For nearly 25 years, Washingtonians Rick Lincicome and Cheryl Flota have spent weekends and vacations relaxing on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. They built a home in Rock Hall, a small harbor town, during the 1990s and purchased 15 acres on nearby Gray’s Inn Creek in 2010. Their idea was to replace a flood-damaged farmhouse on the property with a new modern residence.
“We wanted our home to be contemporary, open and comfortable, with a continuous and seamless relationship to the outside in all directions,” says Lincicome, a former corporate architect. “There are no bad views to the water or the woods, so we built extensive decks and floor-to-ceiling glass doors to move easily from the inside out.”
At the start of the project, he worked with landscape architect Miles Barnard of South Fork Studio to locate and configure the house. Their challenge was to capture water views while complying with critical area laws governing the protected buffer around the Maryland shore of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries. The decision to preserve trees near the house led to an L-shaped dwelling with a large willow oak anchoring the courtyard between the two wings.
To develop the building design, Lincicome and Flota turned to the architects responsible for their first Rock Hall home, DC-based Jane Treacy and Phillip Eagleburger. “We enjoy their willingness to collaborate with us and their commitment to quality design and deep knowledge of residential construction,” says Flota, a lighting designer.
Before embarking on their second Rock Hall project, Treacy and Eagleburger had renovated the homeowners’ residence at the Watergate in collaboration with Washington-based designer Ernesto Santalla. “We loved all their design work on our apartment,” says Flota. “The fact that they all worked together so seamlessly made it easy to continue that collaboration, and we invited Ernesto to be part of the team again.”
Raised on concrete piers to meet flood-zone requirements, the new one-level home is clad in durable cedar siding and topped with sloping roofs to shed water. “Rick’s style is classic modern,” says Eagleburger. “We brought in flourishes he hadn’t considered, like the V-shaped roof over the screened porch.”
With the basic scheme of the house already established, Eagleburger refined the layout so that spaces used on a daily basis—living and dining rooms, kitchen and master suite—are located closest to the water. “We also made the screened porch on the water side as big as the living room for entertaining and hanging out,” he says.
The home’s more private side fronts the courtyard and incorporates two guest suites, a home office, utility and laundry rooms. Each wing of the L-shaped home is only one room deep to maximize daylight and views of the creek and courtyard.
Flota designed the home’s lighting plan, relying, she says, “on both natural and artificial light to balance the effects throughout the day and into nighttime.” Recessed and surface-mounted halogens illuminate walls, horizontal surfaces, and artwork. A few decorative fixtures, such as Bega pendants over the dining table, help define specific spaces.
Santalla ensured the décor was sophisticated yet practical, with a color scheme grounded in the hues of nature. “The design reconciles the desire for a contemporary home with the reality that the owners and their guests participate extensively in outdoor activities,” he says.
Slate-covered walls anchor the living room and master bedroom at either end of the main wing. Furnishings are a mixture of contemporary and classic modern pieces, vintage finds and family heirlooms. To save space in some rooms, Santalla created custom designs, including a walnut headboard with built-in nightstands and shelving in the master bedroom.
Since the house was completed in 2013, Lincicome has retired from his job at a large architecture firm and he and Flota now spend more time on the Eastern Shore. In addition to fishing and hunting, they enjoy shopping at the Chestertown farmers market, buying fresh ingredients for meals prepared at home.
Open to the living and dining areas, their kitchen becomes a hub of activity when visitors arrive. “We love to have guests participate in cooking great food and testing new menus,” says Lincicome. “We wanted to have the ability to eat and entertain within the kitchen while maintaining great views.”
Writer Deborah K. Dietsch is based in Washington, DC.
Architecture: Jane E. Treacy and Phillip R. Eagleburger, AIA, principals; Brian Underwood, project architect, Treacy & Eagleburger Architects, Washington, DC. Interior Design: Ernesto Santalla, AIA, Ernesto Santalla, PLLC, Washington, DC. Builder: Patrick G. Jones, Inc., Chestertown, Maryland. Landscape Architecture: Miles Barnard, South Fork Studio, Chestertown, Maryland.
