Diplomacy by Design

Q and A with Chris Snowber

by Beth Herman

In an effort to reconcile the discerning but disparate tastes of a homeowner couple in Cleveland Park - she liked sleek and modern and he preferred traditional - Chris Snowber of Hamilton Snowber Architects diplomatically embarked on a renovation of a 1910 Foursquare. Also, because the historic district site projected deep into other residential lots, a previous owner had received what Snowber calls "a lot of push back" from the neighbors when seeking a rather large addition to the home. The house was eventually sold, sans addition, and the proposed three-story new addition for the current homeowners was smaller, receiving the community's imprimatur. The redesign involved a new 1,400 s.f. addition on three levels, as well as renovating the original 4,200 s.f. residence's two floors, basement and attic space. DCMud spoke with Snowber about the multifaceted project.

DCMud: First, what was the program for this renovation?

Snowber: The rooms were segregated with small openings between them. As with a lot of these older homes, the kitchen was broken off and small. Our mission was to expand it and have it connect to some living spaces, specifically a family room and playroom space. We then wanted to connect those spaces to a screened back porch and deck which opened to the yard. We wanted to extend the house but not overtake the substantial backyard.

DCMud: And how did you address the clients' divergent tastes under one roof?

Snowber: The real difference between them was about the style of the finishes and the image of the house. For instance the idea of an open kitchen that would connect to the rest of the house was a common denominator, but the character of the spaces - use of traditional moldings, elaborations of fireplaces, choice of cabinetry - was different.

DCMud: So there was agreement soon after take-off?

Snowber: Even though we started off with a more transitional design - paneled cabinet doors, etc. -  when the wife discovered some very modern oak and stainless steel Bulthaup kitchen cabinets, this really set the tone for the rest of the work.

DCMud: If you jettisoned the idea of transitional, or middle ground, can you elaborate on how the design was executed?

Snowber: Quite often the resolution for that is a design with a mixture of more modern furnishings and cabinetry and trim that is less heavy and more abstract than the existing house might have had. But in this case went to two extremes: The kitchen and family room (new addition in the back of the house) are very modern, both in the cabinetry and window detailing and also the fireplace surround. In the rest of the house, like the living room, dining room and front hall, we went even more traditional. We removed all of the existing trim - all of the crown, base, all of the window treatments, replacing them with heavier and more elaborate trims than were there in the first place. The house had a Craftsman look, and we actually made it much more formal.

DCMud: So rather than compromising, you played these two styles against each other.

Snowber: That's right. Then when we started furnishing it, both in the new and existing parts of the house, the furniture is very modern. So while the dining room has a brand new fireplace and traditional but new coffered ceiling, the table and light fixture are quite modern. In short these rooms have very modern furniture in this very traditional context.

DCMud: Did you retain the original flooring, which appears to be rough-hewn?

Snowber: We did - and it's a narrow oak. In the kitchen, though, the floor is granite pavers.

DCMud: What about the second and third floors, and the basement.

Snowber: The home had six bedrooms and ended up that way, but they're configured differently. On the second floor, the whole back of the house is the master suite. The wife has an office on that floor also. The third floor has a guestroom for the client's parents who visit, plus an office and a playroom with loft and balcony for the kids. The basement contains a large playroom with desk area, a side entrance mudroom and an au pair suite.

DCMud: From the exterior, the back of the house appears to be more open.

Snowber: Whenever you're dealing with historic houses in D.C., there are different standards for what goes in the front and back of the house. We got to use two-over-two windows in the back, where preserving the historic fabric was less important, whereas in the front the openings had to be of a more traditional scale. Interestingly the two-over-two windows are also from an historic area - more Victorian in nature. And they gave the windows some scale, so as not to be wide-open pieces of glass.

DCMud: Speaking of modern, traditional and historical, is there a particular structure in the area that informs your work - and your spirit?

