Collaborative approach yields a Md. waterfront home that blends with its environment

With a little help from their friends, District lighting designer Cheryl Flota and architect Rick Lincicome got by the challenges of building a home next to a Chesapeake Bay tributary. The one-level, cedar-clad home in the tiny town of Rock Hall, Md., is raised on concrete piers to allow water to flow under the structure, should the nearby Grays Inn Creek overflow its banks.

We wanted to be as close to the water as possible, says Lincicome. But in this area, you have to be very careful where you put the house.

The married couple had built a modest weekend house in Rock Hall during the mid-1990s. Seeking larger living quarters, they bought 15 acres in 2010 with the idea of tearing down the flood-damaged dwelling on the property and building a larger, contemporary house for retirement.

To help them design the Rock Hall homes, as well as their apartment in the Watergate condominium, the two tapped their friends Jane Treacy and Phillip Eagleburger, District architects who specialize in residential design.

Rick did the schematics on both houses, but he didnt have the time to develop the designs, says Flota. Jane and Phil are fun to work with and challenge our thinking. They took us to places wed never go on our own.

Lincicome, 63, who was busy overseeing international building projects at the time, has since retired. Flota, 58, is still engaged in her lighting design business. Her past work includes illuminating the Smithsonians Hope diamond exhibit and canopies over Metrorail stations.

The pairs first house in Rock Hall, a shingled, two-bedroom cottage, set the design direction for the newer house in its arrangement of elevated, L-shaped wings. That structure, completed in 1995, cost $177,000 to build, according to the homeowners. Construction of the new waterfront house, which is twice the size of the previous home, ran about $1 million, not including design fees.

Our experience with the first house made us realize that we needed someone on board who understood the entitlement issues involved in building on the Chesapeake Bay, says Lincicome.

So he and Flota hired landscape architect Miles Barnard of South Fork Studio in Chestertown, Md., to help site the house and ensure that its location conformed to a state law that designated the bays Critical Area the 1,000-foot buffer around the Maryland shore of the bay and its tidal tributaries.

When building a house in this environmentally sensitive area, says Barnard, you have to look at the planning and zoning office as part of the design team. He and Lincicome met with Kent County officials over nearly a year, as we hit certain design milestones along the way, says Barnard, before submitting the plans in 2011 for a building permit.

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Collaborative approach yields a Md. waterfront home that blends with its environment