Pattern play

Nowadays, it seems like current lighting trends lean more toward minimalist shapes and neutral palettes. While a slender floor lamp or simple pendant chandelier can certainly tie a room together, they sure can be boring to look at.  Tired of basic lighting options, artists Abby Kasonik and Kiki Slaughter pooled their talent to create a […]

Everything in its place

Where is the balance between traditional and modern? After purchasing a ranch home in Albemarle County, a young family went searching for just that—and found it in the kitchen. Hoping to strike a balance between the home’s traditional architecture and their own mid-century modern aesthetic, they turned to Green Mountain Construction. While other parts of […]

Back to life

What’s in your back yard? Some people have a fire pit, or a small pond with water lilies and koi, or a trampoline and a tree house. Matt Lucas has a 200-year-old log cabin. “I’ve always been interested in old things,” says Lucas, a D.C.-area native who graduated from UVA and made a career in […]

It’s about the journey

Kenny Ball has been finding, buying, and selling European antiques for more than three decades. His showroom on Ivy Road is filled with beautiful furniture, furnishings, and decorative arts. You might assume a background of wealth and privilege…but the road that brought him here began with a pony.  “I didn’t grow up with these things,” […]

The house of the three chimneys

Chimney House doesn’t announce itself. Turn onto the gravel road, drive under a few trees and up a short grassy slope, and the house is revealed, silhouetted against the sky and the Blue Ridge in the distance. The exposed hilltop, the almost windowless white brick walls and steep dark metal roof, the rustle of tall […]

Moving on up

It wasn’t love at first sight for Brian Tuskey and the split-foyer, two-story house that would eventually become his home. But now, with a recent reno that modernized and maximized space especially in the kitchen, the local architect has made the house his own. “It was this ugly tan brick, the split foyer turned me […]

Form and function—for the future

A two-car garage is a luxury rarely afforded to residents of the quaint neighborhoods in downtown Charlottesville. Tucked behind a single-story home is just that, although its mere existence is not its most remarkable trait. This carport is equipped with solar panels generating enough power to charge an electric vehicle—and more. The first of its kind […]

A slice above

“You can do irrefutably impossible things with the right amount of planning and support from intelligent and hardworking people and pizza,” says writer Scott Gimple. Rockpile Construction’s masterpiece pizza oven is a testament to that assertion.   The team at Rockpile had just completed a custom-built home in Albemarle County when the clients approached owner […]

Two for one

Jennifer and Wil VanLoh had reached the stage in life where they were thinking about having a vacation home, a small retreat, someplace different from their home in Houston. Their daughter Mary was headed off to UVA, in a charming college town right next to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Wouldn’t it be nice to have […]

A tale of three pools

Summer in Virginia. It’s hot and humid; you’re sticky and cranky and don’t feel like moving—or even leaving the house. Wouldn’t you love to have a pool, right outside the back door? A swimming pool makes the summer fun instead of unbearable—and in this area, one that’s well-designed can create a space for outdoor living […]