It all started with a gossip column. Anne Harkavy and David Ogden were looking for a home in the Arlington neighborhood where they were married when Ogden’s daughter noted an item in the newspaper about the childhood home of actress Sandra Bullock: It was for sale—blocks from where the ceremony took place. “We went to see it on a lark because it was in the neighborhood, but then we really liked it,” Harkavy recalls.
The couple, both attorneys, bought the house from Bullock’s father. Provenance aside, however, they faced tough challenges in transforming the aging split-level. The goal was to create a lively home in which to raise their young daughter as well as space for easy entertaining. They also needed to accommodate visits from Ogden’s two grown children.
Over the next few years, the couple added a pop-up addition, updated the kitchen and painted most of the rooms—but the look and functionality they were after continued to elude them. Finally, they called on Arlington designer Andrea Houck for help.
Houck’s mission was to address the color scheme and general flow throughout the home’s main living spaces, repurposing her clients’ existing furniture when possible. She started with the living room, which Harkavy and Ogden had converted from a dining area. Open to the foyer and the kitchen, the space is visible from many different angles. “The room felt really square and not very conversational. I knew it was wrong, but we couldn’t figure out how to fix it,” Harkavy recalls.
“There was no flow,” agrees Houck. “We had to think outside the box,” referring to the traditional sofa-and-two-chairs arrangement. “If a room is too narrow and you can’t make a sofa work,” the designer reasons, “it’s much better to just do chairs.” So she moved the sofa to the master bedroom and arranged four armchairs around a grouping of cylindrical accent tables. This new plan ensures that the fireplace and adjoining spaces are equally visible from all sides.
There was also a geometry problem in the adjacent, window-lined family room. The owners use the room as both a daily gathering spot and a dining area that accommodates guests during holiday season. But the space was out of kilter, dominated by an oversized, square sectional while the round dining table was too small. “I didn’t want a square sectional in a square room,” Houck observes. “We needed some circles.” So she moved the sectional to the lower level and replaced it with a smaller, curved sofa paired with a round, custom coffee table.
To emphasize the dining area, she beefed up the scale of the table by adding extra leaves and further defined the space with bold artwork and a new credenza. She also repurposed a trio of pendant lights from the kitchen to hang over the dining table, where they echo the strong palette that now enlivens the room.
According to Harkavy, the inspiration for the color scheme in the living and family rooms was the stained-glass panels in the front door that was given to the couple as a wedding gift. “Andrea worked cooler and calmer versions of these colors—blue and green—into the living room, and brighter versions of them into the family room,” she says, adding, “We appreciate how Andrea ‘got’ us. She was able to figure out what we wanted even though we couldn’t describe it.”
On the lower level, Houck separated the wide-open space into zones: a sophisticated spot for watching TV; an area for casual meals or playing games; and—equally important—room for a built-in aquarium that Ogden had always wanted.
Houck started with the couple’s existing furniture, including Mid-Century Modern end tables and a coffee table Harkavy inherited from her grandparents. “Those tables are very cool,” she says. “They were a jumping-off point to create the look.” The designer had them lacquered white, then paired them with the sectional from the family room and another existing chair, both reupholstered.
Located in a niche behind the sectional, a Saarinen Tulip Table reflects the Mid-Century theme, as does a set of reupholstered chairs repurposed from the upstairs dining area.
Houck created focal points at either end of the space. On one side, she covered an outdated fireplace surround with lavender-grained Eramosa marble and installed a new stone-lined gas fireplace. On the other side, an open area at the base of the stairs features the dramatic aquarium.
Since Houck got involved (she’s still working on the upstairs bedrooms), Harkavy and Ogden can finally say their house is a true reflection of who they are and how they live. Yet it does contain a small reminder of its previous occupant: Sandra Bullock’s ’70s-era McIntosh stereo. Her father gave it to Harkavy and Ogden when they bought the house, and Houck designed niches above the downstairs TV to display the components. The new owners refer to it as “Sandy’s hi-fi.”
Jennifer Sergent is an Arlington, Virginia-based writer. Photographer Lydia Cutter is based in Las Vegas.
INTERIOR DESIGN: ANDREA HOUCK, A. Houck Designs, Arlington, Virginia.
