Ideas for the house

Big ideas, limited budget.  Having lived in California for 11 years, we had big dreams of walls of windows, winding wings enclosing various courtyards, and bringing the outside in and vice-versa.  Only takes one cold winter and one hot, humid summer in Virginia to see that it doesn't translate well.

Jenny has travelled France and Italy extensively and loves the countryside there.  For something unique and better suited for the Mid-Atlantic climate, we developed our "French country villa" theme.  From Matt, we had the approximate house base dimensions and his initial idea.  We found the following photo and worked from that, liking how the steep roof cut the upper floor, providing outside view interest and inside, sloping ceilings for a cottage feel:

Working from Matt's plans, I put together this 3D CAD model to help visualize the whole house as it might appear after Phase I, from the front, screened porch on the right:

One of the key elements of the "French country villa" look is stucco.  Stucco has a bad rep on the East Coast where the humidity can accelerate structural wood rot if the stucco is not applied correctly.  To apply it correctly is very expensive, as Matt found out, and as we were afraid was probably the answer.  So, other options?  The best siding at an median price is fiber-cement lap board siding...very American, not very "French country villa".  We had no choice but resign to it.  So taking on Matt's suggestion of using a small lap reveal (5") which I thought was more American colonial, and looking for a french country color, we endeavored to make the best of it.

Then...(prepare for the divine intervention, guardian angel tap, mamaw's whisper moment) I was driving home on a Sunday from Luray, in the Shenandoah Mountains where I was assisting Jenny on a triathlon photo shoot, when I passed Grey Ghost Winery.  I had passed it 20 times before without ever stopping, but had always admired the "French country villa" stucco building you could see from the road.  This time, something said "go back".  So after turning around and pulling in, through some great vineyard rows with impressively thick vines, i parked next to the building.

BAM!  It wasn't stucco, it was James Hardy fiber-cement vertical siding, which are 4'x8' panels with an imitation stucco finish.  Butted edge to edge vertically, from 10 ft away it looks like real stucco, but with the siding advantages of fiber-cement.  I don't remember much of the remaining drive home as my mind raced with excitement and possibilities, freedom from the hum-drum lap siding!  As it turns out, Matt has used the vertical siding before at Lake Anna and jumped right in on the idea.

Next, "let's move some dirt"...








 did

The general idea...

Being an engineer, I needed to have the master plan to guide all efforts.  But also being the artist...what joy to have 20 acres to act as, not a blank canvas because mother nature will have her way,  but to create in concert with the textures already there: woods, hills, streams, swales, a stand of pine...creating sight line vistas while also creating hidden places to be explored.  So what shall we paint, won't deny it, would love to have a small vineyard to grow and press my own wines, maybe some horses to provide a reason for a barn and pastures and sweet-smelling hay.  So here is my current master plan:

The house (phase I) is orange with the H.  Septic to the left (a necessary evil).  Future vineyards are shown as green lines, some orchard trees, garden plots.  Later we hope to add a garage (G) and a barn (B) with pasture fencing.  Maybe even a tree-lined drive coming in from the lane at top.  So that's the vision, on to the first and foremost, the house...

Searching, patience, and something found...

As many of you know, I've always wanted land of my own, someplace you could turn around and see only your woods, your meadows, your barns and fences...the only eyes staring back, a couple of horses and the occasional fox or deer.

Over the years, Jenny has joined me in that wish, though maybe not as permanent, just someplace to escape to, but not too far from the interesting hustle of metropolitan DC.  So, I went from daydreaming at rolling hills and barns out the car window on the rare foray into the Shenandoahs, to internet land searches in earnest, trying to find the sweet spot of far enough away from DC but not too far, affordable but not the money pit.  It was a bit frustrating, the nation in a real estate crunch and I'm looking at a listing of a run down 1920's farm house 2 hours from DC on 8 acres next to power lines, for $500,000?!?  Really?  With my focus having been out to the west of us in Virginia, Jenny one day said, what about Lake Anna?  Having heard of it but never looking there, I dragged my real estate website-enslaved mouse down the satellite map and there she was!

A 20 acre parcel of raw land, in a lake-access development with community dock,  astream down one property line, half woods, half open (though it is heavy scrub after being clear cut pine), it actually met 9 of my 10 feature requirements, and a reasonable 1.5 hours south of McLean.  Here's the satellite view of the parcel:

We purchased the land and set about finding a builder.  We interviewed several, and finally met Matt Benes, our project manager.  His vision was definitely in-line with ours, and he had some encouraging ideas for bringing the house alive within our limited budget.  Matt drew up some starting idea plans and we worked them back and forth, till we had it about right.  Then permits, then construction loan financing, actually thankful that all the red tape took us past the incredible heat and humidity.