When Going Home is a Vacation

Wind, water and wildlife make Maryland’s Eastern Shore home.

By Marion Butterworth

Photo by Lou Mazzatenta

Jef and Mary Kinney don’t spend their summer vacations in Cozumel or the Cayman Islands. They don’t go have to go that far to escape. “When our friends at work ask where we’re going for vacation, they’re surprised when we say, ‘home,’” says Mary. In fact, the couple, both employed by Fannie Mae in D.C., goes there every weekend, every holiday and for good reason.

“Home” is a 5200-square-foot house anchoring a sun-drenched, wind-whipped point of land that juts out into the Tred Avon River on the outskirts of the tiny historic hamlet of Oxford, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

With a view of the water from every room, sightings of sailboats, barges and the Oxford-Belleview ferry are as common as those of great blue herons, mallards, American oystercatchers and egrets. The stunning vistas and ever-changing scenery make the Kinneys eager for the day when they will be in residence full time.

Beyond the Bay Bridge

A boyhood of summers spent sailing in Oxford grounded Jef there, so when sports injuries made the Kinneys’ prospective retirement to a South Carolina golf course community unfeasible, they turned their attention to Oxford.

At about two hours from D.C., they figured they’d build a home there and continue to live in their Potomac home and work in D.C.

Across the Bay Bridge, they found five spectacular acres on Morgan’s Point they couldn’t pass up. But, says Jef, “We ended up spending three times as much as we had planned because we wanted to build a house that was appropriate to the setting.”

The solution: They sold their Potomac house, rented an apartment on Massachusetts Avenue for weekday nights and began construction of their dream home on the Eastern Shore.

Adjacent to a Choptank Indian burial ground, the parcel is so rich in history and lavish in natural wonders that it was essential that the house be at one with its locale and sited to capitalize on the scenery. “We wanted to take advantage of the views, and it was important for the house and property to work together,” explains Mary. “The house had to fit the land, to be in harmony with its surroundings and to look like it had been there for a while.”

From Concept to Construction

They interviewed several architects before settling on Lauren Dianich and her firm, Atelier 11 Ltd. “I knew who I wanted from day one,” says Jef. “Lauren is very skilled, very dedicated. She has opinions, but she wants to deliver what you want. She has no trouble holding construction folks accountable, and she enjoys the construction management phase.”

After extensive discussions and a visit to their Potomac home to see how they used their space, measuring kitchen cabinets and inspecting closets, Dianich transformed concepts into a design. “We talked at least four times a week,” Dianich says, adding, “There are probably 1,500 decisions they had to make.”

What started with a picture that Jef had torn from a magazine and Mary’s desire for “clean and crisp” architectural details became a riverside retreat that blends the stately columns and symmetry of Georgian architecture with the weathered shingles and generous porches of Nantucket seaside cottages. Most, they wanted to capture the water views.

“We spread out activities throughout the house to give each room a distinctive, specific view and to use the site to its fullest. Sometimes a house’s orientation to the water is very one dimensional; people have just one deck. We wanted to create lots of different spaces to enjoy the outdoors,” says Dianich. “Jef’s office upstairs has a strong focus towards the ferry, while the kitchen and east side of the house is more private. The screen porch is protected from strong southwest winds. We really had to deal with the forces of nature.”

By positioning the garage-guest house perpendicular to the main house, Dianich created a welcoming entry courtyard. To produce a façade with the patina of age, the siding shingles were hand dipped in a 50-50 mix of stain and bleaching oil to mimic years of sun exposure.

“The owners searched long and hard for brick that had an aged softness to it and complemented the grey of the shingles,” says Dianich. “Subsequently, Swiss-inspired, sage-colored storm shutters were added. Wood on the diagonal makes them stronger so they don’t skew over time.”

Inspired by the couples’ “buttoned up careers in finance,” Dianich says she wanted the Kinneys to have a dwelling that was “fanciful and fun without being egocentric.” Portholes in the pantry, a secret passageway for the cats and windows with two-mile views fill the house with whimsy.

Team Building

Even the very best architectural plans are nothing without a talented team to render them a reality. “We were very diligent in getting multiple bids each step of the way,” says Mary. They checked references and visited completed jobs.

After interviewing a half dozen builders, the “quality and quantity of people” that Willow Construction would devote to the job won them over, Jef says. “Willow had a lot of management resources. The job was run more like a commercial project; they had us confirm and sign off on all selections.”

“Ours is the smallest house on the street, but we were the only ones who had a superintendent (Steve Thomas) in his own construction trailer on site the entire 16 months. The senior supervisor, Steve Robbins, came by daily,” explains Mary. The project manager, Carolina Santos, is also a trained architect.

Communication, critical to the success of any job, flowed easily. “We’d get a seven- to eight-page progress report e-mail with digital photos every Friday, detailing what had been accomplished and what critical path decisions needed to be made,” Mary recalls.

Landscape architect Jayne Bourke (tour her garden office on page 70) and interior designer Terry Hepler Price rounded out the team. The Kinneys liked that Bourke went beyond suggestions and submitted a detailed plan using primarily native plants that would serve as a habitat for wildlife.

Recommended by Dianich, Price was able to help the Kinneys choose colors, fixtures and surfaces that harmonize, with the furnishings they brought from their Potomac home.