Erika Howsare

There’s no architectural union more typically Charlottesville than the marriage of new and old. And the project of marrying a historical legacy to a fresh, modern sensibility isn’t limited to the residential world. At the Water Street offices of Signature, a financial management firm, past and present combine in an upscale office that honors its […]

Ryan Williamson had never used a chainsaw when he began logging his own Earlysville homesite in 2005. And he was “always kind of scared of power tools,” but that didn’t stop him from building his own house and workshop the next year. To say Williamson has a can-do spirit doesn’t quite do him justice. He’s […]

One advantage to moving around a lot? You figure out what you want. By the time Mark and Ellen Jackson approached Bushman Dreyfus Architects several years ago about designing a house, they’d lived in enough places—New Jersey, London, Chicago—to develop a detailed list of wants. These began with broad strokes: The house, destined to sit […]

“It hadn’t been touched for 50 years and was a beautiful disaster.” That was Belle Haven, Jan Glennie-Smith’s historic Scottsville estate, when she moved there 22 years ago. The house, built around 1880, overlooks the James River and anchors a sweeping tract of woods and fields. “I started just by uncovering the foundation gardens,” she […]

Behind Kelley and Susan Blanton’s home, outside Staunton, is a symbol of its new-meets-old spirit. In a juxtaposition of technologies from different eras, a large array of solar panels, propped on an angle, shelters a stack of firewood. The Blantons have a deep appreciation for what’s old: low-tech craftsmanship and natural materials. When they built […]

After decades spent living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Don and Minna Doyle found themselves facing catastrophe when Hurricane Katrina flooded their house with 12′ of water in 2005. “It was structurally sound, but everything had to be replaced,” Minna remembered. While many of their neighbors threw everything away, the Doyles were more inclined to […]

The camellia is an all-around surprising plant. First of all, this evergreen actually blooms in, of all seasons, winter. Autumn-flowering camellias bloom from November through mid-January. And while spring-blooming camellias aren’t supposed to put out flowers until March or April, “last winter and this winter they’re already blooming” by the third week of January, said […]