, but the year after they moved into their Albemarle house, the pool began to cave in. They realized they had a project on their hands. And they had an opportunity—to make the pool and its surroundings much more amenable to their lifestyle. “They asked me to […]

It’s quite a new house—finished less than three years ago—but the home of Monique Maniet has a settled quality, as though it’s perched on this Rappahannock hillside for a long time. A collection of buildings, more “related” than “matching,” snuggles into the slope, looking like a European village. They’re accompanied by plants of many types, […]

If anyone needs an object lesson in the power of positive thinking, look no further than Katharine “Boo” Dulaney. In 2014, after she’d lived in her Western Albemarle farmhouse for 63 years, she lost her home to a fire. Did she consider moving to town, maybe a little apartment, something easy to care for? “Never […]

The charm of many old houses is found in similar places—old-fashioned doorknobs, homey fireplaces and gracious entryways. It’s much rarer to fall in love with an aging bathroom or kitchen. When Peter Thomas bought a house in Keswick, built in 1953, he found much to appreciate, but the kitchen and bathrooms were not in the […]

A kitchen can get outdated while you’re looking the other way. Beth and Greg Morris built their house south of Charlottesville in 1999, and lived there for many busy years as their son was growing up. And although they made a couple of cosmetic changes to the kitchen during that time, it essentially remained the same. […]

Of course the house takes advantage of the views; on this spot, even a campsite would do that. But the formal, palatial home that Dalgliesh Gilpin Paxton Architects designed for an Albemarle hilltop is about more—much more—than what’s outside the windows. The “V House,” as it’s known, sits not only at a physical high point, […]

Thirty-six years is long enough to watch a forest grow. And it’s long enough to establish an enchanting garden beneath the tree canopy—a magical realm on what was once considered a neighborhood’s least desirable property. “It was the cheapest lot,” says Fran Boninti of the two-acre place she and her husband, Andrew, bought in 1981. […]

You wouldn’t expect a townhouse in Crozet to have an urban feel. But Ashley Jewell got a jolt of inspiration last year when she looked at a rendering of the townhouse that she and her husband, Tim, were planning to buy in the Old Trail development. Then unbuilt, the home had a long windowless wall […]