FINDING A LAKE HOUSE that suited her tastes with a dock that suited her husband had been eluding homeowner Irma Barrington. The couple had searched for properties for over a year, but to no avail. Her son-in-law found a home for sale on Smith Mountain Lake and showed it to Irma’s daughter, Maggie, in an effort to help, but her daughter took one look at the old brick ranch with gorgeous views and said, “There’s no way my mother will look at this property,” and pushed it aside.
Meanwhile, Irma and her husband had reluctantly concluded that building a custom home was the only way to go. “I was not looking forward to building, but felt it was the only way we could come together on our wants,” says Irma. “When I told our Realtor, she said, ‘I have just the property for you.’” Shortly after, they pulled up to an old brick ranch with gorgeous views. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’” admits Irma. But their Realtor urged them to walk straight past the home to the views in the back. “The lot was breathtaking,” recalls Irma. “It was flat, with panoramic views of blue water and the mountains, and two acres and enough waterfront to build the dock of my husband’s dreams. We made an offer and never went inside the house.” That evening, when Maggie looked at the listing link her mother sent, she was amused to see it was the one she pushed aside.
The 1970s brick ranch home was soon razed and the couple enlisted Irby Architects and R&R Builders to construct the home they truly wanted. Traveling often for her job, Irma was concerned about how stressful it would be to design the home, so Maggie connected her with Vicky Serany of Southern Studio Interior Design. “We met with Vicky and there was an immediate connection. She was warm and personable, with a tremendous amount of experience in construction and interior design,” says Irma. “At the second meeting we were blown away by the design boards her team shared with us—she nailed our vision!”
“It was clear after their first meeting that Irma and her husband wanted a warm and inviting lakeside home with no clutter and certainly no fuss over wet bathing suits or fishing poles. They just wanted a comfortable home that could be passed down over generations,” recalls Serany.
Southern Studio “thrives in the second-home space,” says Serany, because they are more casual, with fewer precious pieces and less storage. “It’s a cleaner way to design, with fewer constraints, more ways to entertain, and different needs than everyday families,” says Serany. “It’s a different way to conceptualize living because it’s short-term living—homeowners want cozy spaces people can retreat to and get away from togetherness. There’s a lot of downtime in second homes.”
To that end, Serany likes to start projects with a “throwdown process.” “This is where we throw down all the materials onto a table—from flooring to tile to textiles to paints—and let homeowners pull out things they don’t like. We design from what’s left,” she explains. In this case, what was left was warmth: aged wood floors, copper gutters, custom Amish-made wood cabinets in the kitchen, antiques, old fishing nets, and aged brass candlesticks, among other things.
Her ten years of strictly kitchen design lends Serany unique insight into functional kitchens. In this home, she installed a sink that overlooks the water, and a separate prep sink in the island for large groups and entertaining. Panels hide the refrigerator for low maintenance and the clutter-free look the Barringtons prefer, and a separate wet bar keeps the kitchen free from mealtime traffic jams while entertaining. Faucets in the bathrooms were installed with kids in mind (one handle is much easier for little hands than two), as were bathtubs. “Not only do I design kitchens and bathrooms for the homeowners, but I am designing with guests, resales, and rentals in mind, because that is the nature of second homes,” says Serany.
While Serany loved the challenge of designing the rec room with custom bunks, the kitchen, and the bathrooms, Irma prefers the quiet of their “lake room” as her favorite. “It is open to the kitchen with lots of windows that showcase the unbelievable views, which is what allowed us to purchase this property with peace of mind; and it was Vicky that allowed us to love this home and the process.”