Rappahannock County House

This weekend house for our clients, their extended family and many guests commands a meadow site in the Virginia mountains. Built on 300 acres in Rappahannock County, the house takes its inspiration from farm buildings and their assemblages, abstractly recalling local rural building traditions through color, form and organization. The linear form of the house gives each major room a view of the mountains in the distance. Color is used inside and out to articulate the length of the building as three ochre pavilions with barn-red connectors. Grey-green shed-roofed volumes form wings defining a parking court on the approach side and a terrace on the view side. Within, rooms are general in function and informal in use. A long room for music and gathering fills one wing, and a large table fits comfortably in the kitchen. The screened porch is also a room, identical to the seating area the kitchen, but screened and unheated. Bedrooms make up all of the second floor, and on top, a tower study provides a getaway from those gathered below. Locally familiar materials, such as galvanized roofs and concrete block fireplaces, make it all feel at home in the local vernacular.