When an 11,600-square-foot McLean residence first caught builder Jonathan Smith’s eye, it was not an asset to the neighborhood—to put it kindly. Some of its faults were the result of poor design decisions and others simply quirks of the time period. Built in 2000 on a corner lot, the house had an overblown entry canted diagonally toward the street. A long side elevation was marred by a turret and two dormers that defied symmetry.

Despite its drawbacks, Smith, who owns Brush Arbor Homes, decided to purchase the house for resale. Before investing in cosmetic changes, though, he first had to ensure its bones were solid. “We cut away quite a bit of drywall to verify that the point loads were built properly, and checked that the structural changes were tied in correctly,” he recalls. “Once we took off the roof, we were able to be sure the house was properly dried in and there was no damage.”

Smith then hired Michelle Vassallo, principal of MV Architects, for the job of remedying the home’s wrongs. “We hand-sketched over photos to see how we could change the exterior elevations to add more curb appeal,” Vassallo recalls. She began with a surgical approach that removed the awkward turret along with the outsized entry columns and portico and a huge Palladian window. That edit also eliminated quoins on the brick columns—a chunky feature that evoked a period well before the house was built.

Next, the architect worked to reduce the home’s perceived scale. She designed a single-story entry portico and switched out the Palladian window for a square one with better proportions. The arched roofline above it was flattened and angled to tie in with the existing roof forms. A sweeping, one-story porch added dimension to the long side elevation.

Finally, the compositionally problematic upper elevation was resolved by rounding the existing dormers and adding a middle one. While no other window openings were changed, all-new casement windows helped to freshen the façades. So did a coat of creamy white paint, which allowed the busy brickwork detailing above the windows to virtually disappear. “The goal was to give it a timeless look,” Smith observes. “The new porch on the long side creates a better street appearance and makes it look like the front of the house.”

Interior designer Kim Drakopoulos, principal at Wellhouse & Co., took cues from the new exterior in her update of every room. Overall, changes focused on creating simpler lines and warmer, richer textures—starting with the front door. “We like to keep at least one or two existing elements if we can,” she shares. “The solid-wood front door was big and pretty, so we stripped the paint and stained the wood.”

Walls painted an iron-ore hue make a statement in the two-story foyer alcove, which flows into the entry hall. Large-format, black-and-white, marble-look porcelain-tile flooring grounds both spaces. Drakopoulos painted the stair rail in high-gloss black and replaced elaborately detailed iron balusters with simple wood spindles. An ornate crystal-and-faux-brass light fixture made way for a well-scaled chandelier of curvy, black-painted iron.

“We viewed the front of the house as entertaining space; the back with the kitchen and family room are more comfortable for daily living,” relates Drakopoulos, who added drama to the living room with an eye-catching, black-and-white marble fireplace surround, plus built-in shelving and cabinetry painted in Sherwin-Williams’ Shiitake.

The more casual rear of the house is adorned in natural wood tones. In the large kitchen, wide-plank, white oak floors, an almond-stained white oak island and soft-white cabinetry impart a warm, inviting feel. Upstairs, a clean sweep of the primary bath squared off awkward angles and added artisanal finishes such as marble floors, a freestanding tub and a vanity with reeded drawers.

Refreshed from the inside out, the residence is ready for its second act—and a family of seven has already moved in. “The house across the street is so pretty; I always felt bad that the owners had to look at this one,” Vassallo says. “I hope this view is much more pleasing.”

Renovation Architecture: Michelle Vassallo, AIA, MV Architects, Washington, DC. Interior Design: Kim Drakopoulos, Wellhouse & Co., Centreville, Virginia. Renovation Contractor: Jonathan Smith, Brush Arbor Homes, Ashburn, Virginia.

