Cathy Cherry knows what it takes to build a home from the ground up. The architect and interior designer is the founder of , a firm that works on projects across the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast, from conceptualizing a structure to fitting and furnishing that building once it’s completed. So when Cherry and her husband, Mike, decided to build themselves a second home in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Afton, , she knew exactly what she wanted.

The couple is in their 60s and 70s and wanted their second residence to serve as a comfortable space where they could age in place and welcome their children and, one day, grandchildren. That’s not quite the case at their primary home in Maryland, which sits on the natural historic registry and features small rooms connected by narrow, steep stairca

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