Calm drifts through the newly rebuilt house like sunshine on a cloudless day. The two-story midcentury-style getaway home is in perfect harmony with its setting on Eastern Bay, a tributary of Maryland’s majestic estuary, Chesapeake Bay, offering views and access to the surrounding waters and supreme indoor comfort.

A big part of the home’s sensory experience is the view of the Wye River, within sight through tall windows facing the back property. On the front side, there is a stirring view of the bay.

But also key to the successful rebuild is the uncannily similar views of the designer and the architect who brought it to fruition. Colleen Healey of Colleen Healey Architecture and Kate Ballou of Hendrick Interiors, both located in Washington, DC, sensed the potential for the home’s alluring peaceful feeling, and both were delighted to see that they were of like mind.

It was truly a “full-house rebirth,” architect Healey says. “The existing home was so well built that we really didn’t have to change structural parts or do a utility upgrade. That freed up the budget, so we were able to focus on quality detailing, material modifications, and integrated LED lighting. We really raised the efficiency of the house without a full-scale gut. I’m very proud of that.”  

From the outside, the original house had a simple beachy look. But inside, it was stuffy and a bit overdone, with French country-style ironwork, saturated woods, and dark cherry trim. The new owners, attorneys with children at home, bought the house as a place they could escape to on weekends from their Washington, DC townhouse.

Most of the work, Ballou and Healey say, was reimagining details and creating a framework for the homeowners’ collection of midcentury modern Danish pieces. “We wanted it to be bright and airy, richer wood with a matte finish,” says Healey. “It gives a totally different feel.”

The homeowners were totally on board – especially considering the couple’s Danish furniture, a collection which they have been cultivating for years. As the homeowner says, “my husband and I had a goal, to combine beautiful, clean lines with comfortable, functional pieces. The midcentury modern style of much of the interior pieces enabled us to achieve that combination.”

Before broaching details, Healey focused on architecturally modifying four main areas: the stair hall, kitchen, living room, and primary bath with closet suite. Healey’s namesake business is a full-service architectural firm, and working with her staff – including staff designer Casey Meyer – she chose tiles, lighting fixtures, cabinetry, countertops, and many finishes.

One of designer Ballou’s biggest focal points was providing certain pieces of furniture to complement the couple’s Scandinavian collection. In the kitchen, a group of Series 7 chairs at the breakfast table are a common item in Denmark. They are paired with a special PP75 Stayed table. In the dining room, three walls covered in dark blue grass cloth surrender the spotlight to a beautiful silver coin table by Finn Juhl and a traditional area rug underneath.  

Danish furniture is Ballou’s specialty and a personal love: “I love the organic shapes and forms, use of materials, solid woods, and environmentally friendly finishes. I love its integrity, it’s very honest.” In the living room, an upholstered sofa by Denmark’s Radio House, set with a blue pouf, is a cozy spot. The nearby black stone fireplace was pared back to a simple profile and clad in stone slabs.

Another delicate architectural touch is a modern glass railing on the staircase, with refined treads for a softer Scandinavian feel. Balusters are of sculpted bronze, continuously looped, with glass panes sliding through.

Perhaps the most stunning transformation is the first-floor primary bathroom, an unusually long, narrow space. The original primary suite lacked cohesion and access to sunlight, and a big shower jutted awkwardly into the space. (Two other bedrooms are upstairs.) The team reinforced the bathroom’s length with doors and panels. “Just to clean it up and give it rhythm,” Ballou says. Bronze, glass, and warm wood tones shine with sun coming from larger windows that also allow views of the water and marshes. The room, as most of the rest of the interiors, is painted white. “We wanted the palette to be simple, connected, cohesive,” Ballou says.

With new interiors and beautiful views, the owners have found their home away from home. As the homeowner says, “the house is calm and uncluttered, it feels like a refuge whenever we walk into it.”

Woodcliff, a stone and nickel gap contemporary with a metal roof designed by Cathy Purple Cherry for a retired energy executive and his wife, sits on a bluff 40 feet above the Severn River, an estuary off the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis. “The name is descriptive, but also references the street that the client’s father grew up on in Richmond, Virginia,” the architect says. Surrounded by tall trees and lush swaths of green lawn complete with Adirondack chairs and a flagpole, it is a picture-perfect, everyday retreat for someone who spent decades traveling the world. 

The owners, who relocated from a Texas metropolis, relish the quieter pace of coastal living—Purple Cherry surmises they didn’t landscape the river side of the property so that the husband could putter about on his tractor. They were also keen to pay tribute to their global adventures. “They wanted the house to be a living gallery,” the founder and principal of Purple Cherry Architects says. “It’s designed with clean lines and large walls against which they can display collections from their extensive travels.” 

The 6,300-square-foot home stretches nearly 160 feet east to west along the craggy cliff in what Purple Cherry calls a “fantastic long line.” That said, this is no mere low-slung rectangle. The podlike design alternates between three one-story volumes with gable roofs oriented east-west and two double-height towers with gable roofs oriented north-south, with a flat-roofed connector between them. The effect is lyrical and nearly symmetrical, save for a screened porch that juts north toward the water and a three-car garage that pushes south on the flip side. 

