Inside

Two generations and two changes of ownership later, the Stewarts were living blocks away from Smithsonia when they learned the iconic house was available. After buying it, the couple made some cosmetic changes—and then, in 2008, they moved out for eight months so that the kitchen and master bedroom suite could be expanded and renovated. They moved back in late 2008—one week before Christmas.

Bob Steele of BOB Architecture in Richmond, a college friend of Doug Stewart’s who’d done previous work for the family, designed the new spaces. Rather than deviate from the original footprint with a two-story addition, he and the Stewarts configured a new kitchen and master suite inside the structure and added a refined three-bay brick garage and carriage house, with glass entry. “It is always an interesting conversation with historians when you are putting a contemporary addition onto an old building,” says Steele.

The best way to touch an old structure, Steele asserts, is to do it in a transparent way—literally. “Cathy had just returned from Paris and had seen all this glass work,” says Steele, “and she liked the idea of not having a traditional dark entry foyer” at the back of the house. The result is a new carriage house (that doesn’t look so new) with a very modern glass connecting tube that serves as entrance to both the garage and the back of the house.

Inside Smithsonia, witty fashion references can be found in every room. In the TV room, there is a Chanel poster by Andy Warhol from a window display in the Paris boutique, a dining room rug designed by Diane von Furstenberg, and a clever library footstool that the upholsterer stitched together from several Louis Vuitton bags. Ruched silk coverings for the chandelier chains throughout the house add subtle dressmaker touches overhead.

The entry hall features Stark scenic wallpaper with a peacock pattern, a design Gregory chose knowing Stewart’s affection for the bird. It was installed by H.J. Holtz & Son, who hung the panels on linen so they could be moved, a custom adopted by Virginian Nancy Lancaster, who once moved 18th-century silk wallpaper halfway across England for her home at Kelmarsh Hall. As Gregory says of the undertaking, “Scenic papers, not for the faint of heart ….” The pattern was configured so that the peacock appears on one side of the hall with his tail open and on the other side, closed.