Old Look, Modern Living

Architects Take a Page From the Past For Inspiration in Designing New Houses That Have A Touch of Nostalgia.

Customers routinely stumble into architects' offices carrying pictures of houses cut out of magazines and catalogues. The designers find themselves staring into the images of homes built before their parents were born while trying to figure how they would work a Sub-Zero refrigerator into a 19th-century kitchen.

There's a reason people are drawn to old houses. The new ones just don't have the character, the lines or the look that says they have been there for 100 years or so. Logic says that if you could find the right set of plans and stay true to them, you could build a house that looks the way they used to -- a house that fits in the neighborhood and appears as if it has always been there.

But at what cost, and who would do it?

The builders, architects and homeowners who are successful at looking to the past for inspiration are using the proportions and scale of a bygone era and modifying floor plans to accommodate modern life. The results are new-construction houses that routinely pass for period bungalows, farmhouses and stone-clad vernacular Georgians.

"As Americans, we're heavy consumers and everything is mass-produced. We're not trying to be the design police, but I think houses that are built back to scale and the spirit of the neighborhood gives you a sense of connectiveness," said Eleanor Griffin, editor-in-chief of Cottage Living magazine.

In the brutally competitive publishing industry, her magazine is considered a success with 900,000 subscribers. Its most popular column is called "New Old House."

Going back to the past to find inspiration for present-day home design may be born out of dismay for what's available. "What we didn't want was a typical Northern Virginia Colonial," said Daphne Hendricks, a stay-at-home mother with three children. "We didn't want a McMansion. We like the simple lines and character of older homes."

Her quest landed her and her husband, Jim, who is a mortgage analyst, in the office of architect Gretchen Ginnerty, whose firm Design Department is in McLean. "They came to me and said, 'Do you know anything about New England farmhouses?' " Ginnerty said.

Ginnerty grew up in Connecticut and had a strong background in American architectural history. The Hendrickses bought a chunk of land in Vienna that had an expendable rambler on it and began kicking around designs. The challenge was squeezing modern life into the sitting rooms and parlors of turn-of-the-century, rural American architecture. "That did come up and we had a hard time fitting it in," Ginnerty said

To blend the old into the new, the Hendrickses' floor plan opens into a two-story entrance with a staircase running up the exterior side wall. A linear living room plays the role of parlor, which leads to a not-extravagant dining room. The dining room connects to a large kitchen-family room that stretches across the back of the house.

"It's almost a surprise," Ginnerty said. "When you walk in, the spaces are tight and predictable, but as you move to the back of the house it breaks free." The 4,000-square-foot, four-bedroom plan includes a not overly large master suite, a mud room off the kitchen, a downstairs powder room, a full basement and three full baths.

Construction took six months and cost $400,000 to $450,000, excluding land costs. Lots in the neighborhood are selling for at least $600,000, which usually includes an aging rancher, a fact that shakes the illusion of seeing a New England farmhouse suddenly appearing in Northern Virginia. But that may be changing.