Who wouldn’t want to live a short walk from the Downtown Mall? That’s an easy question to answer. Slightly trickier: Who wouldn’t want to live in an old hospital? In creating Locust Grove Apartments within a portion of the former Martha Jefferson Hospital, developer Octagon Partners aimed to make the building’s history a plus for […]
Who wouldn’t want to live a short walk from the Downtown Mall? That’s an easy question to answer. Slightly trickier: Who wouldn’t want to live in an old hospital? In creating Locust Grove Apartments within a portion of the former Martha Jefferson Hospital, developer Octagon Partners aimed to make the building’s history a plus for […]
Charlottesville isn’t always on top of the latest trends, but that’s not really a bad thing. Several local kitchen designers say our area runs contrary to major national countertop trends in multiple ways, all of which come down to one central theme: color. Or, rather, the lack of it. Soft, muted colors. Bright pops of […]
You’d never know that Ken Schmalzbach and Karol Forsberg’s house isn’t brand new. It looks as up-to-the-minute as anything Wolf Ackerman has recently designed to be built from the ground up. In fact, this home on Lake Monticello is 31 years old, and the architects are responsible for transforming it from a near-eyesore to a […]
In Keswick Estate, the houses may be luxurious—but, as garden designer Virginia Rockwell points out, they don’t easily mesh with their surroundings. “The challenge here is how to have the house settle into the landscape instead of alighting on it,” she said. The home of her clients Julie Christopher and Marge Connelly, completed in 2008, […]
Worthy Martin and Ruby Burt woke up on the morning of August 25 to the sound of a backhoe outside their house in Fry’s Spring. For him, it was the beginning of a new chapter in a 30-year history with the house. For her, it was the first morning of a new life in Virginia. […]
The countdown is on: one month ‘til summer. If you ask us, that’s just early enough to start moving the party outside. We’ve rounded up 13 of our favorite outdoor spaces—from a Gothic Revival to a stucco four-square—to glean inspiration. Easy breezy (above) The two wings of this house frame a woodsy view and, once […]
A stone house looks very permanent from the outside, but big changes can occur within. Though the Rugby neighborhood house that Hyam Hosny and Eric Spooner bought in 2009 was stately—and its location couldn’t be beat—it needed to be brought into the modern era. “The kitchen was a servants’ kitchen,” said Hosny, relating that the […]
A house that’s been standing since before the Civil War can demand a lot of attention from its owner. Such was the case with Matt and Tricia Lucas’ home, a Free Union gem that, despite its ample size, had just one bathroom when the couple bought it about a decade ago. In fact, the home was […]
Local architect Dave Ackerman (of architecture firm Wolf Ackerman Design) graduated from both Princeton and the University of Virginia, co-founded Formwork Design and spent 11 years as an adjunct faculty member at UVA teaching architectural design—but his interest in architecture began long before any of that. “When I was 10 or 11, I would draw […]
Hate to break it to you, but that tin roof on your love shack is rusted. Time for a replacement. What are your options? Bruce Martin, an estimator and project coordinator for Charlottesville’s Blue Ridge Roofing, said metal roofs, created by paneling together solid sheets at junctions called “standing seams,” are actually quite popular in […]