A Serendipitous Retreat to a Stylish Remodel

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Featured Homes

In 2019, our feature homeowners just returned to their native New York urban lifestyles after living in Alexandria for several years, when they decided they enjoyed the Chesapeake Bay area so much, that they would start looking for a weekend family retreat in Annapolis. With their younger son in the Naval Academy, and their older son already a commissioned Naval officer, a Naptown location would be key—and something on the water—would be even better. 

Origin Story

The couple had some familiarity with Annapolis from previous visits to see their son, and remark that they had stayed in some local homes, including one in Bay Ridge, that they loved for their locations, their vibes, and the glimpses they saw of what life might look—and feel like—if they could live there some of the time; perhaps even offering the home to midshipmen when on leave or during Commissioning Week. Soon enough, they would be working with a real estate agent to tour homes and move forward with their plans to purchase a second home.

While on the hunt, they would learn that the homes they liked best, and even some of the previous residences that provided them lodging had one thing in common: Their floorplans were all designed on the desktops of Purple Cherry Architects (PCA) in Annapolis. This was not the first time that name had popped up for the couple on this journey, as the husband tells it:

“We had asked…four or five people for their opinions [on architects] if you were doing something in Annapolis, who would you contact? And there was one or two names that were on everybody’s list, and Cathy [Purple Cherry] was one of them.”

So, it was fortuitous that when they did find the property that they were looking for along the Severn River, their real estate agent knew Cathy and brokered an introduction. The couple was grateful she agreed to conduct a walk-through of the house to assess it before they closed on it. 

This encounter sealed the deal in many ways for the couple. The house would, indeed, need work. The original or base part of the structure was built in 1940 and had been added to with at least two renovations since then, leaving the house in a chockablock condition with smaller, darker living and transition spaces, and less than advantageous views to the water.

This was especially evident upon entry to the home, which, at that time, provided no sightline to the water, thanks to an ill-positioned stairway. However, the home did have a prime location in eyeshot of the Old Severn River Bridge, a lovely backyard entertaining area with an in-ground pool and patio (a must-have for the couple), and ample potential to become that vacation residence and that home-away-from-home for midshipmen and their families.

The Central Issue

Right away, the couple knew they were facing a significant and maybe even radical remedy to the problem of the obstructed view and chopped up floorplan. 

“To my husband and I, and we’ve never done anything quite like this, there were a couple of big things that we thought [about] and we’re like, ‘Are we crazy to think about moving a staircase?’  Cathy came here and in 15 minutes just in walking through the house, she says, ‘Oh, you’ve got to move your staircase.’ She pointed out all these things in such a quick walkthrough that my husband and I had already been thinking [about]. So, we were like, ‘Okay. She gets it.’”

With contracts executed and in-hand at the end of 2019, the couple returned to Manhattan, and allowed Cathy’s team to finalize a floorplan that would address a flawed first floor with little intuitive flow. Walls would be removed, windows and doorways would be enlarged, and a new staircase would be introduced to address what Purple Cherry described as a “very closed in and contained” house. 

“There was not a lot of airy-ness, not a lot of openness, not a lot of connectivity,” Purple Cherry explains.

The couple would then choose luxury custom builder, Mueller Homes of Annapolis, to execute the completed floorplan that would provide the home with major first floor interior upgrades, including ripping out the existing staircase and installing a new one to the right of where it had been. As a result, two stories of volume would be created and generous skylights would then be added to infuse the home with natural light upon entry instead of the closed off, dark, stair-facing foyer they once had. That was the plan that the couple went back to Manhattan with.

Timing is Everything 

And then the plan changed. The plan changed in a big way. The fact was that everyone’s plans were changing in a very big way as an epidemic took hold. As the couple tells it, by March 2020, many people were leaving New York for the less dense countryside, suburbs, or second homes in sunny places in hopes of avoiding the scourge that was COVID-19. 

Even though work had yet to begin on their Annapolis escape, the couple retreated from New York once the wife, an attorney, was given the okay from her law firm that she could work from home. He would reason that with his career in finance soon to be in the rear-view window, anyway, it was not only time to retreat, but it was also time to make the move from the city, a permanent one. 

While it was far from ideal to be living in the home while renovations were underway, the husband chose to take a lighter view of their circumstances.

“So, we’d get up and it’d be like that old movie, The Money Pit, where you see your contractor through the bathroom mirror or something.”

The two years ahead of them would be challenging ones for all concerned with the sick days, delays, and supply chain issues they had to contend with, and as they worked through creating a flawless and highly-functioning first floor plan, they noticed a few things—like what happens when you have a home that is nearly 100 years old and that has been updated on a few separate occasions. 

Reno Anew

“There was a wing renovation in the ’70s, and then there was another wing renovation in the ’90s, but nothing was ever really seamlessly connected,” the husband explains. “So, one of the things that we tried to do when we got here was to make it no longer three pieces of a home but make it one complete home.” 

