Fall Home & Design: Frame of 18th-century Connecticut house becomes an antique yet modern home for Potomac family

Jim received degrees in American history from Cornell and Temple and joined the Smithsonian in 1967 to work on the papers of the institution’s first secretary, Joseph Henry. He then became special assistant and later executive assistant to four Smithsonian secretaries, working on budget, personnel and policy matters, and serving as their liaison to the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents. He also became director of the Smithsonian’s first two historic buildings, the Castle and the Arts and Industries Building. He retired in 2007 after a dispute over the proper procedure for handling transcripts of a regents’ meeting. To honor Hobbins’s 40 years of service, the three ottomans in the commons of the Smithsonian Castle were named after him. Since his retirement, Hobbins has spearheaded an effort to select and fund a qualified historian to write the history of the Smithsonian and co-founded the Smithsonian Alumni Program.

History continues to be a passion. Note his current beside reading: “Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe” by Chris DeRose.

Linda, one of eight children, was raised on a farm near Wheelersburg, Ohio, and often rode horses. Her father was interested in flowers and gardens. After graduating from Eastern Kentucky University, she came to Washington to work for the Red Cross and met Jim at a party in 1969. They married in 1970.

“I used to think antiques were stuffy and uninteresting,” Linda recalls. “But when I came to Washington, I went to the Salvation Army and got a wingback chair and a Victorian dry sink.”

Realizing they both were drawn to New England’s traditional style of furniture and architecture, the couple bought a three-bedroom Colonial in Bethesda. And then they began making weekend excursions to the country, places such as New Market; Bucks County, Pa.; and Middleburg and the late lamented Laws Auction in Manassas. “Many dealers taught us all about furniture and china and quilts,” Linda says. “We were on a budget, but we found things we could afford.” Some items needed a bit of work. “I learned by doing,” Jim says. “I came to know how to do things like replace the seats in old chairs.”

Blue-and-white china and Virginia hunt boards started filling their rooms. “We had so many fun times together. What a joy to remember it,” Jim says. “We would go on exploring trips and come back with things strapped on the roof and stuffed in the trunk.”

Within five years, they had two children and a third on the way. With family in tow, they continued collecting. “When the kids said they could not take another antiques shop, we would bribe them with ice cream,” Linda recalls.

They moved to Rockville in 1975. “It was a split level with no architectural merit,” Jim says, “but we needed four bedrooms.”

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The move to Potomac and historic-home ownership started with a pony.

Jim and Linda had borrowed one from a neighbor for a birthday party. The gang was smitten, and Jim and Linda began dreaming of a bigger house with more land where they might keep a horse or two.