The concept of urban placemaking surfaced in the 1960s, when writer and activist Jane Jacobs successfully led the fight to block a planned highway through New York’s Greenwich Village, and urban planner William “Holly” Whyte began the Street Life Project, documenting how built environments shaped the way people behave and interact. Today, Jacobs’ The Death […]
The couple was living in Boston when they started looking for an architect to build their house on a mountaintop in Albemarle County. It would have to be a unique design, one that meshed with their reverence for nature and rigorous commitment to personal fitness (he’s a serious hiker and outdoorsman, she’s an avid runner). […]
Christina Osheim distills a wealth of fine arts education and diverse influences into her ceramics. She studied at Minnesota’s St. Olaf College, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art before establishing her Charlottesville studio, Möbius Keramikk, at 1740 Broadway St. Her wheel-thrown objects (cups and tumblers) and items with stenciled […]
After meeting in college, the couple got married and pursued their respective careers—she as a librarian and he as a patent attorney—living for many years in Delaware. About two years ago, when the time came for them to retire, there was little question they’d end up near Keswick, specifically, on a piece of land connected […]
The graphic artist, web designer, and bookbinder worked in Charlottesville for many years, running her own business. She shifted gears, taking a full-time job at a non-profit. But after a while, she wanted to get back to being her own boss, and to find a way to spend more time in the country, gardening, hiking, […]
On a quiet street in Charlottesville sits a not-too-eyecatching house, its plain brick façade all but obscured by a screen of trees. Yet this is far from an ordinary rancher. In fact, it serves as a connection to a wider, more cosmopolitan world, and to an optimistic time in architectural history, when the International Style […]
Chef Ian Rynecki and gardener Diane Burns modestly refer to their creation at Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards as a kitchen garden, but the result of their collaboration is nothing less than the ideal template for farm-to-table cooking. Before making his way to Albemarle County in 2017, Rynecki had climbed a ladder with a basket […]
The Charlottesville woman grew up in California wine country—St. Helena, to be precise. Her home, where she lived until she was 16, had a farmhouse feel: open, airy, and not fussy in the least. It was a place for family and friends to gather and literally see one another, without too many walls getting in […]
Ever wonder where those Yodels-like rolls of grass come from that you’ve seen stacked on pallets or laid out in front of a newly built home? From a sod farm, of course. Growing and harvesting sod is a practice that thrives mainly out of sight (and out of mind). But in Orange County, Andy and […]
There’s an air of mystery about the renovated third-floor apartment on the Downtown Mall. A wall of rough-sawn reclaimed white oak treated with bleaching oil runs nearly the entire length of the main room, interrupted only by the rectangular opening that accommodates the black-glass stovetop, kitchen sink, and counter space for food prep. It’s a […]