Snowber: There's a building I like that many do not know about. It's the River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda. Built in 1964 by Keyes, Lethbridge, Condon, it won a number of architecture awards. It's both modern and traditional in a lot of ways and has a certain Alvar Alto-esque (Finnish architect) quality. Whenever he designed buildings, he'd design them along with the furnishings. Here it's the use of natural materials - wood, brick and steel. It's asymmetrical but still feels like church with a masterful manipulation of light - a real spiritual space. This makes it pleasant to be in at all different times of the day and in all seasons.

Photos courtesy of David Reeve Photography.  Washington DC real estate news

Reviving Springdale

by Beth Herman


Prominent in Montgomery County agricultural circles, newlyweds Edward and Deborah Lea moved into a 2 1/2-story stucco house on 27 acres circa 1837-38. A gift from Edward's father, Delaware transplant Thomas Lea, Sr., the property in still-bucolic Brinklow, Maryland became home to a young couple who, along with their progeny, would continue to impact the community.

Nee Springdale Farm, the Leas became stalwart stewards of an agricultural site that also supported a tenant house, spring house, smoke house and a stone mason-constructed bank barn. Credited with acquiring one of the first threshing machines in Montgomery County, Edward became a progressive member of the local horticultural society, one of the founders of the Sandy Spring Farmers' Club and incorporators of the Savings Institution of Sandy Spring. According to historical records, Edward Lea "...reached out for better ways of doing things in home and farm."

At the end of a multi-year search for a singular 18th or 19th Century property, homeowners Johanna and Larry Weekley acquired Springdale Farm which had succumbed to years of complacency by well-meaning but aging subsequent homeowners. But just as it had reflected the Leas' ambitions and agrestic achievements (Deborah made local history when she became the first in her area to successfully can applesauce after 1850), Springdale would also become a manifestation of the Weekleys' passion as curators of regional history and coveted antiques. Perhaps paramount to that, it would become a pristine canvas for what unarguably was Larry Weekley's transcendent botanical vision.

Brass tacks

"To begin with, we needed to remove a bad addition in the back of the house," said JoAnn Zwally of Ashton Design Group, adding the program was to replace it with an historically correct one. The addition would contain a new kitchen, family room, master bedroom and bath. The rear facade would include a half moon-shaped terrace with wide steps that would eventually overlook one of the homeowners' many gardens. A neo-Colonial two-story porch with columns and a metal roof, added in the 1930s and which spanned the entire width of the facade, would need to be replaced with a Greek Revival porch with simple square columns and a wood roof - emblematic of the period.

According to Zwally, removal of the 1930s porch revealed evidence of footings and marks on the front facade indicating the exact placement of the structure's original porch. By the same token, it also required clean-up of dirt mounds used as fill in raising it up to the height of the front door, which had covered basement windows and some of the stone foundation, also resulting in considerable termite damage.

Restoring the 856 s.f. two-story tenant's house occupied in generations past  by various farm hands who were given shelter, certain foodstuffs and a garden (and which was later leased out by the Weekleys), refurbishing its kitchen, flooring, single bathroom and walls was on the agenda. The homeowners were then able to move in to be closer to the larger renovation of Springdale's primary residence.

Room with an historical view

In historical design, Zwally noted symmetry is a key component. Accordingly, the addition's kitchen reflected this in its fenestration. Double-paned banks of windows, which extend down to the sink and stove, match banks on the other side - divided by a French door. A kitchen farm table was forged by local craftsman Dr. Joe Reitman, who also made an armoire for the master bedroom. The Weekley's son Jon, log furniture maker and owner of Denver-based Medicine Wolf Co., created the kitchen's rustic corner table and a pair of aspen and spruce rocking chairs on the master bedroom balcony. (In an even later renovation, a butler's pantry was fashioned from a space off the kitchen, replete with undercounter Sub-Zero refrigerator, and items such as granite countertops were added.)

In the new family room, a fireplace mantle was reused from the demolished 1930s addition, and in fact the house now boasted six working fireplaces including a new one in the master bedroom. While the existing ones, whose chimneys were relined during the renovation, had black slate facades, the fireplace in the new master was faced with delicate Delft-style tiling.

