Lori's Law of Order
Balancing elegance with chic cheek, designer Lori Graham found the comfortable contemporary home hiding in a vintage Washington, D.C., residence
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Photo: Erik Johnson
Washington attorney Stefan Nicholas and his Argentine-born wife, Gissel, live on one of the capital’s most sought-after streets. It’s a leafy enclave of elegant houses ranging in style from French châteaus to modern glass boxes. The Nicholases loved the setting and the Georgian-style architecture of their five-bedroom home, which they share with their young son, Alexander, as well as a black Labrador named Luna and a Maltese called Chiquita. But despite its size, the interior was a somewhat claustrophobic warren of small, dark, traditionally divided rooms that didn’t jibe with the family’s contemporary, globe-trotting lifestyle. So they hired District of Columbia designer Lori Graham, an acquaintance of Stefan’s from her earlier life as a lawyer, to undertake their own Georgian revival.
Graham oversaw a total renovation and update of the 5,200-square-foot house, but what she installed is completely sympathetic to the home’s neoclassical roots. “We didn’t want to challenge the integrity of the structure,” she says wisely. “You can’t just knock everything down inside and make a loft.”
Graham removed several walls to create a bigger, brighter kitchen, but elsewhere in the house, she left most of the walls standing. She did, however, remove the doors between rooms and enlarged the openings—from their original 24- to 36-inch widths to upward of six feet. She then framed the doorways with simple moldings to harmonize with the home’s original architecture. “You still have the division of rooms, but it’s much more open,” says Graham. The house also seems taller, thanks to floor-to-ceiling window treatments and new moldings that draw the eye upward.
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