September Abode: The eyes have it (special issue!)

This month’s issue of Abode is on stands now—with a peek inside not one but three local houses, a look at a western Albemarle landscape designed in phases, a chat with designer Alana Woerpel and more. Here’s what you’ll find: Landscape architect Mary Wolf‘s recent work. Warming up to the idea of new insulation. Designer Alana […]

It’s all in the mix: A traditional house gets a modern facelift

A 1942 Marshall Wells-designed home in tony Farmington: What could be more traditional? Except when it isn’t. For the last three years, designer Kathy Heiner of KLH Designs has been transforming this home in collaboration with its owners, making it a showcase for an eclectic, unfussy style. “This house is all about friends and family,” says […]

Design on display: A Nelson home becomes an art collector’s haven

When Kristen and Glenn Martin dropped their daughter off to begin her college career at the University of Virginia in 2013, they weren’t planning on renovating a house in Nelson County’s Stoney Creek development. But, less two years later, that’s what the Pennsylvania residents found themselves doing. “It was very outdated,” says Glenn of the […]

From the A-School: What does urbanization mean for design?

Editor’s note: Beginning this month, each issue of Abode will include a column written by a graduate student at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, providing a glimpse into the considerations of the next generation of architects. The world is entangled in complex sets of relationships and nothing is what it seems. Design disciplines […]

For Mary Wolf, landscape architecture affords variety

Just as a home has a history, so, too, does a landscape. Only, a landscape’s story, as Mary Wolf attests, is multilayered. Take, for instance, her grandmother’s property, a Civil War battlefield site where she spent her weekends growing up. The appeal of that spot of land—that it connected our national, geological and human history […]

Above it all: Off the parkway, a character of a house

A lovely view is lovely, but a spectacular one might be life-changing. Think we exaggerate? Get ye to Elk Mountain Road in Afton on a clear day, and feast your eyes on the kind of vista that can truly alter your outlook. Number 885, which faces east from a lot just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, […]

Turn, turn, turn: Getting your garden prepped for autumn

Until the equinox on September 21, we bask in late, late summer. Walnut leaves are yellowing, black gums turn scarlet at the edge of the woods and the soil is warm as a sunny lake on Labor Day, more hospitable to root growth than the cold clay of March. Ample rainfall makes for ideal conditions […]