Middleburg Addition and Renovation


The house was originally a 1970’s builder’s “rambler” that the client bought for its lush landscape and location outside of Middleburg. The owner, a woman from Colombia, wished to use the site as a country house for her extended family and to provide a quiet retreat for her writing and research on women’s studies.

The architects developed the modest structure into a typological hybrid of a Virginia vernacular farmhouse and South American courtyard. An existing one-story structure was removed to make way for a two-story addition reminiscent of a Virginia double-level porch. The major rooms are connected by a new “gallery” that provides a sunny transition space between inside and outside. The “Gallery”, an open living porch in warmer Latin climates, had to be enclosed in glass for the more temperate Virginia weather. The gallery and the major rooms overlook a brick courtyard that is designed as an outdoor room for the spring, summer, and fall. The architects specified clapboard exterior siding, brick terraces, and limestone garden walls as a means of connecting the house to its vernacular landscape.