Falling in love with a house

Alana Woerpel began using her imagination to create beauty and comfort as a little girl, helping her mother sew, paint, and hang wallpaper in the houses her parents bought to renovate. These days, the UVA alum has her own business, Alana’s, Ltd., a prize-winning interior design firm.  Creating beautiful rooms has also become her avocation: […]

Sit, don’t stare

Tate Pray doesn’t consider furniture art. But that doesn’t mean his work isn’t artistic. The classically trained painter, sculptor, and tireless maker began working as a carpenter after earning his art degree. He moved to Charlottesville in 2005, transitioned to concrete formwork and stuck with that for more than a decade.  In 2019, Pray returned […]

Good picks

Onyx Art Deco bookends, a collection of vintage zoology plates, Brighton Pavilion side tables. Thanks to three new vendors on our local home décor scene, we have more options than ever when it comes to redesign. Street wares Like a lot of folks, Maria Gall started rethinking her career during the pandemic. With kids at […]

Making a more livable kitchen

There’s nothing like a pandemic shut-down and virtual school to show you that your kitchen just isn’t working.  For one family who moved into the Rugby Road area in late 2018, the “new normal” showed that their eat-in kitchen, while large, didn’t have a good working space for their grade-school daughter’s remote learning, and didn’t […]

The zen box

You would think a black box the size of a large living room, set amid the rolling hills of Albemarle County would stick out like…well, a huge black box. But Ivy Levien’s studio, perched on a rise with a view towards the Blue Ridge, rides on the land like it’s always been there. A year […]

Where the heart is

“‘Home’ is sitting on the countertop while your husband cooks eggs in the morning,” she says. “It is the giggling you hear in the hallway when you chase and tickle your 2-year-old. ‘Home’ is clipping fresh basil from the garden and brewing afternoon tea on a sunny day.”  So when the Waken Creative Studio founder […]

Building the dream home

The house sits against the hillside like a person relaxed on a bench, arms laid out along the back, taking in the Blue Ridge views. This easy pose was hard-won, however—and anyone who has lived through building their own home can relate.  Owner and interior designer Tracy Reidenouer tells the story: She and her husband […]

It’s hot out there

Looking to buy a house in or around Charlottesville? Get ready: “This real estate market is a perfect storm,” says Sasha Tripp, owner of Story House Real Estate.   The local area has always been an attractive real estate market, even with relatively high prices and limited inventory. Now, with rock-bottom interest rates and pent-up […]

Yes we can

Keswick Hall’s list of acclamations is long and distinguished—Forbes’s Five-Star Award, Golf Digest Editors’ Choice Award for Best Golf Resorts in the Americas, the AAA Four Diamond Rating for Fossett’s restaurant.  But when owners Robert and Molly Hardie decided to renovate the century-old property three years ago, the project quickly escalated. Despite all its acclaim […]

Making connections

The best thing about pottery, says Anna Richardson, is its ability to connect form and function. Take, for instance, her Pinch Cup. “It’s made pinched by my own thumb, making a resting place for yours,” she says. “I hope when customers use one of my mugs they might feel joy, or peacefulness, or a sense […]