Outside chances: At Blue Moon Fund, a landscape ups the ante

It was none too inspiring—just a paved area behind a Downtown house-turned-office. But the people behind the Blue Moon Fund, a philanthropic organization that occupies the building, had a vision for their outdoor space that went far beyond simply sprucing up the spot where they park their cars. “They approached us to create a progressive landscape,” […]

Rough as silk: A city studio shows off its true character

Think of history in Charlottesville, and you might think first of Court Square, Monticello, and other seats of power. But the city has an industrial past, too, and it’s still visible in places like the Silk Mill Building, an 1898 factory whose brick façade is tucked behind the Preston Avenue Bodo’s. Eighteen years ago—after stints […]

From the editor-at-large: Formal influences

In the Piedmont, large red brick houses have always had a certain kind of monumental grandeur in the landscape. They are Virginia’s architecture—a tall central house, often hyphenated with ancillary spaces to the sides, large and formal, yet quiet and elegant—and were the standard bearer of sophistication in their time. I admire them most often in late autumn […]