A Dash of Local Color in Loudoun

Home's Provocative Paint Job Draws Spectrum of Reaction From Town

When Amy and Curtis Olson decided to freshen up the aging paint job on their graceful Victorian home in rural western Loudoun County, they knew their unusual color choice would make a splash in their conservative little town, with its tidy lawns, American flags and cream and gray facades.

So Amy Olson first broke the news to Eugene Simpson next door, an octogenarian who has lived in his sturdy white house for more than 40 years. "Well," he told her gruffly, "as long as it's not purple or something."

Olson sighed.

"I had to tell him, 'Well, it is going to be purple,' " recalled Olson, 45, seated in her forest green dining room in a lavender T-shirt. "He was so nice about it."

And now, purple it is -- a deep, rich periwinkle so unusual that it had to be specially mixed at the paint store. The house painters have nicknamed it "Olson purple."

It is set off by a wine-colored trim and a mustard rocking chair on the front porch, and it is surrounded by a boisterous garden watched over by fairies and frogs that peak through the foliage.

This extreme home makeover, which took place in July, has not gone unnoticed by the 718 people who live in the town of Hamilton. Founded in the 19th century as a country retreat, it retains its rural personality despite the trickle of city folk who have settled there in recent decades to escape urban life.

The town proper is about a mile long, extending a block or two in both directions from Colonial Highway, where the Olsons live. Its corporate limits are roughly flanked by a post office on one end and a restaurant named the Beautiful South on the other.

The Olson house is a popular source of gossip at the Natural Mercantile Store, where some shoppers have expressed outrage at the audacity of people who would do something so jarring to their peaceful community. One of the Olsons' neighbors simply stood outside the house shortly after the paint job was finished and pointed disgustedly into his throat.

A handful of offended neighbors complained to town officials that purple seemed more San Francisco than small-town Virginia, only to be told it's one of the joys -- or curses, depending on one's point of view -- of living in a town unencumbered by restrictions on the appearance of homes.

"This is small-town America, where you can do things like this," said Craig Green, 41, a Town Council member whose pale-yellow home is notable for its "Bush Lied" sign out front. "It's part of the charm."

Purple, it seems, has a special power on the exterior of a home. A Florida man invited the wrath of his town two years ago by painting his house purple and gold, the colors of his college fraternity. Outraged community leaders ordered him to repaint his home a more genteel color approved by them.