The story below is a preview from our September/October 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Photos By Bob Sowder
A 1950s home gets a gorgeous upgrade that only enhances its beauty as a true work of art.
Editor’s Note: Listen to our podcast episode featuring homeowner Marcella Griggs as she shares more about the journey of this incredible home renovation, as well as unique details about her award-winning Currie House in Blacksburg. Or, see the segment below!
When the house next door to homeowners Marcella Griggs and Peter Trower became available, they knew they wanted to purchase it. Avid travelers and hosts, they imagined renovating the 1950s home as a guest house for family and friends, as well as a future caregiver’s suite so they might comfortably age-in-place in their current home next door. Thus, the Trower-Griggs House was born.
Though it might have been financially more feasible to tear down the original ranch-style house and start from scratch, Marcella and Peter don’t like to see houses torn down. “There’s no reason to do that,” Marcella says, “when you have the courage to face the unknown.” Instead, they engaged Virginia Tech Architecture Professor Emeritus and personal friend Warren Kark to reimagine the entire property.
“We wanted the guest house to complement our house, not compete with it,“ Marcella says. The house they’ve lived in since the 1960s is the historic Currie House, designed originally by architect and head of architecture at Virginia Tech, Leonard J. Currie.
Completed in 1961, the home incorporated blends of Internationalism and Modernism into its design, showcasing a square form with little ornamentation, clean lines and glass walls. A student and colleague of Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, their influences on the house are evident. The home won an American Institute of Architects Homes for Better Living Award in 1963 and a Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects Test-of-Time Award in 1982. It was named to the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
The Currie House was the primary influence for the initial design, though Marcella and Peter gave Kark full jurisdiction over the project, including the landscape design. “Warren was the architect, as well as the project and construction manager,” Marcella says. “We let him have free rein. We told him to let the creative juices flow.”
Kark had several objectives for the design of the house. They were that it complement the design of the award-winning Currie house, that it function as a guest house for independent visitors, include private quarters for future caregivers and also function as a single-family residence for future owners.
In addition to teaching and his legacy of 10 years as the first university architect at Virginia Tech, Kark has designed more than 40 private residences over his career. Kark says the design planning for a guest house with a future caregiver’s suite is different from a primary residence where the space accommodates the private lives of the owners. In this case, there is a clear need for multiple bedrooms with full baths for privacy, and methods of isolating sections of the house to meet individual guest requirements.
“This allows you to have unrelated guests visiting at the same time, with their own privacy,” he says.
Also, with a guest house you consider the needs for a bedroom to be more like a hotel room. Kark and his wife Margie are international travelers, so he has an excellent idea about what is required for a well-appointed hotel room. Since nighttime bathroom trips can be uncomfortable to navigate for guests in unfamiliar rooms, each bathroom comes equipped with automatic lights to softly light the way. Other amenities like robe hooks and lighted full-length mirrors are incorporated for ultimate convenience.
The entire first floor of the guest house is handicapped accessible including curbless showers. Each bathroom also has its own unique features, including beautiful tiling in tranquil colors.
As their personal friend, Kark observed that art had a strong presence in Marcella and Peter’s lives. Responding to this, he incorporated multiple display opportunities throughout the house. “I like the eye to move from one point of interest to another,” Kark says.
Upon entering there is a painting nook built directly into the wall next to the kitchen, just across from the entryway. Sleek kitchen cabinets, designed by Dean Saltus and installed by Ideal Cabinets, have simple silver hardware to emphasize the clean lines and add to the sophisticated, minimalist, yet functional space. A recessed ceiling detail draws the eye forward and into the home. While there is an open floor plan for the kitchen, living and dining areas, Kark thinks vertically. The strategic placement of recessed ceilings with contrasting color or materials, further specified by track and recessed lighting for varied effects, makes each space feel clearly defined without needing to be closed off by a physical wall. A large glass wall on the back of the house lets natural light wash over the interior of the home.
The stairwell leading to the lower level has large art display walls beneath a horizontal window and track lighting to illuminate the space. At the base of the stairs is access to the future caregiver’s suite which now functions as an activities room, bar and kitchen. A corridor to a guest bedroom was widened to provide gallery walls with a recessed niche for three-dimensional art. The caregiver’s suite and guest bedrooms on the lower level all have private entrances, allowing for total privacy from the upstairs portion of the house.
With glass walls on both the upstairs and downstairs, it’s hard not to be taken by the spectacular views. A rather dramatic slope in the back part of the property is beautifully configured into an oasis of thoughtfully arranged landscaping. “I treat the inside and the outside as one,” Kark says. A gentle serpentine lawn winds down the hills like a river, surging around boulders and shrubs. The rocks lend striking contrast to the lush green of the grass, a contemplative landscape juxtaposed to the garden of Currie House, and its lawn of grasses, shrubs and trees. The hipped roof with large cantilevers of the guest house creates a visual link to its sister home next door.
While Kark’s fingerprints are all over the various details of the house, one that is significant is the large floating deck entered by a bridge from the carport. This feature is celebrated by a wire sculpture of a seated man purchased by Marcella. He is wearing a jaunty hat and is seemingly overseeing the property. “That’s Warren!” Marcella says, explaining that the hat itself actually did once belong to the sculpture’s namesake.
It’s a fitting tribute to the architect who put so much care into creating a house of warmth, with welcoming guest spaces, effortlessly efficient functionality and an invigorating, worldly collection of art. The wire sculpture on the deck may remind everyone of Kark’s presence throughout the home, but the thought and care he put into each of the fine details of the house, its layout and its landscape, will make sure all guests surrounded by beautiful art and stunning scenery, feel right at home.
The story above is a preview from our September/October 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
