Weekend retreat draws family and friends to the bay

Third in a summer series highlighting dream homes on the water.

When Wendy and Alex Haig set out five years ago to find the perfect weekend retreat, they were torn between two different bucolic areas: the rolling horse country of Middleburg, Va., and the wide expanse of the Chesapeake Bay.

"The bay very clearly won out," Wendy Haig says.

Alex Haig, a lawyer and son of former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, and his wife, a managing partner for a marketing strategy company, wanted a place where they could relax with family and friends and escape from the pressures of Washington.

Briefly they considered a beach house, but they didn't want the hassle of a long commute to the shore. The bay offered them waterfront views just 45 minutes from Washington.

But finding the right house wasn't easy. The Haigs spied a Cape Cod-style waterfront home in an old online real estate listing that seemed to be what they were looking for, but the house wasn't on the market and they didn't even know its address.

One day when a real estate agent was showing them a property in the Bay Ridge community south of Annapolis, they passed by the house they had seen online. After making some inquiries, the Haigs learned that the house was about to return to the market. They snatched it up before it went on sale.

Alex Haig says the location was what mattered. "What we really thought we were buying was the view," he says.

The half-acre property featured almost unobstructed views of the bay, and the Haigs could watch the sun rise and set from the large window in the family room.

Wendy Haig says the home reminded her of those she saw as a child vacationing on Cape Cod, but its original traditional design and dark jewel tones didn't reflect her own style, which she describes as "polished with an edge."

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Weekend retreat draws family and friends to the bay