Imagine a home with walls that seamlessly blend indoors and out and bathes you with natural light whether you are at the stove, watching TV or dining with guests.
That’s what you get when walk through the glass door of Kathy and Greg Mahnke’s house near Rock Creek Park.
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Hashim Hassam, a Washington-based developer, designed and built the contemporary house, living in it himself until he sold it to the Mahnkes. “Here was a unique site, right next to the park. I wanted to capture the sense of outdoor living,” he said.
The Mahnkes fell in love with the ethereal light and open floor plan. “We were drawn to the wall of windows. Being from Vermont, we’re conscious of light and color and nature,” Kathy Mahnke said.
The main floor living area, comprising a generous foyer, has a merlot red Brazilian cherry floor that unifies dining and living rooms, kitchen and breakfast nook.
“I wanted a good flow for entertaining,” the builder said. “In a traditional house you have to wait for people to go in and out of doors. Here everything flows.” There are no doors on the first floor.
When it came time to decorate, the Mahnkes didn’t work with a designer but relied on their own sensibilities. “The first thing we did was get a palette of color,” Kathy said. “We painted most of the walls a pale unobtrusive green because it’s a good color to hang art and it brings the outside in.
“Our taste is minimalist,” she said waving her arm around the living room furnished simply with a couch, side chair, ottoman and glass coffee table, a composite of beige and grays.
The colors complement the cherry kitchen cabinets on the opposite wall and the brown, tweedy, granite countertop. The breakfast nook is spacious, with a bar-height square glass table matching the coffee table and brown leather stool chairs. Translucent glass blocks on one wall of the breakfast nook, the side of the house that faces the neighbors, creates privacy yet still lets in natural light.
“The idea came to us that we could use some color on these big walls,” said Mahnke. So they finished the room with a 72-inch x 72-inch blue and white abstract painting, “Prime,” by Agus Rianto, an Indonesian artist, and hung it on the couch wall.
The dining room side of the couch wall showcases more art, a white and yellow monochrome painting by Taiwanese artist Carol Hu called “Gist.” “We’ve lived all over the world and like to buy art from other cultures,” she said.
The Mahnkes favor the traditional craftsmanship of natural cherry, hardwood furniture from Vermont — specifically the Frank Lloyd Wright line by Copeland. An extension table and sideboard topped with a black bowl that Greg Mahnke’s mother hand-carried from the village of Mata Ortiz in Chihuahua, Mexico, complete the dining room.
Bedroom furniture from the same line gives the master suite a modern, lean and sophisticated look. A white cotton bedspread, made in Portugal and offered by Cuddledown, hangs to the floor.
The 5,000-plus square foot house is spare, elegant and minimalist. “This is our style,” she said. “We don’t like clutter.”