A foyer in the existing house was refreshed to follow the dominant navy and terracotta colors in a Hamadan tribal rug in the Weekleys' possession. Expressed in Greeff wallpaper in a spectacular Phoenix pattern germane to the Colonial period, the motif follows a wooden staircase all the way up to the residence's third level. Fabric that accompanied the Greeff paper was used for window treatments in the living and dining rooms, and navy accents can also be found in the new family room and kitchen and in bedrooms. In the living room, a Weekley family 18th Century Chippendale clawfoot wing chair was covered in a navy and terracotta flame stitch.

Arbiters of Colonial good taste, many of the home's antiques had a familial provenance through Johanna Weekley's ancestors, the Hyde family. Journeying from 17th Century England to Connecticut and ultimately settling in 18th Century Bath, Maine, the Hydes - founders of iconic (and still thriving) Bath Iron Works - passed down a Connecticut cherry Queen Anne highboy, the aforementioned wing chair, 18th Century Delft chargers, brass andirons and more. Additional antiques acquired for Springdale included a Hepplewhite mahogany bow front chest with original brass and a New Hampshire-forged grandfather clock.

Upon construction the house had not been electrified though was naturally updated over the decades. Still there was no overhead lighting in the existing part of the house and care was taken during the renovation to honor that fact, except for a foyer fixture and dining room chandelier. In the addition, recessed lighting was used.

Quarter sawn oak flooring found in the existing part of the house, milled from local trees, was repaired and preserved. Zwally also noted that when refurbishing the home's third floor beams, plaster was removed to reveal actual trees with bark and pegs, presumably taken from the property at that time to build the structure. The home's existing exterior is stucco over brick; the addition is stucco over frame.

Gardens in stone

Outdoors, and when Larry Weekley, who has since passed away, retired, he exorcised his inner landscape architect and put it to work suffusing Springdale's acreage with an explosion of flora rivaling the massive scale gardens of European palaces and grounds. Zwally said in many ways the focus of this property is its magnificent gardens.

"The original property had many specimen trees," she explained, noting the Leas and successive homeowners, the Mannings, were interested in cultivating such. "Larry bloomed each spring. He built walls. He built wattles. He built ponds." As a result of a serious drought one year, he constructed an underground water system to ferry water to his gardens in the future. The old stone bank barn erected on the property when the Leas moved in was destroyed by fire in the 1940s, its ruins resurrected and repointed by Weekley into a walled-in, deer-proof garden defined by irises, peonies, roses, foxgloves, hybrid daylilies, baptisia, mums and more.

Currently on the market for $1,399,000., Springdale Farm's "bonus room" comes in the guise of its original spring house. Used by the Leas and Mannings to cool milk and butter, Zwally said it is delightful inside even on the hottest summer day, and the Weekleys used it to cool beer for their generous summer parties.

"At Christmas they always made the best eggnog served in little Limoges cups," the designer recalled of her years in the homeowners' social circle following Springdale's renovation. "You'd sit by a roaring fire. It was the highlight of my season."

Winstanley and Goliath

Q and A with Michael Winstanley
by Beth Herman

Creating his own office space for a burgeoning staff at 107 N. West Street in Old Town, Alexandria, along with a state-of-the-art photography studio for wife Jessica Marcotte under the same roof, Michael Winstanley of Michael Winstanley Architects and Planners slayed the giant. Pitting the $490,000 design against Goliath projects by other firms, including a $50 million Columbia University biology lab, the 4,350 s.f. Winstanley office won 2011's National Society of American Registered Architects (NSARA) Award for building design. In the same year it also garnered a National Association for Industrial and Office Parks (NAIOP) Award for building renovation. DCMud spoke with Winstanley about the little office that could.

DCMud: Your firm is renovating Union Station and has designed large-scale structures in faraway places like Macau and Kazakhstan. How did you choose a building to reflect the range of your work?

Winstanley: We were originally in another old building in Old Town which was sold and was to be torn down. Jessica and I had about 1,000 s.f. each, and I had four employees. My practice was growing, and my wife needs a 12-foot high space for her photo stand and light booms. In Alexandria there isn't a lot of warehouse or industrial space, so it took a long time to find but we finally located it - a former carpet warehouse. Financing was done through a combination of private funds along with SBA and bank loans.

