The Roanoker Sept/October 2023 - 68

Homes
The architect designed
the home and lawn
together.
W
68
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023
hen the house
next door to homeowners
Marcella
Griggs and Peter
Trower became
available, they knew
they wanted to purchase it. Avid travelers and
hosts, they imagined renovating the 1950s
home as a guest house for family and friends, as
well as a future caregiver's suite so they might
comfortably age-in-place in their current home
next door. Thus, the Trower-Griggs House was
born.
Though it might have been financially
more feasible to tear down the original ranchstyle
house and start from scratch, Marcella
and Peter don't like to see houses torn down.
" There's no reason to do that, " Marcella
says, " when you have the courage to face the
unknown. " Instead, they engaged Virginia Tech
Architecture Professor Emeritus and personal
friend Warren Kark to reimagine the entire
property.
" We wanted the guest house to complement
our house, not compete with it, " Marcella says.
The house they've lived in since the 1960s is
the historic Currie House, designed originally
by architect and head of architecture at
Virginia Tech, Leonard J. Currie.
Completed in 1961, the home incorporated
blends of Internationalism and Modernism
into its design, showcasing a square form with
little ornamentation, clean lines and glass walls.
A student and colleague of Walter Gropius and
Marcel Breuer, their influences on the house are
evident. The home won an American Institute
of Architects Homes for Better Living Award
in 1963 and a Virginia Society of the American
Institute of Architects Test-of-Time Award in
1982. It was named to the Virginia Landmarks
Register and the National Register of Historic
Places in 1994.
The Currie House was the primary influence
for the initial design, though
Marcella and Peter gave Kark
full jurisdiction over the project,
including the landscape design.
" Warren was the architect, as well
as the project and construction
manager, " Marcella says. " We let
him have free rein. We told him
to let the creative juices flow. "
Kark had several objectives for
the design of the house. They were
that it complement the design of
the award-winning Currie house,
that it function as a guest house
for independent visitors, include
private quarters for future caregivers
and also function as a
single-family residence for future owners.
In addition to teaching and his legacy of 10
years as the first university architect at Virginia
Tech, Kark has designed more than 40 private
residences over his career. Kark says the
design planning for a guest house with a future
caregiver's suite is different from a primary
residence where the space accommodates the
private lives of the owners. In this case, there
is a clear need for multiple bedrooms with full
baths for privacy, and methods of isolating
sections of the house to meet individual guest
requirements.
Architect Warren Kark.
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The Roanoker Sept/October 2023

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