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A GRACEFUL 1853 UPPERVILLE HOME, THE MAPLES
STONE, IVY, ROLLING HILLS, AND A RESPECT FOR THE PAST PERMEATE THIS PROPERTY
WRITTEN BY TRISH DONNALLY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL AND AYELET SHANKEN AND AMY MORISSE
As
you approach The Maples, the air smells of honeysuckle, horses, and
freshly cut grass. The long, yellow maple-lined driveway gently curves
in front of the gracious southern mansion with its inviting front
porches on the first and second levels.
It’s almost as if time and character are
captured in the worn path of the foyer’s pine floor, the
inch-and-a-half thick cherry doors, and the two-foot thick stone and
plaster walls throughout the house.
Andy and Michele Stevens purchased The Maples
from Betty Carter Fletcher Burkholder, great-great granddaughter of
Joshua Fletcher, who had the house built in 1853.
“We had 14 acres in Great Falls and I was going
to build a new old house. I told one of the prospective builders I
brought out to the lot to discuss what I wanted to do that I wanted a
stone house, a barn, a pool, and a guesthouse,” Michele says. He
suggested that she see his property, The Maples, in Upperville, VA.
Michele recalls traveling with her husband out Route 50 and turning
into the tree-lined driveway.
“I knew from the look on Andy’s face that this was it,” Michele remembers.
While the 6,000-square-foot house remained in
the Fletcher family for generations, it almost seems custom built for
Michele, who loves symmetry.
The Maples, a classic “four-square
plan,” not only has the traditional four rooms of equal size over four
other rooms of equal size, but also has another four rooms of equal
size in the English basement. So the 12 main rooms of the house each
measure almost 19 feet by 19 feet square. The sense of symmetry and
balance they create gives Michele great pleasure.
A FAMILY FARMHOUSE
“Mrs. Eliza Fletcher had 13 of her 14 children
here,” Andy says. The garage, originally a one-room schoolhouse, was
where her children were educated. “Mrs. [Betty Wise Gibson] Fletcher
lived here for 17 years, alone, blind. She lived in the front parlor.
Her galley kitchen was where the powder room is now. Her bathroom was
where Michele’s office is,” Andy says. While Mrs. Fletcher had help,
she basically lived on the first floor. “That’s why things got locked
in time.”
The house, which had paint peeling off the
walls, was vacant for two years before Andy, 54, a businessman,
beekeeper, and former AOL executive, Michele, 46, a realtor with Long
& Foster for 10 years, and their children, Nicola, 19, and Teddy,
17, bought the 60-acre property in 1999.
The Stevens kept the original footprint of the
house, did a complete mechanical renovation, and restored the rest over
three-and-a-half years. They collaborated closely with Betsy Barmat
Stires, interior designer and owner of Frog Hill Designs, and Allen
Kitselman, an architect, and president and owner of Main Street
Architecture.
Fifteen tons of plaster from the drooping
ceilings alone were removed from the house – one bucket at a time. The
stone was re-pointed on the main house, bank barn, woodshop, former
smoke house, former summer kitchen, and former caretaker’s cottage. The
last now serves as their guesthouse. The boxes of the original
nine-foot-tall windows were all opened and re-roped, the old, wavy
glass is still in most windows.
Wood was reclaimed from the interior walls of
the barn to build bookcases and an overmantle in the library, to panel
the inside of the doorway that the Stevens cut through the wall from
the library to the living room, and for two bathroom doors. The
basement had dirt and brick floors. The Stevens used that brick to
restore a path from the summer kitchen to the main house. “We recycled
pretty much everything that we could here,” Andy says.
Glancing
at the spindles of their stair banister, Michele says, “Everything the
workmen did was by hand. A lot of it just needed serious cleaning.”
The Stevens also created a gorgeous, spacious,
state-of-the-art kitchen, custom built by Rutt of DC. It includes a
Carerra marble island and counters, butcher block counters flanking a
Viking stove, and a delightful window seat with views of the stone
barns, verdant back lawn, and meadows beyond, among other amenities.
They
added a glorious owners’ bathroom, complete with an extra deep tub and
Carerra marble, and flooded with natural light. Additional new
bathrooms include vintage wooden dressers converted into sinks, which
feel at one with the house.
As they restored their home, the Stevens found
long forgotten documents that had fallen behind some of the nine
fireplace mantles, including race cards, hunt cards, and a report card
dated 1919 that had belonged to Robert Fletcher. It was simply
addressed to “The Maples, Upperville, Virginia” with a return address,
“The Episcopal School, Near Alexandria, Virginia.”
Remarkably, the Stevens actually have the
original handwritten deed for the purchase of the property dated 1835.
They also have the original handwritten contract between William
Sutton, the builder, and Joshua Fletcher, the owner, which details the
cost of construction in 1853. For instance, the graceful “open
staircase with pine steps and mahogany railing” cost $40. The
one-and-a-half-inch thick, eight-foot-high, four-panel cherry doors
throughout their house cost $5 each. The total cost of materials was
$1,090, and the total cost of labor was $1,105.18 at that time.
Andy says, “What I’ve always liked about this
house is that it’s a very simple farmhouse. There are so many things
you can’t duplicate today – the simplicity, the wood, the doors.” Or
the original price.
But the smell of honeysuckle, horses, and freshly cut grass is as fragrant as ever. At least some things stay the same. ws
Resources:
Allen Studios
202.726.5266
allenstudios.com
Frog Hill Designs
703.597.3385
froghilldesigns@verizon.net
Hytla & Hart
504.364.3599
hytlaandhart.com
Lewis Aquatech
703.631.2800
lewisaquatech.com
Main Street
Architecture PC
540.955.1669
mainstreetarch.com
Multiflora Landscape/Nursery
540.687.3778
Painter-Lewis, PLC
540.662.5792
painterlewis.com
Robert Downing Company
540.687.3554
Rutt of DC
202.554.6190
ruttcabinetry.biz
Waterworks
202.333.7180
waterworks.com |