 When architecture and landscape come together, wonderful things can happen. At first, an outdoorsy McLean, Virginia, family built a custom home on Annapolis’ South River as a weekend getaway, but it quickly became their full-time residence. Jessica and Alan Whitehurst, both lawyers, fell in love with the eight-acre property’s tranquility and watery views. They envisioned it as a place where they and their three college-age children could create memories for years to come. “We wanted to design a house that would maximize the natural beauty around it,” explains Alan, “with large, open areas for spending time with family and friends.” 

Conceived by ABS Architects and constructed by Pyramid Builders, the residence sits on high ground along Childs Point peninsula. Though large—6,000 square feet on the first floor and 4,000 square feet on the second, plus two garages and a 600-square-foot attached pool house—it meets the ground graciously, thanks to careful massing and garden vignettes that extend the indoors outside.

The couple’s preference for English Tudor-style architecture was a good fit for the site. “The Tudor gable ends helped us make a graceful house that cascades down to land and water,” says project architect Sarah Favrao. Clad in stucco with durable slate-composite and metal roofs, the house reads as two stories on the front, but the second floor is tucked under the rear roofline so the structure looks less imposing from the water. 

Views are everything on the spectacular property. From the  foyer, sightlines extend straight through the house to the South River. Both floors are organized around a long spine that pivots where the footprint bends to track the water’s edge. “The core circulation space is on the street side,” explains Favrao, “while family living areas wrap around the back of the house with the water view.” 

Canted due south, the family wing on the left is entered through the mudroom or the three-bay garage—one of two that bookend the house. This wing holds a family room that opens to a screened porch and the pool terrace, as well as the kitchen, breakfast nook and jewel-like butler’s pantry. Behind the central foyer are formal dining and living rooms and a sitting room. The latter is attached to a primary suite that enjoys its own realm on the southwest corner, at the opposite end of the house from the family zone. “The owners’ suite has a private outdoor space and the sunset view,” explains Favrao. “And a loggia connects it all the way around to the pool. It’s a very indoor-outdoor kind of house.” 

Upstairs are three ensuite bedrooms, two offices—the larger of which opens to a curved deck overlooking the river—and a gym, laundry and in-law quarters. A back stairway leads down to the family wing and a lower-level rec room.

If the footprint perfectly suits this serene setting, flawless interior craftsmanship anchors it in place. “An extensive millwork package with diverse finishes made this residence both exhilarating and complex to complete,” says Bret Anderson of Pyramid Builders. Wooden ceiling beams create a rhythm along the corridor that connects the public spaces and family wing, where painted ceiling beams align with exterior doors to draw the eye outside. Pops of brass punctuate the muted palette of marble countertops, European white oak floors and gray kitchen cabinets. 

“My favorite view is looking across the kitchen island to the big dining table,” says the project’s interior designer, Bryan Huffman. “With the water beyond and sun reflecting on the marble counters, it feels like the kitchen is floating.” 

Given the size of the house, it was important that the interiors feel “fun and youthful, fresh and modern, yet have some warmth,” he notes. In the living room and owners’ suite, Oushak rugs and pillows reinforce the restful color scheme of taupe, mauve, gray and sand.

The residence strikes a balance between enclosure and exposure. “I spend a lot of time at the pool house in the summer,” says Jessica. “It provides shelter from the sun but you’re still able to be outside and enjoy the beautiful views.” 

The loggia extends that quality. “The way the property is situated, we get both the sunrise and sunset, and sun throughout the day in the family areas,” says Alan. “Covered terraces cut down on glare, so we don’t need window shades.”

Directly outside those windows, Campion Hruby Landscape Architects created a series of garden rooms connected by stone and lawn paths. They also replenished and improved the larger landscape by planting swaths of coastal grasses and perennials. To prevent stormwater runoff into the Chesapeake, they built rain gardens filled with Muhlenberg grasses and Cape Breeze and Shenandoah switchgrasses, dotted with coneflower, hibiscus and black-eyed Susans for bright summer color.  