DCMud: What were some of the design challenges you faced?

Winstanley: Our building sits on the property line so that's as much land as we had: a zero lot line. We had a tight budget and no windows except for clerestories, and needed to have some vision windows, so we put windows along the alley which is really a fire lane - the only place we could have them. Because we work late, our office looks out onto the alley so it no longer feels unsafe for the neighborhood. We also used four operable skylights on the opposite side of the building to balance the light inside, which washed the walls in daylight.

DCMud: Sounds as though you had an eye to sustainability.

Winstanley: In fact during the day you don't even need the lights on. We also did operable windows to open for fresh air as often as possible. The entire concrete block envelope is now heavily insulated (there was none at acquisition): floor; roof; walls. The HVAC system is automated so it's off at night. For flooring we used reclaimed oak from Virginia, and it's raised up on sleepers to run our data cables underneath it to avoid data drops from the ceiling. Finally, though the building was marketed as a tear down and rebuild, we chose to use the existing building instead of razing and starting over. We are also five blocks from the King Street Metro.


DCMud: We understand the IKEA workstations have their own little backstory.

Winstanley: We currently have 20 workstations in 3,350 s.f. (the remaining 1,000 s.f. is allocated to the photography studio) but can comfortably seat 25 to 30 employees when necessary. I knew that IKEA was an economical solution but had always thought it looked too inexpensive given the kind of work we do. My concern was that IKEA furniture would indicate a modest practice, when we actually do a lot of large scale projects - like a $300 million, one million s.f. development in San Antonio. I looked everywhere for something else but never found anything with the right feel.

DCMud: So you acquiesced?

Winstanley: I wanted to do something that didn't scream IKEA, but using the same we designed a very simple four-piece furniture system. The colors and textures matched the office. The irony is when I went to add a few more desks later on, IKEA had stopped making some of the components. A carpenter agreed to replicate things for $400 - for just one of the tabletops - when it had cost $80 at IKEA. But we had to do it!

DCMud: The conference room seems to be open to the rest of the space. How does that work acoustically?

Winstanley: It's far enough away so that meetings don't interfere. We also have an in house model making shop in our space.

DCMud: Tell us about the photography studio.

Winstanley: It's all open with its own entrance. Jessie has (dedicated) office space with her desk and couch within the studio. There's also an IKEA kitchenette, just like we have in the architecture studio.


DCMud: Given the breadth and scope of your work, why are you based in Old Town and not D.C.?

Winstanley: We're planners as well as architects and I've lived in a lot of cities, including Boston. Old Town reminds me of Beacon Hill which I like. In D.C., however, you surely can't escape the power of the L'Enfant plan: the organization of the city; the symbolism of the capitol; the location of important public buildings in the Federal Triangle. It's a green and livable city that appeals to me because Charles L'Enfant was smart about the way it was planned and organized. D.C. is unlike any other place.

Photos courtesy of Jessica Marcotte

Thoreau Slept Here

by Beth Herman   


In his quest for an unembellished life, transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau took to the woods with perhaps a not-so-novel battle cry. "Our life is frittered away by detail," he famously wrote. "Simplify. Simplify."

In their pursuit of a renovation and addition to a 1950s modern house that would reflect a Thoreau-esque aesthetic, and also court the abundance of mature trees around their Arlington, Virginia property, homeowners Jed and Marie joined forces with award-winning architect Patrick Carter of Reve Design Studio to achieve their goal.

'The client had a 1 1/2-story house with a master suite, kitchen and living room on the first floor and a tiny hallway with two secondary bedrooms on the second," Carter said of the 1,666 s.f. residence. "It was an open floorplan and though not really a formal space, there were no informal places for the kids to play." At certain times of the year, it also provided a view of the D.C. skyline.

Parents of two young children, Jed grew up in a modern Michigan home designed and built by an architect father. Marie is a card-carrying minimalist, according to Carter, and creating a modern-minimalist residence for a growing family that tipped its hat (or roof slope) to nature was a tall architectural order.

