Adjunct Virginia Tech architecture professors Marie and Keith Zawistowski designed and built a ghost.
Rising in the rural landscape just south of Covington, Va., a twisted three-story tower with translucent walls glows like a hovering spirit. Fitting, for it illuminates the rich history of the adjacent Arritt Farm House, a nearly 200-year-old abode almost forgotten, had Mr. and Mrs. Zawistowski not intervened.
Judy Saunders said her great-great-grandfather John Arritt built the house in the mid-1830s along Potts Creek. Arritt also erected a nearby mill and general store. Around this time the area was vibrant, hosting whomever went through the town, including boaters and stagecoaches.
The farmhouse remained in the family for more than 100 years, Saunders said, before another family bought the residence. When it resurfaced on the market in the early 1990s, Saunders, along with her sister Rebecca Miller and brother Robert McNeal, reclaimed their ancestry.
But since the siblings lived throughout the East Coast, Saunders said the property remained mostly stagnant, continuing its already severe deterioration.
“I finally talked to my sister about, you know, let’s make it nice for us,” Saunders said. “Let’s renovate it and enjoy it and have it as a family home.”
And they had specific designers in mind.
Mr. Zawistowski, a 2003 Tech architecture alumnus, was friends with Saunders’ son. Saunders said Mr. Zawistowski kept her up to date on his school endeavors, which included an outreach project in Alabama where he met and worked alongside Mrs. Zawistowski, a France native.
The pair formed a two-person design firm whose work Saunders and Miller enjoyed.
“They called us while we were living in France,” Mr. Zawistowski said, “and asked if we would move there to design and build that project for them.”
A bold request, but Mr. and Mrs. Zawistowski said such a migration is at the center of their design philosophy.
“We actually call our practice OnSite,” Mr. Zawistowski said, “and the idea is that we’re moving from place to place, realizing the work.”
Before France, they called New Mexico home while completing a private residence.
They ultimately agreed to renovate the two-story Arritt Farm House and trekked to the states in the summer of 2005. They didn’t want to simply replicate the structure, though.
“The approach we took to the project was that we were going to breathe a new life into it,” Mrs. Zawistowski said.
Their lungs were surely tested, for the poor state of the 1,500-square-foot house required a major disassembly.
“At one point we just had the skeleton of the house left,” Mrs. Zawistowski said.
Resilient, however, Mr. and Mrs. Zawistowski successfully modified the timber-frame house with only the help of one full-time assistant and two third-year Tech architecture students who joined after OnSite lectured on the Tech campus.
“We transformed the (floor) plan of the house inside,” Mrs. Zawistowski said. “We kept the exterior shell and we adapted the (floor) plan to modern living, because we don’t go through one room to go to the next anymore.”
They reapplied salvaged materials such as heart pinewood — previously the attic floor — as kitchen cabinetry. The Tech students introduced elements made of concrete including kitchen counter-tops and a bar table.
Yet after more than a year of exhaustive reconstruction, Mr. and Mrs. Zawistowski had to fulfill another prompt. Saunders and Miller envisioned an addition that would cater to their hobbies, although the details of their request were sparse.
“My sister and I like to quilt, my husband likes to paint,” Saunders said. “So I wanted something with a lot of sun, a lot of bright, natural light and a large area.”
Mr. and Mrs. Zawistowski embraced their artistic freedom, looking to an old slave kitchen detached from the farmhouse for inspiration.
“Our idea was that we could build the new piece that they wanted on the footprint of that existing building,” Mr. Zawistowski said.
The kitchen remains were twisted and on the verge of collapse, a weary state mimicked in the very tower that emerged in its place. Mr. and Mrs. Zawistowski created a winding structure by tilting the four corner columns at very slight angles.
“It still has the spirit of the old building,” Mrs. Zawistowski said.
The skeleton, like that of the farmhouse, is entirely wood. Translucent polycarbonate panels wrap the exterior, allowing ample light to enter during the day and radiate at night. Numerous windows frame specific views of the water and mountains beyond.
The 1,500-square-foot tower took a slim four months to complete with the same five-person crew, thanks largely in part to advanced software.
“By making a 3-D model of the building prior to its construction,” Mr. Zawistowski said, “we were able to create a shop drawing for every member of the building and code all those parts.”
They used only a crane and forklift to piece together the puzzle.
“Pretty much like what’s going on across the street right now at a smaller scale,” Mrs. Zawistowski said, referring to the construction on the Prices Fork Lot parking garage.
Saunders said the first floor of the addition is now a family favorite for congregating. The younger generation, she said, loves exploring all three levels. However, the optical illusion of leaning sometimes dizzies older visitors as they climb the stairs.
“We call it the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ addition,” Saunders said.
With the Arritt name properly restored by January 2007, OnSite had to consider its next destination.
“There’s always this kind of strange moment at the end when it’s like ‘It’s time to leave,’” Mr. Zawistowski said. “And in this case, because the property beside it came up for sale, we realized we could stay.”
The College of Architecture and Urban Studies invited Mr. and Mrs. Zawistowski to co-teach a third-year architecture studio in 2008,
which they’ve continued this academic year.
“Third year is really kind of an amazing year in architecture because it’s the year that’s really about architecture.” Mr. Zawistowski said. “It’s sort of learning to put a building together.”
And considering their familiarity with the nuts and bolts, Mr. and Mrs. Zawistowski can impart great know-how to their students. The Virginia Society American Institute of Architects recognized the duo’s value with an Award for Excellence in Design for the Arritt Farm House. OnSite projects demand holistic thought, and its owners hope their students adopt that extra dimension.
“In addition to the poetry of the architecture,” Mr. Zawistowski began while sitting with his wife.
But before he could finish, Mrs. Zawistowski completed the query for him.
“How do you make it happen?” she asked.