You can’t see it until you swing around the driveway of this well-appointed stone house in McLean, but once a guest arrives at the milky-white paneled door surrounded by a transom and sidelights, there’s no mistaking it for a mudroom or side entrance.
Rather, it’s the front door to a two-story pied-à-terre that the owner built for her mother, whose husband died a few years ago. “I just wanted my mom around—and it’s someone to have a glass of wine with at the end of the day,” says the homeowner, who has three sons. “It worked well for me and the kids.”
A well-traveled New York native with a taste for modern elegance, the owner hired DC architect and designer Ernesto Santalla once the addition had been framed; she told him she was worried that her mother’s new home would look like a boxy afterthought that was attached to the main house.
“When I arrived, it was a bunch of boxes,” recalls Santalla, referring to the structure’s layout. His instructions were not only to give the space both architectural and aesthetic interest, but also to make it versatile—appropriate for an older person now, and equally appropriate later as a relaxing retreat for family and friends.
Santalla designed the first floor with uncluttered, open spaces for ease of flow. He arranged the living area with four plush armchairs because, as he notes, “It’s easier for an older person to get out of a chair than a sofa.” Same with the dining table and chairs: He originally considered having a banquette built along the wall, “but we decided it was going to be harder to scoot down a bench.”
Santalla altered the kitchen so the island was not attached to the wall, as had originally been designed. “It created strange corners where it would be hard to clean,” he says. He then had custom cabinetry installed up to the ceiling, further eliminating surfaces that would have to be dusted or cleaned.
To reconcile the boxy layout, Santalla defined specific areas with architectural detail on the ceilings. In the living room, for instance, he ran a long, narrow panel across the ceiling and down to the floor to call attention to the large, shaded pendant lights and to frame the sleek, concrete fireplace surround. In the kitchen, he designed a lower tray ceiling to create a sense of intimacy off the large living and dining area.
Ever sensitive to the needs of his client’s mother, Santalla arranged furnishings to avoid tripping hazards. He also allowed for plenty of light. “Light was a really important consideration,” he explains. “Any time there is a window covering, it always clears the window entirely.”
Likewise, Santalla ran sconces all the way up the stairs at chest level, instead of suspending a chandelier from the tall ceiling. “Stairs are really dangerous, so we wanted to focus the source of light,” he explains. The resulting parade of sconces not only illuminates each step, but their sculptural design is an artistic plus.
The owner’s mother preferred her suite to have stairs because they give her daily exercise, but the addition was designed so that she could live on one level if necessary. She currently uses the room adjacent to the living area for watching TV, but the custom teak built-ins cleverly enclose a Murphy bed behind their doors. The first-floor bathroom, too, is a full bath—and the showers on both levels are large enough for a walker or even a wheelchair, should that time ever come.
The homeowner is one of six siblings, many of whom still live in the New York area, so their mother also spends time up north. But the addition does not sit empty when the mother is away and the intent is that it will someday be used for entertaining. Two large pendant lights in the living area are situated so a large serving table could be placed under them. The windows overlooking the main home’s patio and pool are actually retractable, so a party could easily spill outside. Upstairs, an extra room off the loft area lies in wait to become a game room, where a door connects it to the main house.
But even if the family never changes a thing, the spaces Santalla created are beautifully timeless. Along with sumptuous furnishings and rugs, he selected modern art that makes the interiors look more like a downtown loft than a grandmother’s retreat. Indeed, after 18 months of construction and interior design, the homeowner says, her crew at Winthrop Custom Builders referred to it as “the little jewel box.”
What’s notable about contemporary design for any age, Santalla reflects, is its simplicity: crisp, uncluttered interiors with an abundance of light. “There’s a lot to be said for visual simplicity and how we react to it,” he says. “You’re designing for an older person, but you don’t want to make them feel like they’re elderly and no longer independent. You want them to feel like this is their new home and to feel good about it—that this is a positive change in their life.” And this positive change will bring positive thinking which lead to success.
Writer Jennifer Sergent is based in Arlington, Virginia. Geoffrey Hodgdon is a photographer in Deale, Maryland.
