Private Tour- Chris Samuels at Home  

Chris Samuels relaxes with girlfriend Monique Cox after
a training session at Redskins Park.

Washington Redskins left tackle Chris Samuels, one of the team’s most recognizable players, is known for his tenacity and force on the field. But at home in Vienna, Virginia, the six-foot-five, 310-pound Samuels is sweet as pie as he relaxes on the patio with his girlfriend, Monique Cox, and their two mastiffs, Coach and Blue, after a tough day of training at Redskins Park.

Samuels bought the 9,000-square-foot house for its generous size and large lot surrounded by woods. However, he and Cox were not fond of the home’s existing interiors, where a dull beige palette and pickled-white wooden floors prevailed. When the couple attended a birthday party for Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell at the home of a mutual friend, they were so impressed with the design of the home that they contacted their host’s interior designer, Chad Alan of Chad Alan Designs in Washington, DC, for help.

Cox and Samuels explained to Alan that they wanted to infuse their home with color and create a comfortable environment for both time alone and entertaining. They spent a day touring The Washington Design Center with Alan, who got a feel for their likes and dislikes. Two weeks later, Alan presented them with a book of room drawings, furniture selections and fabric, wallpaper and paint swatches—some 400 options in all. “I said, ‘Sleep on this and call me next week,’” Alan recalls. “They said, ‘No, there’s really nothing that we don’t like.’ On the next Monday, my crews were here starting to prime and paint.”

The designer embarked on a “dramatic transformation” of the entire home, replacing the beige with a vibrant palette of persimmon, gold and earth tones. “They were very adventurous,” says Alan. He hired decorative painter Maggie O’Neill of O’Neill Studios in Kensington, Maryland, to create custom treatments throughout the home, commissioned original artwork and selected furnishings to suit Samuels’s style—and his physical stature.

“Chad made it easy for someone like me. I’m just a guy,” says Samuels. “I’m not good at stuff like this at all. If he was telling us something, I couldn’t visualize it. I was totally lost. Once he brought in the drawings and the fabric, I could see it a whole lot better.”

Alan infused the home with color and a sense of drama—especially in the dining room, where a hanging chandelier of glass spheres, a mirrored ceiling and walls upholstered in nutmeg-colored velvet envelop guests In style. In the nearby living room, the walls are finished in a brown high-gloss paint by Dutchlac while the ceilings are covered in an aged golf-leaf wallpaper by Schumacher. A bold portrait of Samuels, Cox and their dogs is a personalized piece of pop art on the wall. Alan commissioned the piece by Bel Air, Maryland, artist Melissa K. Shatto, who also painted several other works in the home.

Her underwater scenes in the foyer reflect Samuels’s passion for sea life and fishing. “I just love being on the water,” says Samuels, who also owns a waterfront vacation home in southern Maryland. “Any time I’m out there, I’m really relaxed.” Two large aquariums—one built into the wall between the family room and kitchen and the other installed in the master bedroom—display an array of tropical fish.

In the sunroom, Chad Alan created a bright and cheery
atmosphere with drapery fabric by Brunschwig & Fils and
a ceiling covered in “foliage” wallpaper by Schumacher.
He adapted outdoor furniture in this indoor space,
reinforcing the existing cushions with goose down and
adding trim to the upholstery for a more tailored look.