With a program to keep the master on the first floor and add 549 s.f. by reconfiguring the upstairs to maintain the two children's bedrooms, but add a family room, home office/music room (the family plays multiple instruments), and also retain a portion of the roof deck as a second floor balcony, Carter reached out to Mike Madden and John Page of Madden Corporation (construction) and Andrew Greene of Potomac Woodwork. A prodigious use of custom millwork came to define the new space, including a strong display of sandblasted rift-cut oak door panels between the family room and office/music room.

"Sandblasting eats away at the soft grain and leaves a physical texture - not just a visual one," Carter explained. The result of a "tricky" treatment in the drywall, when the closet doors are closed there are five equal segments: two wood and three wall.

With the design driven largely by Marie's need to compartmentalize and eliminate clutter, the house, which had virtually no storage, received a series of ample closets with double doors in the new space. Keeping the rooms open, furnishings are sleek and spare, including designs by LeCorbussier, Marcel Bruer and Charles and Ray Eames. And because you're up in the trees, Carter explained, keeping a clean color palette was imperative to draw attention out to the home's exterior. To that end white oak flooring, originally found on the first level, is carried through upstairs, along with pristine white walls and ceiling.


Room with a view
"Because the house is on a hill in the woods, and there's no yard, having a way to be outside was important. We wanted to keep that outdoor space on the second floor," Carter said of the now Ipe-decked balcony with tongue-in-groove cedar ceiling, citing the tree house effect as a key design component. Double-paned, low-E floor-to-ceiling windows, operable at the bottom and at full length on the ends, give the effect of "stepping out into the trees," as does the bay that cantilevers out, extending beyond the building's main box envelope.

With Jed an Air Force Academy graduate, the idea to represent the roof line as an inverted wing also provided the opportunity for a Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie-style moment inside the home. As the roof butterflies with the low point at the center of the house, the occupants' experience of the space is compressed, beginning with the 8-foot. ceiling height, and then swept up and out through the expansive glass, where the ceiling is 10 feet.

On the exterior, bronze accents and siding in muted green tones - specifically Benjamin Moore Nantucket Gray and Celery Salt - harmonize with the surrounding Evergreens and other arbors. Carter worked to preserve the existing 1950s brick and matched its natural-hued mortar with the exterior paint choices so not to create additional maintenance issues for the homeowners.

Cable rails, creating an open and closed railing system, were a device to open up the outdoor space as much as possible. Though the house is in the woods, there are neighbors on either side and across the street. "It was a balance of privacy and openness, of taking advantage of the views and still allowing privacy if you're out on the deck," Carter explained.

Showing you the door


Recalling that the first time he went to the Arlington house a solid wall atop a brick wall prevented him from finding the front door, opening the front to engage the street was paramount for the architect. "It was a little foreboding and unapproachable," Carter said, identifying a rhythm of open and closed cable railing systems that now punctuate the building.

Seinfeld and I

With a nod to the episode where Jerry's new girlfriend, a victim of capricious lighting, looked alternately angelic and haggard, Carter's lighting tenets include horizontal lighting as opposed to direct, overhead, which he firmly eschews. "Some architects tend to fill a room with recessed lights, somewhere in the middle, which is not always flattering when they shine down on you," he explained, adding the key is to light the room's perimeter so it bounces off the walls for a gentler result.

Delving into his architecture philosophy, the professed closet Frederick Law Olmsted said the way he thinks about work is in terms of something "subtractive.

"A lot of architects think about design as additive," he explained. "They say you're creating a building on the land, so you're adding something to it. But when I get into design, it's a lot like pushing and pulling of volumes so you're breaking the box - carving out spaces. In this project you see it on the front porch and how it works with the bay window above above that protrudes. On the second floor the deck is recessed."

Citing a personal mantra and phrase, "levels of 'insidedness'," as a student Carter recalls an architecture professor who told him a door is more than a hole in the wall. "It's all about approach and that level of 'insidedness,'" he affirmed. "Are you inside when you climb the stairs to the front porch? Are you inside when you cross the threshold of that beam and column? What about when you're covered but then you take a step to the right and you're not? Architecture is about creating a progression - a series of stills." 

Photos courtesy of Paul Burk