If anybody around here understands how locals prefer to drink their beer, it’s Mandi and Taylor Smack. The proprietors of Afton’s wildly popular Blue Mountain Brewery, the Smacks bought South Street Brewery in July and hired Wolf Ackerman to help them put their stamp on it before reopening it in November. And though lots of […]
How does a project begin for architect Adams Sutphin? First, “A question, and then listening,” he says. “And then a series of questions that become a puzzle, and then the quest to put the pieces together rationally.” That’s how he views it from his end, but Sutphin actually prides himself on taking some of the […]
Everybody talks about marrying old and new, but there are different ways to do it. You’ve got your fixer-upper farmhouses, into which you can insert contemporary elements like stainless steel dishwashers. You’ve got your new builder homes that nod to tradition with way too much crown molding. Here is something totally different, and very unusual. […]
“This was a poor man’s farmhouse,” said Jen Fariello of the classic 1890 abode she shares with her husband, Chris Conklin, and their 5-year-old son. It’s a far cry from that now. Ten years after the couple bought the place, they’ve just completed their second major update, and the house is looking polished and modern. […]
In Fauquier County’s hunt country, the views are long. Roads gently rise and fall through open fields, passing horse barns, ponds and board fences, and in the far distance, the Blue Ridge draws a curving horizon. It feels like a place where the long vistas suggest a connection to the past. In this iconic setting, […]
Mix it up. That seems to be the unofficial motto of Roderick Coles, the owner of local antiques shop The Curious Orange Store. He told us The Royal Tenenbaums has certainly influenced his taste when it comes to interior design. And it’s true—you can find anything from faux fox fur-covered benches to an 18th century […]
Do you want a handmade rug, or do want some commercially made rug? When Saul Barodofsky, co-owner of Sun Bow Trading just south of the Downtown Mall, asks you this, it’s less of a question and more of a command. A frequent lecturer at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and a 36-year veteran of […]
Staying power. That’s a quality you want in a family business—and in your home goods. Frank Eways Jr. knows the importance of both. As a third-generation rug retailer and repairer, he’s been in the biz a long time, and some 85 years after his grandfather, Salem Eways, started the company. Salem came to the United […]
What could be loftier than Monticello? Well, at least physically, Montalto is—by 410′. The neighboring mountain was once part of Jefferson’s holdings, and these days, after decades in private ownership, it’s returned to the fold. In 2004, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation bought the mountain and the grand house, called Repose, that sits atop it. To […]
Nine years ago, after working for 25 years at the Boston-based architecture firm he founded, Peter LaBau noticed he was no longer doing the same kind of work he’d set out to do. Rather than interfacing directly with clients and creating homes, he’d inadvertently shifted his focus to running the business. Although it taught him […]