While Asian fusion cuisine has become popular in the U.S. in recent years, blending flavors and cooking techniques may be easier than blending architectural and aesthetic styles from around the globe. Yet local architect Travis Price has managed to blend Japanese and Swedish design elements into a contemporary home in Rock Creek Forest.
Built in 1990, the home at 2318 Ashboro Drive in Chevy Chase, Md., is on the market for $1,795,000.
This unique home rests on a peaceful 37,000-square-foot site on a wooded hillside adjacent to Rock Creek Park. Mr. Price took full advantage of this site when designing the home so that nearly every room opens to the outdoors. Floor-to-ceiling windows, glass blocks, transoms and more than a dozen skylights fill the rooms with natural light.
Natural materials and pure, unadorned spaces reflect the Swedish influence on the design, while Asian elements are incorporated in a Japanese-style entryway with a glass-brick-walled courtyard with a tall arch. Curved railings, copper roofs, decks, a lily pond with a waterfall and a serene indoor lap pool blend Swedish and Japanese styles.
The home has ash hardwood floors and multilevel Trex decking more than halfway around it, hammered-copper balconies and roofs over the lap pool, living room and towers; and four zones of heating and air conditioning. Woods wrap around all sides of the home for the ultimate peaceful retreat.
The home has approximately 7,100 finished square feet, including the indoor room housing the lap pool, with an open floor plan on the main level designed to be comfortable for as many as 100 people.
The living room has been acoustically engineered for concerts and includes six sets of floor-to-ceiling glass doors and windows, a wood-burning fireplace, a pyramid-shaped copper roof with a central skylight and a step up to the dining area.
The dining area includes a contemporary light fixture and a decorative glass-block wall as well as sliding glass doors to the deck. A lily pond rests just outside the living room and dining area.
The nearby kitchen is wrapped in windows, including French doors and two sets of sliding glass doors to the deck, along with a wall of 16 square windows. This room has an oversized island and space for a table for casual dining, plus granite counters, a desk and recessed lighting. Upgraded appliances include a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a five-burner gas cooktop, a wall oven, a trash compactor, a microwave, a dishwasher and a warming drawer. Adjacent to the kitchen is a pantry with a sink.
Near the kitchen is a den with a built-in entertainment center, a wood-burning fireplace with decorative tiles, crown molding and built-in speakers. Next to the den is a full bath with a ceramic tile shower and hardwood flooring.
The mezzanine level includes a carpeted family room or office with built-in desks and cabinets, shelves, track lighting and recessed lighting. Adjacent to the office is the heated indoor lap pool, which has a deck with a radiant heated floor, skylights, a sitting area and six sets of sliding glass doors opening to the deck.
This level also has a bedroom with an adjacent full bath with marble flooring, and a laundry room.
The upper-level master suite occupies a separate wing with a foyer with four skylights and glass blocks surrounding an oversized window. The suite includes a bedroom with a sitting area and a private balcony, plus two full baths, each with a walk-in closet. Each of the full baths has a whirlpool tub and a shower with a marble surround. The pond and waterfall are just below the master suite.
The second wing on this level, which is separated by a long hallway from the master suite, includes a bedroom with a door to a balcony and an adjacent full bath. At the center of this level is a home theater with skylights and two sets of sliding glass doors to the balcony. The home theater was crafted from two bedrooms, and the space easily can be restored to that configuration. Nearby is a cedar storage closet.
On the third level, a cozy space that can be used as a meditation room, exercise room or library has hardwood flooring and two walls of windows, including a sliding glass door to the rooftop.
This property also has unfinished storage and workshop space on the lower level and a storage shed.
For more information about this sophisticated contemporary home, contact Realtors Bonnie Lewin and Catarina Bannier of Evers & Co. at 301/332-0171 or 202/487-7177 or visit www.eversco.com.
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