After spending months during covid working remotely from their new waterfront escape, the Whitehursts decided to make it their permanent home. “When we first set out to build, we kind of joked that it was going to be part-time to permanent,” says Jessica. “But covid sped up the process and we fell in love with this place. It was hard to leave.”

Former Georgetown residents Vickie and Miguel Innis fell in love with Middleburg on weekend getaways. So when they began to crave more space to spread out during the pandemic, the Virginia hamlet seemed like the perfect place to give full-time country living a shot. They found a house on a 10-acre plot right outside town, on a quiet street surrounded by 100-acre properties. “We weren’t ready to jump on a larger property, not having had this lifestyle before,” says Vickie. “And—fun fact—our neighbor is Wexford, Jackie and John F. Kennedy’s former estate.” 

Despite its outdated flow and finishes and lack of air conditioning, the circa-1980s abode had character. The couple, whose two children were in high school and college at the time, hired architect Sarah Armstrong of Studio 360 and BOWA builders to improve its functionality, bring in natural light and update it as a “modern Colonial with a hint of rustic farmhouse,” explains Vickie. Room locations follow the standard center-hall floor plan: From the foyer, the living room on the right runs front to back, the dining room is on the left and the kitchen straight ahead. The kitchen connects to a smaller, gambrel-roofed wing containing a den, Vickie’s home office and a laundry room.

As the hardworking heart of the home, the kitchen received the most attention. Armstrong improved light and flow immensely by bumping out its exterior wall about eight feet, raising the ceiling height to match the rest of the first-floor rooms, removing part of the wall between the hall and the kitchen and installing pocket doors to the dining room. The kitchen’s new but salvaged heart pine flooring is sympathetic to the 100-year-old heart pine floors that had previously been installed elsewhere in the house. 

“We exposed the nail heads and, in some places, even fauxed them in to make them complementary,” Armstrong notes. “Yet you can see where the floor is new and different—we didn’t want to fake it. The house tells the story of what’s been added over time, but the changes coordinate really well.”

In another significant move, the architect made a clean sweep of the center hall by tucking a protruding powder room under the stairs and adding glass doors on the front and rear entrances. “Historically on these homes you have a straight shot through the house to the rear yard,” she notes. “This house didn’t have that. With the glass doors, you can see straight through the hallway and out the back.”

Upstairs, where the wood floors were sanded and refinished, updates included a new primary suite bath and closet, and a new hall bath that serves the two children’s bedrooms. The smaller wing—walled off from the rest of the second floor and with its own back stair—contains a new guest suite and Miguel’s study. To improve the larger volume’s exterior proportions, Armstrong also added front-facing dormers on the third floor, which is intended as a future lounge.

Realizing that country houses benefit from a strong connection to the landscape, Armstrong made deliberate decisions to remedy this one’s shortcomings. Windows were replaced, centered and enlarged. “The black window frames have a cleaner aesthetic with the new white board and batten on the larger volume and stonework on the smaller section, whose gambrel roof we preserved,” she explains. “The idea was to make it look like a house added to over time, like a farmhouse would have been.” 

New bands of stone around the porch foundation and on the two chimneys help tie the volumes together. Inspired by Middleburg’s historic National Sporting Library & Museum, the stonework is “over-grouted,” a distinctive Virginia technique whereby masons over-fill the joints and use a rough trowel to clean them up. “We did many samples—some were too messy, some were too clean—until we got it right,” Armstrong recalls. 

The enlarged front porch has an open gable with black metal tie rods, offering the gift of a grander entrance. The redo replaced a small rear terrace with a covered porch, where the owners enter from a detached garage; it’s a comfortable place to sit and survey the south lawn. In addition, asphalt roofs were traded for standing-seam metal befitting a farmhouse.

Finally, new insulation and zoned heating and cooling made the 4,000-square-foot residence fully ready for 21st-century living. “We touched every surface in the home but were able to preserve its humble character by reusing as much as we could,” says Armstrong. “It’s an appropriately sized house for this family and the property.”