You've seen it.  In almost every older neighborhood someone is tearing-down a modest home to make way for another McMansion,  insensitive to the scale of the surrounding homes, and sticking out like a sore thumb.  Putting aside the social implications of this "screw the neighbors" attitude -- and forgetting about the incredible waste of resources -- these folks are just plain missing the opportunity for a much richer living environment.  

Instead of building an unimaginative and over-inflated box, why not recycle the structure of an existing house - searching for the best aspects of it and incorporating them into an updated "New-Old House"?  The cool thing about this is that the compromises inherent in recycling an old structure force us to be more creative; a "New-Old House" is always quirkier and more romantic than a sanitized new home tends to be.

Before & After:

This approach especially lends itself to older, close-in neighborhoods with an eclectic mix of housing styles.  A Cape Cod might transform into an Arts & Crafts Cottage, a Dutch Colonial into an Italianate Villa - even a Rambler into an English Cottage like the one shown here.  It always amazes me that the seeds of these "New-Old Houses" lurk in the souls of the everyday homes that surround us.

Our client - a single female professional - purchased an old rambler on a hillside lot overlooking the Potomac River; but the house practically ignored the landscape. It made no attempt to take advantage of the extraordinary site - in fact this house could have been in a subdivision just about anywhere.

In expanding and re-considering the design of this home, we took the opportunity to create a cottage that reaches out into the landscape and enfolds the homeowner in nature. Ample windows and/or doors on at least two sides of each room provide panoramic views at every turn, while the mass of the house is broken-down into smaller components, ensuring that the house is "of" the hill rather than on it. It is a magical thing to float above the azaleas, among the trees.

Before & After: