When its Loudoun home burned, an inspired family launched a grand barn raising

That the circa-1810 barn in Loudoun County had burned down twice, in 1914 and 1932, certainly did not prepare owner Peter Burnett for the call he received on Feb. 2, 2009. Come home, a neighbor urged him; your place is on fire.

By the time Burnett drove the 125 miles to rural Hamilton from Richmond, where he had been conducting business as chair of the Virginia Racing Commission, the condition of his family's home -- for that's what the onetime barn had become -- was grim. All three levels of the structure had suffered "significant damage," according to the Loudoun fire service report, from a blaze that had taken three hours to fully extinguish. Burnett said he thinks the fire was caused by a faulty floodlight mounted under an eave of the barn.

The 10 1/2 months that followed were what Burnett, 60, a Leesburg-based personal-injury lawyer, cheerfully calls "the Piggott Bottom Road Stimulus Project" because it put some local people to work. It took one month to tear down the damaged sections and 9 1/2 months to reconstruct the building, at a total cost he estimates at $1.025 million.

Burnett's lawyering work put the fire in perspective: "Many, many of my clients have lost so much more," Burnett wrote in an e-mail. "This loss was not a tragedy, only a bump in the road."

The fire was disruptive, of course. Burnett and his wife, licensed clinical social worker Diana Burnett, 59, and daughter Ellie, now 17 (22-year-old Abbey was away at college) wound up living at the Leesburg Hampton Inn for three weeks, then in a mobile home temporarily installed on their property. And it was traumatic: The barn had been home to the Burnetts for about 30 years.

Nonetheless, it was also an opportunity "to rethink everything," said Peter Burnett. The residence had, after all, been pieced together a bit at a time as it was transformed from barn to home.

When the Burnetts bought the barn in 1978, they created horse stalls on the lower level -- they raise thoroughbreds -- then built a two-bedroom apartment upstairs and lived above the horses. Then the two children came along, so the thoroughbreds were relocated to a modern horse barn across the pasture and the couple added a master bedroom suite to the living quarters.

After the fire, working with local architect Kevin Ruedisueli, the Burnetts decided their new barn-house should be comfortable and inexpensive to maintain. "I said, 'Let's build a house with solid basics and forgo the frills,' " said Burnett. "You won't find a 'theater room' here."

What you will find is a three-level, 8,300-square-foot house that is open and spare and a tailored version of "rustic." Living and sleeping areas occupy only a portion of each level; open space accounts for the rest. The comfortably furnished living-dining-kitchen area is a mezzanine that overlooks the entry foyer. The landing leading to the upper-level master bedroom suite forms another mezzanine that overlooks the living room. Two bedrooms are on the main living level, down a hallway from the kitchen.

"We wanted an open living room, dining room and kitchen," said Burnett as Diana Burnett nodded. "We enjoy our children."

From the front entry, staircases leading upstairs and down are fashioned from beams salvaged from the old barn; the balusters are the slats from the old horse stalls. Construction was done solidly, with mortise and tenon joints.

Did Burnett say no frills? Then why is there a spanking new 1,100-square-foot, three-story volleyball court at one end of the barn, complete with a scorer's table? "We used to play volleyball in the barn when it was just a barn," he explained. The new hickory flooring and finished walls simply make the area look more like the rest of the house.

And the resistance pool on the lower level? You know, the kind where you swim against a mechanically generated current? The Burnetts are daily swimmers, and neither wanted "the headache (and potential liability)" of an outdoor pool.

And what about the bed and nightstand only about 10 feet away from the pool area? (The pool has elevated sides, so a middle-of-the-night misstep wouldn't result in an unscheduled swim.)

"You've heard of design/build?" Burnett said, referring to contracting firms that do architecture as well as construction. "Well, I do build/design. We forgot to build a guest room."

The biggest frill -- or the biggest basic, depending on how one views its $110,000 price tag -- is the heating and cooling system. The barn used to have conventional forced-air heat from three furnaces, supplemented by a wood stove. Replacing the conventional system for this large a house would have cost $50,000 or $60,000, Burnett estimates. But they wanted ongoing savings on their heating expense.

So they installed an unconventional new multiple-zone geothermal system. The system starts outside, unseen beneath a section of the pastures that lead, eventually, to the Blue Ridge mountains. This is where 8,100 feet of pipe containing refrigerant lie six feet below the ground, where the temperature is a relatively constant 55 degrees Fahrenheit. There's a similar field of tubing beneath the floors on three of the house's four levels. Using pressure on the fluid in the exterior piping, geothermal heat-pumps on the home's lower level raise the temperature of water in the radiant-floor tubing, sending warmth throughout the house. The transfer of heat is reversed in summer.

The system had a high start-up cost, even with a 30 percent federal tax credit available for such energy-efficient installations, but Burnett estimates the family's energy savings will be about $6,000 a year. "Our December utility bill," Burnett wrote, "was $214. The highest month in the winter was about $285."

Adding to the barn's energy efficiency is the Icynene foam insulation sprayed everywhere. "There are no more air cavities," Burnett explained, "no channels for fire."

Burnett was obviously a very hands-on homeowner, acting as his own general contractor, which he guesses saved him "well over $100,000." It also gave him unusual control of the project. He writes, "There is not a stick of finger-joined wood [small pieces feathered together] on the project."

His brothers -- one from the aircraft industry; the other, a painting contractor -- worked with him on the job. Richard deButts, the neighbor who telephoned Burnett about the fire, was a working supervisor on the project. Burnett tried to keep materials and procurement local, though sometimes price dictated bringing things in from elsewhere. The hickory for the floors came from Iowa, the walnut doors from Ohio, the red slate in the kitchen and powder room from Vermont. "That last one may be just inside the 500-mile radius" recommended for "green" building, said Burnett.

"This whole project was done by a bunch of 50-somethings," Burnett said with a laugh. At every step of the way, he added, "I would ask everyone, 'How would you do this?' "

At this point, friends of the Burnetts' high-school-age daughter tumble in through the front door, ready to go to a concert. One of the boys sees the volleyball court off the foyer and wanders in. The amazement on his face says it all: This is more than a barn-house; it's more than a super-efficient, state-of-the-art barn-house; this is one very cool barn-house.