A Neighborly Renovation

This stainless-steel-clad home once looked like all the brick Cape Cods that line the streets of its McLean neighborhood. The owner, architect Susan Gordon Castle, didn’t tear down the original. Instead she superimposed the new design over the old, sketching her renovation plans at a window overlooking a duplicate house.

Curious neighbors snuck peeks at those sketches. The result is not their cup of tea, Castle says, but she gets no complaints—only surprise that “a woman did this.”

Castle developed her tastes during postings in South Korea and Germany with her military husband and three kids, whose friends love to visit “the cool house.” They bought the home in 2002 and renovated in 2004. “When I showed the plans to the agent who sold us the house, she just swallowed hard,” says Castle.