As with many of their neighbors, views of the Blue Ridge Mountains fill James D. Faubion and William R. Duell’s Lexington, Virginia, home. This is a place, however, unlike most others in the Shenandoah Valley. Red brick, faux-mansard roofs, and other suburban conventions hold sway in the area. But situated on a grassy precipice 1,350 feet above sea level, this 2,500-square-foot, single-story house embodies different ideals. Its stark white exteriors channel an archaic mood, more Greek isles than Appalachia, with an interplay of light and shadow that recalls ruined temples.

“When we first moved in, it was so pristine and spiritual,” says James, an anthropologist who retired from teaching at Rice University in 2021. “It has an extraordinary spiritual quality for me that I’m still not entirely at ease with.”

James and William, an IT manager turned playwright who grew up in the area, acquired the property in 2013. The couple met their architects when a postdoc at Rice, Gökçe Günel, brought her partner, Troy Schaum, cofounder of the architecture firm Schaum/Shieh, to dinner at James and William’s place. “After introducing me as an architect, William encouraged Jim to show me this drawing he made for a home,” Schaum says. Over the years, the couple had traveled to Greece many times for leisure and James’s fieldwork, and the drawing reflected the hand of a “meticulous cataloger,” notes Schaum. “It had things drawn all the way down to plates in the dining room and hair dryers in the bathroom cabinets.”

Absent, however, was any indication of how the house might be built. “Troy invited us over to his office and discussed with us what the house could actually be,” James says. “We put away the drawing soon after that.”

With firm partner Rosalyne Shieh, Schaum decided on a plan like a hopscotch board, with living spaces interspersed with outdoor courts. The roof dances, rising and dipping to meet the edges of walls. Light trickles in from unexpected angles, especially when one stands in the 125-foot-long corridor that forms the spine of the house. In the dining room, above a long table that seats 10, a ceiling bisects the supple bend of a wall with Corbusian élan.

“The place isn’t built to be comfy. It’s built to be dramatic and moving and so on and so forth. I don't really like comfy that much.”
—James D. Faubion, resident

But for all its high-mindedness, the house is also rooted in the materials of its place. The exterior isn’t covered in whitewashed plaster, as it would be in, say, Santorini, but EIFS, an industrial insulated membrane that “every gas station on 81 uses,” Schaum says, referring to the highway that traverses the valley.

Just as James was putting ink to paper all those years ago, the couple have been hatching plans for the house’s afterlife. They hope to leave the site as a retreat for anthropologists and playwrights. Readings could take place on the steps of the deck, which follows the hill slope like an amphitheater in miniature. Not so far from Greece after all.

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Schaum/Shieh

Builder: Jonathan Kuntz, Blue Ridge Green

Structural Engineering: Jordan Truesdell, Truesdell Engineering

—

Head back to the July/August 2023 issue homepage