Along with making sure that the home’s plumbing and electrical was up to date, the homeowners ascertained quickly that this was no superficial renovation. An especially notable event occurred when all the old floors were ripped out in favor of luscious American black walnut hardwoods. They noticed just how formal and outdated some other aspects of the home were.

From windows that were all a tad undersized relative to the view, to porch railings and second floor bathrooms that were just functional but not contemporaneously attractive to a roof that had seen its best days, the couple realized that if they weren’t all in, there could be some unattractive consequences.

“It literally would’ve been a half, spanking brand-new house and a half, 30-year-old house,” the husband explains. And so, a decision to create and conquer on the main and upper levels, inside and out began in earnest. 

From the front door on, everything about the house now looks as beautiful as it is functional. Inside, the sightlines from the entry flow right through and out to the property’s outdoor living space. Along the way, the homeowners pass their gorgeous architectural staircase now located to the right of the entry hall. A sparkling, sphere-shaped, sea-glass studded lighting fixture floats above the staircase and above that, an attractive skylight helps bathe the first floor with welcoming light. The home’s formal living room with its outstanding waterfront views is located to the left of the entry foyer.

Speaking of welcoming, glimpses of the old Severn River Bridge can now be seen through the glass-panels of its new front door. The entire front façade has been updated to include a curved porch beam with mahogany ceiling inlay, turning a tired and traditionally dated entrance into a conversation piece before you even enter the home.

The entry foyer also provides two access points to the home’s totally re-imagined open-plan living space. It is as lovely as the wife had hoped it would be with a subtle homage to Chesapeake living in its tones and textures; a vibe she had seen and prized in those previous guest lodgings. 

“What I love about what they did with the aesthetic is that there are these really nice subtle touches throughout the house that just make it have a nautical type of feel. Like the fan that we have in the den that is made of sailcloth instead of just wood. [It’s] touches like that,” the wife says.

The entire length of the open-plan space looks out to the river with its interior flow mimicking that of the river in a sense, giving the homeowners the comfortable, calming retreat they had desired.

The meticulously chosen materials in this space were selected under the creative supervision of PCA’s lead interior designer, Annie Kersey. 

Shades of muted navy, warm, white upholstery, and wood tones prevail here. A kitchen cabinetry package in the Shaker style is accented with applied bead detail. A trio of heirloom brass white pendant lights with navy stripes from Nash are suspended from the ceiling over the Polarstone quartz-topped island. 

The base of the island was tailored to provide storage below, a convenient prep sink above, and breakfast bar seating. A customized blue stain was created specifically for the piece and applied like a wash to enhance the room’s understated nautical feel. A companion piece, a coffee and wet bar, in this blue wash stain is located on the water-facing wall, framing where the family will gather for meals. A specially-sized dining table with a reclaimed timber finish was created just for this space and sourced from Tritter Feefer; the dining and host chairs from Thibaut, sport a Dune Avery Linen fabric.

The intentional design and materials flow into an equally gorgeous and relaxing seating area with a fireplace on one side, and out to an extended screened-in porch on the water side. The decision to go “all-in” certainly played itself out well, as this area was smartly enhanced when a dated railing with smaller openings to the water was replaced with larger expanses and sleek, stainless steel cable railings with Ipe toppers. A beadboard ceiling was added above and floors of Ipe were added under foot to bring warmth and a boat-on-the-river feel to this exceptional gathering space.

With the exception of an upgraded bathroom and the addition of a subtly curved corridor off the landing, the second floor required only “soft upgrades,” as Purple Cherry likes to call them. 

To accentuate the primary suite’s amazing water views, Kersey says the homeowners wanted to pull in the soft and soothing sea foam greens inspired by the wife’s choice of area rug for the room. This was balanced by purposeful layers of window sheers and drapes, bedding with natural linen accents, and the wistful flock of waterfowl sculpture above the bed. 

The Big Finish

The crowning touches to this project came outside the home with: an enhanced hardscape and curated landscape by McHale Landscape Design, Inc. of McLean Virginia; Purple Cherry’s suggestion to replace the existing dated beige siding with NuCedar, an innovative, no-rot exterior siding; and the husband’s plea for a breezeway replacement that kept him from getting wet when it rained. 

“It had a flat roof, so there was constant dripping off the sides after a rain,” the husband says. “There were no gutters. And that was always very annoying to me, and I didn’t like the way it was finished off.” 

The solution came in the form of an elegant barrel roof walkway with mahogany inlay spanning the length of the pathway from the house to the garage.

“It turned out exactly the way I wanted it to. With the dark wood and the beams and the drop lights that we have; it turned out perfect,” says the husband, who later reflected on how the initial scope of their home plans may have changed, but the end result was something that exceeded their expectations.

“It was a long haul, but everybody made it through great. Mueller Homes did a great job. Cathy and her team did a great job,” he says. “I don’t think there was anything that we wanted, that we didn’t get.”