Rugby Hills Redux

RUGBY HILLS REDUX

Property Description

Located in the desirable Rugby Hills neighborhood of Charlottesville, Virginia, this modest 1940s Cape Cod style residence sat tucked beneath tall oaks.

Like many homes of its era, it was compact and compartmentalized; functional in its day, but not quite in step with the rhythm of modern life. Its new owners — Brian Hubbell, Principal of HubbHouse, and his wife Andrea — imagined something more: a home that could shift seamlessly between lively dinner parties and casual backyard barbecues, with space that felt open, connected, and welcoming.

The interior of the home features a new kitchen addition, which assumed the space of the original porch — making it a true hub of the home. Lowered slightly from the main house to embrace the site’s slope, the kitchen established a subtle sense of arrival, almost like stepping into a mid-century conversation pit. Large windows keep the kitchen visually tied to the street, carrying forward the home’s original gesture of neighborly openness.

To make every square foot work harder, cantilevered volumes clad in oiled cypress house cabinetry and appliances, leaving the floor clear for gathering. The interior living spaces of the home — reimagined to a more open format — evoke a warm, modern palette, with bleached oak floors, soft grays, and walnut accents.

Outdoors, acclaimed landscape architecture firm Pray Design Associates designed a series of bluestone terraces which step down the hillside from the home, each one created with purpose: cooking, dining, gardening, or simply gathering by a sculptural fireplace. Materials like COR-TEN steel and board-formed concrete tie the landscape back to the home, while a fern-filled grotto and wood-fired hot tub offer a private, elemental retreat at the far edge of the site.

What began as a small Cape Cod has become something much more: a home that honors its past while embracing a new life of connection, openness, and ease.