That the eastern tower is the entry is clear, literally. Both the front and back façades are glass, from the foundation to the roof. That the house is see-through, from front to back along most of its length, was a significant aspect of the design. “All the primary spaces capture the view,” Purple Cherry says, noting that the isolated site allows for such splendor. 

From the low platform of a front porch, and with the water a straight shot ahead, 10-foot-tall glass doors open into the gallery-like space, its ceiling soaring to 28 feet at the ridge. That the room is just 13 feet wide amplifies the impact. 

Expanses of warm white walls showcase lifetimes of artifacts. There is a collection of antique copper plates that the husband’s parents acquired when the family lived in Turkey and a grouping of carved camel bells from Djibouti, a small country in East Africa. Figural sculptures by Mozambique ceramicist Reinata Sadimba stand on simple pedestals flanking the back door. And a linear fireplace invites guests to linger. “The space can be used for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres when they entertain,” Purple Cherry says. 

Tall openings at the left lead into the open-concept living area with a vaulted ceiling. A coffee table that the homeowner made from a slab of wood from an East African mango tree is an earthy accent between swoop-armed sofas in front of a fireplace with an elevated concrete hearth. A 30-foot wall of glass opens to the bluestone patio, making indoor/outdoor living and entertaining easy, a must on a property like this. On the south side of the house, slim upholstered chairs neatly surround a dark wood pedestal table in front of windows looking to the woods.  

The elegant kitchen recedes against the wall opposite the seating area. Rift-sawn white oak frames a niche lined in charcoal sintered stone with subtle veining; a rectilinear hood in the same material and offset white oak shelves make for a minimalist arrangement against it. The induction cooktop disappears in the matching charcoal sintered stone countertop, which is also used on the prep portion of the island with nary an overhang. A pale gray cantilevered tabletop wraps the island base, providing a causal spot for the couple to eat that is conducive to conversation. 

“You’re either a big cook or you simply stop once the kids are out of the house,” Purple Cherry says. “Many of my clients are tired of the kitchen being front and center and acting as a drop zone for everything.” To that end, the architect slotted a full-service galley kitchen behind the beautiful tableau. The sleek, uberfunctional area contains a gas cooktop, an assortment of ovens, a refrigerator, a freezer, a coffee station, and storage aplenty. Even the sink and dishwasher are in there, as the end cap with a view. “You hope that if the coffee is in the back, the mess will stay back there too!” Purple Cherry says. 

The bedroom pods stand sentinel on either end of the house. A pair of bedroom suites for the couple’s daughters are on the west end of the house, past the back kitchen and tower pod with the stair and elevator up to the husband’s office. While there is also a guest house on the grounds—a smaller, more casual version of the main house—their offspring stay here with their parents. There is plenty of privacy since the primary suite is in the easternmost pod. Its standout moment? A freestanding tub perfectly positioned in a corner of glass. Open the slider and you’re basically bathing al fresco, the ultimate indoor/outdoor connection.

Learn more about the project team

Architecture: Purple Cherry
Construction: ILEX Construction
Landscape Architecture: Campion Hruby Landscape Architects

An outdated home with vastly underutilized potential laid ripe for opportunity on this coveted lot on Assawoman Bay in Ocean City, Maryland. The owners, who previously lived just down the street, jumped at the chance to “trade up” for the bayside home when it hit the market. Enticed by the prospect of sunset views from three sides of their home and a proper waterfront recreation venue, they envisioned a lush retreat to host their family and friends.     

A complete transformation was performed to rejuvenate the home’s appearance and performance. Capitalizing on its orientation, the rear side of the home was activated by several new floor-to-ceiling openings. This saturates the formerly dull interior with natural light reflecting off the water.

The exterior was completely resurfaced in wood shake, replacing a deteriorating existing stucco veneer. Existing windows, balconies, and terraces all were re-imagined and refined through new detailing with coastal vernacular-inspired brackets, shed roofs, and railings. 

Reconfiguring the original floor plan, inhabitable space was reclaimed over the existing two-story family room to craft a relaxed entertainment destination while also nimbly inserting an additional bedroom suite. On the ground floor, an expanded kitchen and a properly designated dining venue replace the original south wing of the home, which was inhibited by a cramped and dysfunctional combined layout.  

The master suite received a comprehensive alteration to improve its capacity and finish level—a new walk-in-closet and five-fixture bath both benefit from added light and privacy. The rear porch was revitalized with brighter materials, retractable screens, versatile seating, and stair access to the waterfront patio. Now, on the most idyllic days, the new bi-fold glass door is opened to capture coastal breezes coming off the bay and create a pleasantly seamless indoor-outdoor room for relaxing.  