INTERIOR DESIGN: ERNESTO SANTALLA, AIA, LEED AP, Studio Santalla, Washington, DC. CONTRACTOR: WINTHROP CUSTOM BUILDERS, McLean, Virginia.
The renovation was like peeling an onion—when one problem was fixed, another problem would reveal itself. And on it went for more than a year after Jackie Perrins and her family purchased a house in Northwest Washington that hadn’t been updated since Kennedy was president.
Yet the chaos of construction presented an opportunity. While walls and ceilings were ripped up and ductwork and electrical wires exposed, the owners decided to bring in an interior designer who could plan and decorate new spaces specifically suited to two city-loving parents and their four young children.
Perrins says she couldn’t believe her luck when she realized that designer Lori Graham, whose work she had clipped from magazines and admired online, was based in DC. The two immediately hit it off, and she praises Graham for fulfilling her seemingly contradictory design goals: “I love living in the city, so I wanted to have an urban vibe. I also wanted it to be kid-friendly, and I wanted it to have a lot of color.”
They were going for the edgy chic of a boutique hotel that would somehow survive heavy kid traffic and multiple juice spills along the way. And they had a strict budget, with no room for overruns.
Graham dove right in, working with architect Chris Snowber of Hamilton Snowber Architects to redefine spaces and create interiors that would flow together through color, shape and form—with nothing off-limits to the kids.
She set the tone in the foyer, which is marked by the strong presence of black mirrors, a console table and stools. “It’s clean and modern with curvy lines,” Graham says. The vignette also speaks to Perrins’s desire for a bit of Asian influence throughout the house, as her two youngest children are adopted from Korea.
Many of the furnishings were ordered from catalogs, and instead of purchasing new art, Graham kept to the budget by reframing existing works the family had. “I couldn’t believe she was displaying it,” Perrins says of the artwork on the console table in the foyer. “It was stored in a box somewhere!”
The same went for the reframed children’s portraits in the dining room—a key space that “had to carry the weight of a formal dining room, but be forgiving of small children who spill stuff,” Graham says. She had a slab of spill-proof Calacatta Gold marble cut to fit on top of an elegant base, and chose inexpensive Lucite ballroom chairs from 1stdibs.com to create a dining space that beautifully accommodates both guests and children. She purchased affordable outdoor seat cushions, then indulged the parents with dramatic host chairs at either end. Instead of spending a lot of money on custom built-in cabinetry for the dining room, Graham ordered the same cabinets she used in the kitchen in a different finish, dressing them up with fancy hardware.
In keeping with the indestructible-luxe theme, the kitchen, too, is “very kid-friendly even though it’s modern and chic,” Perrins says. The bright white Corian counters can be cleansed of multiple pen and marker stains without a trace left behind.
Perrins’s favorite space is the sunroom, where the family regularly gathers to hang out and watch TV. It was originally unventilated. “DC has only so many days where you don’t need heating or air conditioning—it was like a garden shed,” Perrins says of the once-uncomfortable space. “Now it’s my happy, cozy room.”
Graham started with a vintage chair that the owners already had, reupholstering it in a bright, Kelly green pattern. She used multitudes of indoor/outdoor fabrics—even layering two outdoor rugs—to create a vibrant mix that wouldn’t wear out. Indeed, the white sofa, slip-covered in a durable outdoor canvas, has suffered “endless spills,” not to mention smeared brownie crumbs. Says Perrins, “You literally take a towel and some water and wipe it right off.”
Upstairs, Graham helped Perrins and her husband redefine the master bedroom, which was disproportionately large when they started. Snowber and his team designed a wall that would bisect the room, allowing the addition of a much bigger master bath. Graham concealed off-season clothes and bed and bath linens behind built-in shelving and decorative molding; a TV slides conveniently out over a window-seat niche.
“It feels like a very chic European hotel—and it’s my bedroom!” Perrins says. “I love it.” Despite the drawn-out renovation that forced the family to move out for several months, the homeowner reflects, “Lori made something that could have been painful really fun and pleasant.”
Jennifer Sergent is a writer in Arlington, Virginia. Photographer Erik Johnson is based in Alexandria, Virginia.
