By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 23, 2006; B01
Commonwealth Avenue in Alexandria is lined with historic bungalows, tidy Queen Annes and two-story Foursquares in muted earth tones. And one other house: Tim Whitney's, with the giant, pointy, sky-blue-roofed tower looming high over the leafy neighborhood.
The neighbors either love it or hate it. Most hate it. They call it the Mushroom. The Pencil. The Folly. The Silo. In some circles, it's known simply as the Spite Turret.
Whitney didn't set out to build a tower. And some might say the neighbors made him do it.
At first, he just wanted a bigger house. But along the way, his modest renovation project has become a six-year ordeal that has tested the boundaries of where one's personal space and taste end and the fabric of the community begins. And it's not over.
"We have experienced a lot of intolerance and harassment," Whitney said, "ranging from people making nuisance calls for inspections to materials being stolen to our vehicles repeatedly having fruit, yogurt, eggs, tomatoes, et cetera thrown on them, to broken truck windows to extension cords running from the temporary power being cut and stolen . . . "
In 1998, Whitney and his wife, Kareen, bought a cute, one-story bungalow in Alexandria's funky Del Ray neighborhood. Two years later, with a third child on the way, they thought the 1,000-square-foot house with one bathroom felt cramped. They decided they loved the neighborhood too much to move. So they figured they'd add on.
He had a PhD in materials engineering and a job at Mitre Corp. He figured he could do it all, from the architectural drawings to hammering the nails. He invested in design software and got to work. His first plan was modest enough. He wanted to enclose the front porch in glass and add a second level.
That's where the City of Alexandria came in.
Whitney's bungalow was built in 1930 about 20 feet from the street. A 1951 zoning law required all houses to be set back 25 feet from the street, but it didn't affect Whitney until he wanted to build on top of the offending front and side portions of the house. He had to request a variance.
That's when his neighbors weighed in.
On his August 2000 application, Whitney said the design would be economical because he wouldn't have to dig a new foundation. He wouldn't have to build off the back of the house and eat up the back yard he wanted for his kids to play in. Most importantly, he wrote, the design would not "change the character of the neighborhood."
His next-door neighbor, Eric Wagner, chairman of the city's planning commission, wrote a letter supporting what he called a "minor variance." Six other neighbors signed a petition to help Whitney's cause.
But then the neighbor behind him, Stephanie Carroll, got wind of his plans.
Carroll, who has a degree in architectural history and works as a planner, said she was offended by his "horrendous" plan.
"I think Del Ray is all about people and their front porches. That's why we loved it," Carroll said. "I felt if we let him do this, if we all just walked straight into our living rooms, besides having architectural ramifications, it would have cultural ramifications for the community. It would have taken away what makes Del Ray Del Ray."
She gathered 13 signatures on a petition and appeared at the September 2000 variance hearing to fight his plans.
The Board of Zoning Appeals sided with her. It asked Whitney to come back one month later with new drawings.
"You could probably imagine I was a little bit annoyed with the outcome," Whitney said. "That original design, it was very nice. It was more modest, in the sense that it didn't have the tower, but I got everything I needed out of it in some other way. And I probably would have been done four years ago."
Instead, he went back to his computer and came up with a design that left the front porch as is but added a second story, which was approved a month later.
But Whitney was still steamed. He didn't really like the new design. He began toying with the idea of a circular structure, something that wouldn't take up too much of the back yard. An octagon was the perfect solution, he realized. It was a little fantastic. Sort of like a fairy tale.
And city officials didn't mind. It was far enough from the street that he could do pretty much anything he wanted. They approved the design in July 2001.
Soon, the octagon became a tower, with the kitchen on the ground level, the master bedroom on the second floor and a windowless study planned for inside the pointed roof. The tower, along with the second-floor addition, has tripled the size of his house.
Whitney discounted neighborhood gossip that he designed the turret to spite Carroll. Still, he said, "That turret is sort of compensating for not being able to use the front porch like we wanted."
Some neighbors said they were shocked once the tower began to take shape. Others thought it was goofy and kind of cool.
"Well, he's trying to make his house a castle, so who am I to say?" said Jessica Livingston, a neighbor.
But Carroll, who now lives in Connecticut, was blunt. "Yes, it's your property, but is it your right to destroy other people's views? I would say no," she said. "I think Del Ray is all about community. It's about being considerate of other people. So I think it's unfortunate that he's done something so terribly inconsiderate."
Bill Butcher is one of the original 13 signers of the petition that killed Whitney's glassed-in porch. At the time, Butcher had just finished a careful renovation of a nearby 1926 bungalow to preserve its integrity, as had many other homeowners in area -- many houses sport plaques from the National Register of Historic Places. When his family outgrew that house, they decided to move rather than add on.
"You just have to be careful when you want to oppose something," he said. "It's certainly not something I would have chosen to do. But I respect his right to build something that he'd be happy with."
Happiness may be a while coming for Whitney. Disputes with workers, the escalating cost of the project and the hours and hours of solitary hammering have put him years behind. The second-floor addition and tower don't even have drywall yet. He and his family are all crammed into what once was their living room to live, eat and sleep. The kids are not allowed to play in the yard because of the construction debris.
And who knows when or if he can mend the frayed relationships in the neighborhood he once loved so much he chose not to leave. He never sits out on his front porch, which is overgrown with ivy. Sometimes he talks to his neighbors. "Just not as many as before," he said.