Project Credits:

Contractor – T&G Builders
Interior Design – Christie Leu Interiors LLC & Mary Strittmatter
Photography – Stacy Zarin Goldberg 
Kitchen Design – Jamie Rollins: Cabinetry Unlimited 
Landscape Design – Danny Merrill: Chesapeake Landscaping 
Decorative Painter – Dee Lenahan: Lenehand Studios
Bar Shelving – Steve Shafer: Once a Tree 
Bunk Room Ladders – My Le Nguyen: 1925workbench
Draperies – Ellen Roberts: Fabric Creations 
Windows – Viwinco & Anderson; Doors – Western Windows (Source: The Sanders Company) 
Automatic Screens – Phantom Screens 

For more information, visit wcralston.com.

Architect Greg Ehrman lives on Martha’s Vineyard and many of the residential projects he’s worked on over the years as a partner at Hutker Architects have been located there or on Cape Cod, a 45-minute ferry ride away. So when a commission from a young D.C. family for a second home on Gibson Island, Maryland, came his way, Ehrman was intrigued. “The ‘language’ there isn’t so different from the architectural vernacular we find here in New England,” he notes. 

On the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay and accessed by a private causeway, Gibson Island—only two miles by three miles in size—is remarkable in that two-thirds of its acreage is devoted to open space, natural woods, a bird sanctuary and recreation. It’s a place where residents get around by golf cart, even those not headed to the community’s nine-hole course. Kids thrive in and on the water, an estuary filled with brackish–both fresh and salt—water.

When Ehrman scouted the building site, he wrestled first with a long-abandoned 1960s-era home on an overgrown lot with no discernible driveway. Although it was auspiciously perched on a 60-foot bluff above the water, the hulk of a house totally blocked the blue-ribbon view. Ehrman explains his strategy once that house was razed: “Rather than having to move around [a new house] to get those beautiful westerly views of the Magothy River, I wanted those arriving to experience the view through the center of the property.” Now, they do.

Deconstructed into a quartet of buildings, the house has a central flat-roofed area wrapped in glass that permits views of the water upon arrival. This space, serving as a dining room, functions as the central hub of the house around which stand four distinct gabled volumes: a generous living room with tall cathedral ceilings, a barn-like garage cum bunkroom, a kitchen with master suite above, and a two-story wing with three bedroom suites plus a family room. A detached screen porch and pool pavilion extend the year-round home’s livable space during warmer months. 

“We have three kids and we knew that this house was going to be the hub of a lot of indoor-outdoor activity,” says the homeowner, who was drawn to Hutker-designed projects she noticed during family vacations on Martha’s Vineyard. “The firm’s casual aesthetic and how their houses take advantage of the sun and water views meshed with what I envisioned for Gibson Island.”

Primarily built of wood, metal, and glass—textures and surfaces that respond well to the environment—the house is one with the pristine landscape. Half whitewashed shingles and half naturally weathered cedar, the modern barnlike façade of the garage fits the more restrained aesthetic Ehrman wanted for the public-facing sides of the house: “Here, the apertures are more discrete and the architecture, at first glance, more traditional,” he explains.

In dramatic contrast, the entire water-facing side of the house is glass, a portion of which has steel windows on two levels. Certain design decisions, such as a vertical column of glass in one volume that allows a peek at one of three stairwells, ease the aesthetic transition from front to back, from traditional to modern, from opaque to transparent. 

The overriding indoor-outdoor theme is further manifest by carrying the exterior building materials into the home. “Certain times of the year, you can even smell the cedar inside,” notes Ehrman of the whitewashed shingles used both outside and in.

He adds that along with the continuity of textures, “The play of natural light throughout the day creates a dynamic interior environment that changes minute by minute.”  Now, instead of being forced to navigate around the periphery of a house, “You’re seeing and moving through it.” 

For interior designer Lauren Liess as well, blurring the line between outside and inside was fundamental. “We pulled the color palette, blues and greens, straight in from the views and used a lot of natural materials and objects like coral, stones and plants,” says Liess, author of the recently released Down to Earth: Laid-Back Interiors for Modern Living. “The architecture is so good that a part of me wanted to do nothing other than a natural palette, but we really wanted the house to have a little fun with itself and felt that color and pattern would only add to its personality and charm.”

Connecting the house to the family was as important as tying it in with the land. Ehrman’s design strategy developed from conversations with the homeowners about how they live now and how that lifestyle will evolve in years to come. “Sometimes it’s about what kind of light they like in the morning, who goes to bed late, who gets up early,” says the architect. “These stories and life patterns become the genesis for where we end up.”

Seemingly floating in the treetops, the homeowners’ master bedroom suite with a private stairway is truly a parents’ sanctuary, which they appreciate now that their kids are growing older and need less of their attention. Its counterpoint is an eight-bed bunkroom above the garage where their two sons invite friends for sleepovers. The building volume now housing guest accommodations will transition to family suites years from now for grown kids and grandchildren. “A good home will live well and support a family for generations,” says Ehrman.

A house that serves a family for years and years to come is not only appealing emotionally and practically, but it is also sustainable. In fact, says Ehrman, “To ‘build once well’ is the most sustainable proposition of all.”

For more information, visit hutkerarchitects.com | laurenliess.com