RENOVATION ARCHITECTURE: CHRISTOPHER R. SNOWBER, AIA, Hamilton Snowber Architects, Washington, DC. INTERIOR DESIGN: LORI GRAHAM, Lori Graham Design, Washington, DC. CONTRACTOR: Horizon Builders, Crofton, Maryland.
The battle was on to win the decorating hearts and minds of suburban homebuyers in a new townhouse development in Stone Ridge, Virginia. Given identical floor plans, who could offer the most appealing look with a first-time homebuyer and family in mind?
Alexandria designer Shazalynn Cavin-Winfrey handily won the competition on HGTV’s “Showhouse Showdown” with her vibrant color- and pattern-infused rooms. And though she wasn’t designing for a real client, her methods inspire plenty of ideas for a real house.
Starting with the combined kitchen and family room, she recalls, “I faced every obstacle known to man.” The seating area was a small, awkward space, where nearly every wall harbored windows or a fireplace. Though designers often float furniture in the middle of a room, in this case she wondered, “How do you get six people into this space without tripping over everyone?” She opted to eliminate several chairs in favor of one very long sofa and turned the bay area into a long window seat. Then she floated two large ottomans—meant for jumping on—in the middle.
Cavin-Winfrey found a similar solution in the kitchen. The plan called for a small island. There was an area off to the side for a separate table, but again, space constraints would have made additional furniture look cluttered. So she asked the builder to lengthen the island so that the bar would become the exclusive seating area—which, after all, is where guests always gravitate.
Within the confines of a townhouse, the designer emphasizes that each room should have multiple uses—including the sitting room she designed on the entry level. “It’s everything—a man cave, basement, family room, home office, overflow space,” she says. She painted the walls a deep chocolate-brown—fertile ground from which other colors pop. “It’s like painting your canvas and letting everything else float on top,” she explains. Built-in cabinets can hold anything from games to office supplies, while the skinny table and banquette can play a number of roles.
The room feels rich because every plane from ceiling to floor holds something of interest. The fiddle-leaf fig trees draw the eye up, while the middle plane is filled with multiple fabrics and forms and the sisal rug adds texture to the floor. None of the options, says Cavin-Winfrey, are necessarily expensive. “While it may appear intimidating,” she says, “it’s very achievable.”
She set aside the living room upstairs for just one use. “I wanted it to feel like a space that was special—an adult space.” Two long sofas face one another, their elegant curves a counterpoint to the square room. The clear glass coffee table helps avoid visual clutter. She went vertical with tall, airy étagères and simple linen drapes, also employed in the adjoining dining room. The gilded chest and mirror serve as the room’s focal point, so it’s not surprising that Cavin-Winfrey placed a bar tray there, emphasizing this as a kid-free zone.
She intentionally combined many different materials in this space, but they all work together seamlessly. “I walk into so many houses, and everything is wood,” she says. “It’s about balancing.” Here, metal, glass, sisal and rich upholstery blend in unexpected ways.
While she navigated a series of small spaces on the lower levels, the designer had the opposite problem in the master bedroom, where acres of space needed to be corralled into a cozy retreat. Lamenting that “the bedroom gets the least attention,” Cavin-Winfrey demonstrates what a little thought can do for this often neglected space. She chose an elegant, overscaled wallpaper pattern to bring the expansive walls inward and enclosed the headboard in a canopy to bring down the scale of the high tray ceiling. The plush sofa at the foot of the bed completes the protective bubble. Multiple light sources illuminate specific vignettes, breaking the big room into smaller zones.
Often, show houses end up presenting a cacophony of styles. But because this one embodies a single designer’s work, there was a distinct method to Cavin-Winfrey’s madness: “This was a study in using different palettes and patterns, but also in how to achieve that carry-over color,” she says, pointing out the deep emerald green on the main level and the many riffs on this hue shown throughout the house. “All of these spaces feel very different, but they’re very connected.”
Jennifer Sergent is a freelance writer based in Arlington, Virginia. Gordon Beall is a Bethesda, Maryland, photographer.
INTERIOR DESIGN: SHAZALYNN CAVIN-WINFREY, SCW Interiors, Alexandria, Virginia.
As an expert and consultant on environmental sustainability, Kyle Tanger wanted to live the way he works. So when he and his wife, Lynn, were looking for a new house in Alexandria, Virginia, their goal was to buy something that would meet the best environmental standards. “We wanted it to be move-in ready,” Lynn says.
