In Nice Falls, a household property rises with a crew effort

“That was the start of the entire effort — a long-term multigeneration venture,” says Tony, who runs his personal authorities contracting agency.

At first, all choices have been on the desk. Renovate the bachelor pad. Discover a new home. Construct the customized house of their desires. It doesn’t matter what, no stairs.

Their house sat on quite a bit that might have cramped a brand new single-story home. So a teardown was crossed off the listing. They toured different locations, however both didn’t love the type or the multilevel dwelling.

We made the largest buy of our lives, sight unseen

“We have been making an attempt to keep away from the steps — single-floor dwelling is the place it’s at,” says Melissa, an OB/GYN. “The extra we talked about that, our choices have been zero.”

So the pair tapped into the native actual property agent information financial institution and acquired a lead on two adjoining five-acre tons a couple of miles away. They purchased each in 2018 for $2.5 million. A home was already on the land, however a fireplace broken it years earlier. The house was by no means repaired and ended up being demolished.

Extra questions posed to the referral community led the household to architect James McDonald, a principal at James McDonald Associate Architects, based mostly in Nice Falls.

McDonald had labored with Tony on a small rest room transform at his earlier house, however this was a extra formidable venture. The pair confirmed McDonald pictures of properties they favored, together with Florida villas.

“They have been on the lookout for one-level dwelling, a whole lot of interplay between the indoors and the outside, and a spot for his workplace services,” McDonald says.

Customized-built ranch supplies tranquility, togetherness for household of 9

Throughout a two-hour design charrette (a interval of design or planning exercise), McDonald sketched out the fundamentals of what would change into a house with a 6,000-square-foot main-floor dwelling space not counting a full basement, two three-car garages and an indoor swimming pool.

The design course of took a 12 months. The development lasted 16 months. A number of classes have been realized alongside the way in which.

“I want we had engaged an inside designer earlier within the course of,” says Melissa. “Sure issues grew to become customized by two inches or two toes, after we may have used commonplace sizes, had we recognized.”

Martha Vicas, a principal at D.C.-based M.S. Vicas Interiors, was chosen to assist shepherd the venture towards completion. Though the Colangelos admit to having barely totally different tastes, Vicas wasn’t vexed.

“It’s uncommon to discover a couple that’s utterly aligned on type,” Vicas says. “I attempt to give every particular person a little bit of what they need whereas doing what is correct for the area.”

A referral from Vicas led the household to the subsequent member of the design crew, Jordan Clough, a senior affiliate at Joseph Richardson Landscape Architecture, additionally based mostly in Washington. A part of Clough’s job was graciously framing the expansive home onto the positioning.

“The home is a one-story however has some good measurement to it,” Clough says. “We needed to convey the home again right down to scale within the panorama and soften the transition from the Nice Falls vernacular of horse paddocks.”

Terraced partitions and a stepped-up entrance are bordered by powerful native plantings together with river birch and Southern Magnolia timber, together with catmint and creeping juniper. Future plans embrace a path system for the youngsters.

The household determined to go along with a design-bid-build situation to place the home collectively. The association separates the contracts for design companies and the builder, who on this case was Artisan Builders, based mostly in McLean, Va.

A round motor courtroom supplies entry to the still-evolving property with customized touches beginning on the 11-foot, pivoting entrance door. Tony ties the distinctive gateway again to a put up seen on Pinterest. A barrel ceiling hallway illuminated by hidden cove lighting beckons towards the principle dwelling space. Melissa’s workplace is to the left and encompasses a tray ceiling and an accent wall lined in an abstract-patterned wallpaper. There’s a mixture of built-in drawers and open shelving for storage. Farther down the corridor, there’s a powder room, an elevator to the basement and a coat closet.

All of the flooring on the principle degree are prefinished, engineered European oak. The hallway opens into the good room, which shares an open plan with the eating room and the kitchen. The good room has 15-foot ceilings with a window wall looking onto the yard. Recessed sliding doorways open onto a framed-in loggia outfitted with electronically managed screens that may be dropped throughout bug season.

The screens turned out to be particularly difficult, as a result of the household room results in an arched loggia, says Steve Yeonas Jr., a accomplice at Artisan Builders.

A house renovation that began within the laundry room

“We needed to search the nation to seek out the display that goes up in the course of the arch,” Yeonas says. “It’s about 20 toes tall and 20 toes vast, and there was just one man within the nation that might even do it.”

The good room accent wall contains banquette seating on each side of a stone fire and chimney mixture designed by Vicas.

“We needed to create one thing that we had by no means seen earlier than,” Vicas says. “We settled on a wall of oak slate, limestone and various kinds of customized leather-based and suede panels. The result’s tons of refined texture that drove the design of your entire room.”

The lounge has two seating areas with the eating room separating the area from the kitchen. As soon as once more, the household tapped their community and employed the corporate Lobkovich, based mostly in Tysons, Va., to deal with kitchen design duties.

The fridge is Sub-Zero and there are two cooktops each by Wolf, a mixture of an induction unit and a 15-inch gasoline unit. The double wall ovens are additionally Wolf, and there’s a steam oven by Miele. The dishwashers are Bosch. The kitchen counter tops are quartzite.

J. Paul Lobkovich, president of the kitchen design firm, was tasked with developing with an oven hood that would match the chimney in the lounge.

The hood is taken into account the “face of the kitchen,” as a result of it’s a distinguished characteristic in lots of kitchen designs, Lobkovich says. The kitchen is straight reverse from the lounge fire, and “we needed to reflect the design of the fireside with out being literal,” he says. So, we interpreted the design and created a singular steel hood that references the fireside design to provide the area some steadiness.”

A ‘20-year life cycle’

The correct wing of the home contains two bedrooms for the youngsters, a visitor suite and the principle suite with an exterior door to the loggia. The primary rest room encompasses a rain bathe in a curbless enclosure with aspect jets and a stand-alone soaking tub. There are two matching painted wooden vanities with nickel inlay trim and quartzite tops. Window coverings in the principle tub have been nixed in change for electrochromic home windows that flip frosted on the push of a button.

Managing a teardown to construct a dream home

The left wing of the home contains the twin garages, every with workplace area above. The year-round indoor pool measures 18 by 65 toes and is tucked behind the garages. A Victorian-style greenhouse imported from England stands on the property. There’s additionally a time-telling, customized armillary (a sphere of objects) with markings of the youngsters’s birthdays. The basement features a wine room, play area and residential theater. The Colangelos want to maintain the development prices personal, however flipping the completely customized property doesn’t appear to be within the playing cards.

“After we have been making selections about what to do on the home, whether or not it was structural or a design aspect, we have been fascinated by a 20-year life cycle,” says Tony. “We weren’t constrained by the necessity to flip the home — we’re pondering strategically, not tactically.”