There wasn’t much to the low-slung, ’50s-era rambler beyond where it sat: on a point overlooking San Domingo Creek with easy access to downtown St. Michaels. But for owner Jeanne Ruesch, the dark rooms and aging, red-brick exterior didn’t matter; after working with architect David Jones and designer Thomas Pheasant to transform her home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, she knew they could work magic on her weekend house.
“She and I had the vision that we could make enough changes to transform it,” Jones says. While none of the rooms took advantage of the views, the house itself was sited correctly. From there, it was a matter of reworking the interiors and façade to make it as gracious as the surrounding landscape. “The layout was in the right position. The idea was for it to be open, clean and bright—with lots of water views,” the architect says.
Working with Pheasant, Jones and architect Wouter Boer recast the humble rambler into a stately affair reminiscent of a Southern plantation house. The exterior boasts wide porches adorned with Chinese Chippendale accents. Inside, well-proportioned rooms are ideal for entertaining.
Jones and Boer evened out the home’s footprint to give the house more classic dimensions. They designed a new second floor devoted to the master suite as a tall, central anchor for two “hyphens” on either side: One contains guest bedrooms while the other houses a new kitchen that links to the family room, situated in a perpendicular wing. “The challenge really was to make this house feel like an old house,” Boer says. Full-length shutters across the front and curving mullions on the dormer windows help accomplish that goal. Thanks to modern technology that allows for bigger, better-insulated windows, he adds, “We made a lot of openings to the outside so you could really focus on the view.”
Meanwhile, Pheasant tackled the interiors. At its core, he explains, the owner “wanted this house to be an oasis from the city, a calm place where she could relax. Sometimes there are crowds, but sometimes it’s just her.” That meant breaking up large spaces with intimate seating areas—and making the second-floor master suite totally private, with its own balcony overlooking the creek—“the kind of space where you could just go upstairs and close the door.”
In their preliminary discussions, Ruesch mentioned using blue as one of the design elements. “She probably thought I would do it sparingly,” says Pheasant, who is best known for his neutral interiors, “but I just decided to go for it. Besides, it’s perfect for the water.”
With white and ivory tones as a foundation, pale and powdery shades of blue infuse every space, offering a natural connection to the waterway. Pheasant specified beadboard for the tall tray ceiling in the family room as a casual touch, while ceiling beams formalize the great room. A Rose Tarlow table, flanked by custom benches, acts as a soft room divider in the large space—and offers an extra dining option during parties.
Landscape architect Jay Graham curated the grounds to complement both the riverfront and the new architecture. In response to Ruesch’s desire to respect the shoreline ecosystem, he replaced an aging bulkhead with a gently sloped “living shoreline,” covered in native grasses that invite more wildlife onto the property while serving as a natural barrier against rising tides. Graham also had an existing pool excavated and a new one built farther back, in deference to that sensitive area. “It was always with this idea of being responsive to the land,” he says.
Soft plant colors and native varieties keep the focus on the water. “Blue and white flowers are much calmer,” Graham explains. “I don’t like to put bright colors between somebody and their view.” Although he didn’t know it at the time, the landscape architect was using the same palette outside that the interior designer was using inside—not really surprising, given that the team was working toward the same goal. “This house is very much a place to breathe and relax,” Pheasant observes. “It’s taking the beautiful elements from the outside and bringing them in.”
Jennifer Sergent is an Arlington, Virginia-based writer. Photographer Gordon Beall is based in Bethesda, Maryland.
Renovation Architecture: David Jones, AIA, and Wouter Boer, AIA, Jones & Boer Architects, Inc., Washington, DC. Interior Design: Thomas Pheasant, Thomas Pheasant, Washington, DC. Landscape Architecture: Jay Graham, Graham Landscape Architecture, Annapolis, Maryland. Contractor: Accent General Contracting, Rockville, Maryland.
