2011 AIA Potomac Valley Design Awards Honor Award Winner
McInturff Architects
Dogtrot House
Built, Single Family Residential
Little Washington, Virginia
Our clients asked for their weekend house near the Blue Ridge Mountains to be in two parts —one for themselves and one for guests — with connecting common spaces, both indoors and out. It occurred to us that two such buildings with a covered open porch was a 21st-century dogtrot house.
The guests occupy a three-story tower that can be conditioned separately from the owners’ wing, which can operate as a one bedroom house when the owners are at the property alone. A 2nd floor media room above the porch bridges the two wings and provides an interior connection between them. Parallel window walls frame views to mountains on one side and foothills on the other.
Beneath the bridge, roll screens can drop from each end of the dogtrot ceiling, transforming the open passage into a screened porch.