Consummate culinarian

Becky Calvert loves to cook. She’s held cooking and canning classes around town—places like the Charlottesville Cooking School, Market Central, The Happy Cook, The Spice Diva, and PVCC—for more than a decade, and always with a secret weapon: her cookbook collection. Numbering in the hundreds, it spans centuries and genres.  “Cookbooks fascinate me because they […]

‘We all eat’

Is cooking an art or a craft? Whichever side you come down on, cooking is clearly creative. That’s why Brittany Fan—painter, illustrator, graphic designer, photographer, food blogger, and self-professed “all-around maker”—loves it.  A native of Blacksburg, Fan came to UVA for a degree in studio art, art history, and arts administration and stayed for a […]

New restaurant who dis?

When people look back on 2021-2022, what will they think of?Okay, other than that. With a little luck, it will be the new coffee shops, bakeries, and lunch counters that braved the elements to open their doors to the city’s hungry and thirsty. With a little luck, it will be that elegant cake they brought […]

The next stage

When the kids leave home, what are the choices: Rent out the basement? Move? Retire to a warmer climate? Sean and Gineane Stalfort rejected all those options. “We thought about downsizing,” says Gineane. “But we do a lot of entertaining, we host family holidays, and we wanted to have our sons come back here.” The […]

Hard (wood)work

If you’ve been following Taylor Ahn on Instagram (@new_iterations), like I have for a while, you’re at once impressed, inspired, and…a little grossed out. Her current project, an antique card catalog, started as a grimy habitat for a colony of stink bugs. She spent hours ridding the piece of its occupants and rebuilding the frame. […]

On the money

If you had your eye on the more than $1 million new construction home at 802 Hinton Ave., bad news. Someone beat you to it. But also good news. The builder, Steve Nicholson Construction, is still out there doing HGTV-worthy work on spec and for specific homeowners with style—not to mention substance. For context, consider […]

Courageously contemporary

Dave Ackerman and his architecture and design firm, Wolf Ackerman, have been making modern additions to traditional homes for at least a decade, and he thinks the trend is definitely catching on. “We’ve done a lot of older houses, specifically in and around Belmont, that just don’t suit the way people live today,” Ackerman says. […]

New house, new look

When David and Nancy Hughes retired in 2017, they needed a big change.  “We had lived in Delaplane on 21 acres,” says Nancy. While they loved the place, the couple decided they wanted a smaller, newer home and an urban vibe—so they moved to Charlottesville. “We were looking forward to travel, lots of dinner parties,” […]

Pour decisions

Ever wanted to drink from a horse trailer? Now’s your chance: The Loaded Pony, a Staunton-based mobile bar, offers just that.  Combining her love of entertaining, creativity, and hospitality with a unique setting (a vintage 1960s horse trailer), owner Kimerly Crawford launched the business in 2019 after transforming the formerly pale pink structure into an […]

Personal tastes

As if offering guests a delicious cookie wasn’t enough, these three bakers up the ante with flawless custom designs. They make a great wedding favor, certainly, but you might also consider them for a fancy day-of treat while getting ready, an addition to welcome bags for guests, or an addition to a “Will you be […]