Photo by John Cole
Mid-Mod Minimalism
Catherine Payling and Duncan Wu took a leap of faith in 2011 when they bought a slightly troubled, two-story post-and-beam-style house in McLean. Local architect Paul Salditt had designed it as his personal residence back in 1965, but in the years that followed the 6,000-square-foot home had been victimized by a series of bad renovations.
Now the new owners saw a chance to preserve a bit of design history.
“Modern architecture…is part of this country’s great architectural trajectory,” says Payling. “We fell in love with the house when we saw the great expanses of glass and the structural rigor of the beams.” They asked Falls Church architect Michael Cook (Payling is his firm’s accountant) to have a look.
Soon they were laying plans for a new kitchen and a revamped master suite, with very specific aesthetic and functional preferences.
“I told Michael I didn’t want any shiny surfaces, no stainless-steel sink, no microwave and no refrigerator/freezer—just one very big fridge,” Payling says. As vegetarians, she and Wu, a professor of English literature at Georgetown University, strive to eat fresh ingredients, but they also make use of a deep-freezer in the garage.