Yet what they found was much different: a stately, 1930s-era brick home on a drive lined with similarly well-appointed homes. Curb appeal? Plenty. Energy-efficient? Not in the least. “It was in vintage, vintage condition,” Lynn Tanger says. Yet, “we walked in this house, and it felt like home.”
Thus, the Tangers embarked on a full-scale remodel and addition before they moved in at the end of 2011. Not only did they aim to bring the house in line with the residential requirements of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standard, they also wanted to expand it to meet the needs of their growing family and improve the sense of flow and open space inside.
The Tangers tapped Harry Braswell, Inc., because of the contractor’s reputation for green remodeling. On Braswell’s recommendation, they engaged Alexandria architect Patrick Camus to create the new design. And Lynn Tanger asked designer David Chenault of d2 Decorium Design (co-owner of Decorium furniture store in Alexandria) to assist with the interiors.
The 13-month renovation unfolded as a balancing act: Braswell and his team had to meet LEED requirements while also ensuring that every material, finish and fixture was aesthetically pleasing. The effort was such a success that it earned Braswell two Contractor of the Year awards from the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, including a Grand award for green remodeling.
Because of their past experience, Braswell and his project manager, Gretchen Brown, assisted Camus and the other subcontractors in accruing all the points they needed to earn the LEED title—starting with dismantling almost everything in the house except for the brick exterior. “We had to touch every square inch of this house, because we had to remove every bit of plaster to get the insulation in,” Brown says. Most older homes with plaster walls have no insulation between the walls and exterior brick, causing air leakage. After taking down the walls, Braswell built new ones about four inches into each room, then injected the spaces with highly efficient spray-foam insulation.
The old radiators and lighting came next, replaced with a modern HVAC system and LED lights. The aging roof is now Eco Slate, a recycled plastic that resembles the slate tiles used during the era when the house was built.
Braswell was able to salvage the original dark-stained wood flooring in the remodeled interiors; however, it turned out to be a rare American chestnut—which they didn’t discover until the oak floor in the addition had already been installed. The challenge then was to match the two woods, whose grains are very different. Braswell’s subcontractor mixed stains to balance the natural red of the oak with the natural gray of the chestnut, producing a shade that makes it difficult to see where one ends and the other begins.
Gone was the old kitchen, with its vintage metal St. Charles cabinetry and teak paneling. Erin Hoopes of Virginia Kitchens, a Braswell affiliate, designed the new space, which Camus united with the large family room in the rear addition. Answering Lynn Tanger’s desire for symmetry and flow, Hoopes hid many appliances—even a cell phone charging station—behind uniform custom cabinetry.
There was one load-bearing beam that came down from the ceiling in the kitchen, so Hoopes installed faux beams over the entire rear space to make the look uniform. And she left “the windows clean and open,” without draperies, allowing light to pour into the space.
One of the aesthetic drawbacks found throughout the old house, Camus says, was a general lack of natural light. To address that issue upstairs, Braswell built large glass transoms over all the bedroom and bathroom doors, so light from the windows would flow into the interior hallway. A master suite boasting plenty of windows was built over the family room and kitchen in back, while a guest room was constructed over the garage to accommodate frequent visits from relatives.
The Tangers are pleased with the renovation that meets both Kyle’s environmental goals and Lynn’s decorator instincts. The result is a home that marries 21st-century green technology with a style that evokes its 1930s roots.
Brown calls it the most beautiful job she’s ever worked on, crediting Lynn Tanger’s involvement. “Most clients,” she says, “don’t have that eye or that vision.”
Writer Jennifer Sergent is based in Arlington,Virginia. Greg Hadley is a Fairfax, Virginia, photographer.
RENOVATION ARCHITECTURE: PATRICK CAMUS, Studio Camus, LLC, Alexandria. Virginia. CONTRACTOR: HARRY BRASWELL, principal, GRETCHEN BROWN, project manager, Harry Braswell, Inc., Alexandria, Virginia. INTERIOR DESIGN: DAVID CHENAULT, d2 Decorium Design, Alexandria, Virginia.
