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When the team realized that the leather sectional sofa the Scotts had purchased for the den was too large for the space as it was designed, architect Josh McCullar added 18 inches to the room to make it work.
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Knitting together a traditional house with a modern addition can be complex, McCullar says. The two should resonate and form a tension that speaks to the context when you see them together.
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The 10-foot ceilings in the addition continue out into the screened porch, giving it the air of a traditional Southern veranda in a thoroughly modern vernacular.
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The kitchen walls are painted Sherwin-Williams China White, the custom-crafted Sapele mahogany cabinetry is by Martin-Star, and the custom cherrywood stools are by Thomas Moser.
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Light filters into the primary bedroom through a glass belvedere rising from the center of the room to emerge from the gabled roof “like a rectangular telescope to the sky,” McCullar says.
The porch was an afterthought.
Soaring 14 feet high and spanning 36 feet from stem to stern along the eastern-facing elevation of a home addition in Laburnum Park, the porch is a symphony of rich woods. Spanish cedar louvres embrace the screened-in porch with ipe floors and tongue-and-groove cedar ceilings. The self-adjustable louvres provide privacy and, assisted by three wooden ceiling fans, control cooling breezes during the warmer months.
Josh McCullar, a Richmond-based architect who has for decades been at the forefront of Richmond’s evolving modern residential design movement, recalls the conversation with homeowners Tom and Holly Scott about their dreams for an addition.
“They talked about the spaces they asked me to provide for them … a den, kitchen, bedroom, closets, bathroom — but the porch was a little bit of a, ‘Oh, by the way, it would be nice to have a screen porch, but it’s not required,’” McCullar says. “I love indoor-outdoor spaces, and they had already told me that they also loved that, so I wondered, ‘Why would that be an afterthought? It should be The Thing.’ So, all of my sketches have some version of a screen porch. I was just resolved to have it, period.”
The Scotts reached out to McCullar in 2019 seeking designs for a modern addition to their traditional two-story, foursquare 1926 home just before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Seeking living spaces that would allow them to age in place, the couple asked McCullar to design an addition that would accommodate their needs as they became less able to safely use the stairs.
They also wanted to create a sustainable home, one that would conserve water and have a light footprint on environmental resources for generations to come. Their research led to the discovery of a Netherlands-based decentralized water recycling system called Hydraloop, which allows them to reuse water that would otherwise be wasted. Water from bathroom sinks, the washing machine and the shower is captured in a filtration machine no bigger than a refrigerator installed in their basement, where the greywater goes through five stages, including separation of large particles and biological and UV light treatments. The purified output supplies water for toilets, the washing machine and outdoor spigots. Since its installation at the beginning of 2024, it’s filtered 25,503 liters (6,737 gallons) of water. Scott says that it is the first Hydraloop installation on the East Coast.
McCullar employed gutterless metal knife edges on the gabled rooflines to feed water runoff through French drains around the perimeter of the addition to a rain garden that runs almost the length of the addition on the western side. Overflow from the rain garden runs through pipes to a drainage field under the permeable circular driveway and another behind the garage. Stormwater runoff goes to a separate city sewer system.
Knitting together a traditional house and a modern addition requires reverence for each in a way that elevates both when you see them next to each other, McCullar says. For the addition’s exterior, he chose a limestone and quartzite slurry first used by ancient Romans; it provides a modern mirror to the original home’s white stucco.
The transition to the addition begins with a hyphen — a minimal connection — at the rear of the original house. A powder room is tucked in to the right. On the other side, the connection starts at what was the Scotts’ small galley kitchen and mechanical closet, now converted into a servery and a spacious pantry.
The entries flow into an open kitchen and den at the heart of the addition. Sapele mahogany cabinets built by Martin-Star Cabinetry cover copious storage. Rich wood hues are offset by light quartzite counters and white oak floors.
Interior designer Kelly Brown collaborated with McCullar, contractor Eric Olsten and the Scotts on the project. “I feel like interior design isn’t just about aesthetics. Sometimes it’s about how we move through a space and how that makes us feel,” says Brown, who draws from basic feng shui principles when designing a space.
The Scotts are movie buffs, so the design for the den demanded comfortable seating. They chose a large sectional sofa upholstered in a creamy white leather from the Design Within Reach Reid Collection and filled the bookshelves with movies. A gas fireplace and floating stone hearth reminiscent of Tom’s childhood home stretch the length of the den. A one-of-a-kind cat tunnel runs under the bookshelves to an adjacent laundry room and litter box for the family’s three cats.
The 10-foot ceilings in the living spaces give the addition an openness and lightness. But the starkest display of light, both at night and during the day, is a belvedere that emerges from the center of the gabled roof over the bedroom. “It started with the concept of a chimney, so iconic to Southern architecture, but instead of a real chimney it would be a chimney of light. It became a wonderful moment because at night the whole thing glows like a lantern, but during the day it has a reverse because the light comes in,” McCullar says.
