Tudor-style houses often get a bad rap for being drab and fusty affairs. Not so for this English-inspired manor in Northwest DC. “A lot of them are sited in such a way that they’re surrounded by trees and are dark inside, but this house is on a hill so it gets a ton of light,” shares Wayne Adams of BarnesVanze Architects. Still, the house required a freshening up for its new inhabitants, a young family of five relocating from the West Coast who sought to bring a bit of that sunnier sensibility east. “Basically, we de-Tudorized it,” says Adams, who led the renovation. “Getting rid of some of the stained wood, simplifying the trim work and reducing some of the heavy beams recast it in a new light.”

With its limewashed stone exterior, quarried from granite in nearby Rock Creek Park, the house has a long, storied past. Built in 1927 by architect George N. Ray, the manse has played host to dignitaries and Hollywood royalty—Elizabeth Taylor and Vincent Price dined there—and notable former inhabitants include an ambassador and a senator. This marks the third time in 30 years that BVA has worked on the abode; the last renovation in 2012 included the addition of a back stair tower and was documented in this magazine.

This time around the 10,350-square-foot main house saw only minor modifications: The kitchen and bathrooms were reconfigured and the primary suite was reimagined to better suit the needs of the couple; she’s a tech executive and he works in finance. The attic was also transformed into a guest suite with a kitchenette and a media room for their three children.

To dress the rooms, the clients called on Lillian Byers of Jackson Platt Interiors, based in North Carolina. Byers, who worked on their San Francisco home, had recently moved east. Because the family barely had time to enjoy those furnishings before uprooting to DC, they wanted to repurpose many of the selections. From the dining room’s striking floral wallpaper to the kids’ bedroom furniture and finishes, most of the spaces are near-exact facsimiles of what was in their former abode. “As a mom, she wanted the kids to feel immediately at home; repeating those schemes gave them a sense of familiarity so they would have an easier transition,” relays Byers.

Bringing their Cali style to the Washington residence didn’t just create continuity, it also brightened the mood. “The house is about 100 years old; there was a lot of brown and it had an older generation vibe,” observes Byers. “The wife has a colorful, whimsical style which she brought to the project. Together, we enlivened nearly every surface.” Take the family room’s wood paneling, which got a coat of Benjamin Moore’s Knoxville Gray. “Originally, the architects thought, ‘You’re going to paint this beautiful stained molding?’ But in the end, it became one of their favorite things we did to the house,” shares Byers. “Painting it created this whole new room, but the beauty of the wood shines through because you still see the carved details.”

A similarly thoughtful approach was carried outdoors where the family desired a new swimming pool and carriage house. At nearly an acre, the property combines three lots with extremely hilly topography. Needing a space that could do triple duty on a challenging plot of land, BVA designed a 2,028-square-foot, three-story structure that contains an entertaining space with pool accessibility via large bifold doors on the lower level, a two-car garage on the second and a guest suite/studio on the top.

As a complement to the stone house, the architects tapped into a charming English vernacular, dressing the auxiliary structure in a stucco finish, slate roof and thin-profile casement windows to mimic the fenestration of the main building. “We wanted to play up this idea of an old Tudor estate, where the carriage houses were often a different, less grand material,” explains Adams.

Landscape architect Richard Arentz shaped the grounds, restructuring the stone steps leading to the pool area. By paring back overgrowth, reinvigorating existing plantings and adding Pennisetum to the central slope, he created more of a visual connection between the upper terrace and the lower lawn. Multiple play areas were carved out for the kids, including a climbing wall, a half-basketball court and an in-ground trampoline. “We wanted to make this a place where children could have plenty of opportunities to play, but that would still be an elegant, mature garden for adults,” says Arentz. Reflecting on the project, he adds, “In the end, we took something that had many lives over the years and resuscitated it for this young family.”

Adams concurs: “Everyone brought their best ideas about how to enhance this already magnificent property, plus the clients were lovely. Sometimes you just get lucky.”