Erika Howsare

There are upsides and downsides to having a barn as the starting point for a house. Upside: that great barn shape. In the case of the Red Barn project, on the grounds of Castle Hill Cidery in Keswick, that form makes for an iconic and historic statement in the landscape. Downside: Iconic and historic barns […]

The farm was inspiring, in part because of what wasn’t there anymore. Roxanne Sherbeck and Jon Jackson bought a 19-acre property near Charlottesville in 2010, and as they got to know it, they started to realize that it was dotted with the decomposing stumps and logs of oak trees. The absence of those trees—or the […]

Reclaimed wood has been a hot item for years now. Most people are familiar with the idea of giving old wood, from barns or other sources, new life. Most often, the salvaged stuff ends up as flooring, though cabinetry, furniture and ceilings are also big. But the folks at Mountain Lumber, the Ruckersville company that’s […]

Customers at a small local brewery might enjoy seeing how their lagers and pale ales are actually brewed. That’s what the folks behind Random Row Brewing Co. were betting on when they designed their tasting room on Preston Avenue, which opened in mid-September.  Gleaming metal tanks are a major design element in the space, which […]

We don’t know about you, but when we hear the not-too-charming term “condo,” we tend to conjure images of dwellings that are longer on convenience than character. You know—concrete balconies, underground parking, stacked washer/dryer, that sort of thing. Well, along comes a condo that shatters the stereotype. Let’s start by considering the neighborhood. We all […]

Designer Wendi Smith found not just good but excellent bones to start with when she tackled a recent kitchen redo. And that was lucky, because the look of this kitchen was very different from what her client ultimately wanted. “She definitely has a style,” says Smith of her client. “She likes neutral and calm colors; […]

When one Charlottesville couple started building a house in December 2014, they had a front-row seat to the construction: Their new house was going up in what had been a vacant lot right next door to their old house. In their case, having daily contact with the building process was welcome—they’d been highly involved with […]

Every place has a history, but the past at some homes looms especially large. In Albemarle County, the name Kluge is synonymous with lavish wealth, wine and, unfortunately, bankruptcy. Locals—and the rest of the country—watched the fortune of Patricia Kluge rise and fall over her three decades or so in town, and a curious byproduct […]

Time was, when students at Charlottesville Catholic School wanted to do a science experiment, they’d have to contend with the elements. “Students would be heating minerals over an open flame,” recalls Principal Michael Riley. “They’d use a Petri dish with an alcohol flame. They’d be doing it outside”—because there wasn’t a properly ventilated spot indoors—“and […]