Two Argentinians living on the same Bethesda cul-de-sac. One in sore need of an architect; the other the brother of an architect who lived just a mile or two down Bradley Boulevard. What were the odds?
Coincidence morphed, as it so often does, into something easily mistaken for destiny.
Halves of a bisected boulder flank a floor-to-ceiling window, helping erase the line between inside and outside.
(Timothy Bell for The Washington Post)
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His neighbor's brother turned out to be Salo Levinas, an architect who practiced in Buenos Aires before settling in the Washington area in 1985. For a decade he headed his own practice, then joined forces with Milton Shinberg to form Shinberg.Levinas, whose commissions to date include the large new addition to Congregation B'nai Tzedek synagogue in Potomac and the renovation of the Maya Angelou Public Charter School above Logan Circle.
For the Goldstein residence, Levinas had to walk a delicate line between preserving elements of the original design that give the house its unique character and bringing it into the new century. Approaching the front door from the street, a visitor today walks down the long entrance gallery and is first struck by a wall of rich cypress slats protruding from the original blue-gray façade. Like some sort of Zen marquee, it blankly announces the motif that provided the house's original raison d'être, but its stark tonal contrast to the surrounding wood also connotes transformation within.
In the living room, Levinas replaced walls and sliding doors with floor-to-ceiling windows, which now work in concert with the house's original clerestory to flood the room with natural light. This infusion has awakened the dormant reds, oranges, and yellows in the pine of the cathedral ceiling and the oak of the peg floors; they now appear to be anything but brown. Offsetting the warmth of the wood is the nostalgic coolness of the cultured limestone from which the new fireplace surround and hearth wall have been crafted. They wouldn't have looked at all out of place during the house's 1960 debut.
The new windows, says Levinas, "bring light and the landscape inside -- but they also do the reverse: They bring the house outside." He has playfully articulated this idea by slicing a boulder in two and placing its halves on either side of the living room's floor-to-ceiling glass, contributing to the illusion of permeability.
An undulating, Levinas-designed "curtain" of mahogany lines the hallway leading to the master bedroom, in which a tall but narrow strip of glass marks one end of the house's central axis. At the other end, on the opposite side of the house, is its axial mate: another full-height window that affords a view of the garden's Japanese-style fountain. Levinas and the Goldsteins enlisted Zen Associates, a Boston-based landscape architecture firm led by Shinichiro Abe, to design a serene garden with Japanese overtones. The overhanging roof provided shelter for an outdoor seating area, but the soaring volume made the space feel about as cozy as the grand concourse at Union Station. Levinas's solution was to concoct a floating arbor that hangs from the eaves at a height of only about seven feet; the lowered ceiling confers instant intimacy.
"This house has a big soul," says Levinas. "It had everything inside it, and in a way we just 'discovered' it. But we had to be respectful in the way we approached it."
For the Goldsteins, the renovation accentuates, rather than erases, the house's history. New light has given the original wood fresh life. New wood has been integrated carefully and respectfully. And the replacement of walls with full-height windows has fully connected the interior with the landscape. "It's magic when you're sitting in the living room during a snowstorm, looking out," says Jorge Goldstein. "The garden and stones are all covered with snow -- but you're warm, right next to the fire."
Membership in the Washington chapter of the International Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo waned over the years until the group fell below the minimum number required for activation. The chapter now exists informally, as seven old friends who get together whenever they can to swap stories, recall triumphs, maybe talk a little shop.
But Lee Roberts is excited to learn that the house he and his brothers-in-lumber built way back in 1960 is still being appreciated. And he's even more excited to learn that his original yellow pine ceiling not only remains intact, but looks as lustrous and pristine as the day it was put in.
