As an Anne Arundel County-based builder, Charlie Berliner of Berliner Construction Co. has spent the past 38 years listening to homeowners and architects tell him how they want him to build their houses.
So when Berliner and his wife, Kathy Dahl, decided to build their own home in Annapolis’ Murray Hill neighborhood, it was a freeing experience.
“I had the liberty to decide how it was going to be,” says Berliner. “And I didn’t have to deal with the owner. Well,” he pauses, with a knowing look at his wife, “except for her.”
Berliner and Dahl’s co-creation, a modern take on an Arts & Crafts bungalow, has both contemporary and old-fashioned touches, and remains imminently livable. “People respond to the house’s simplicity,” says Dahl, a retired zoning attorney. “It’s a peaceful house.”
Originally, a 1920s bungalow stood on the property and the couple thought about restoring it, but its tiny bedroom windows (ample light was a priority) and slanting second-floor hallway with just enough headroom for Charlie to walk down the middle convinced them that a renovation would be too challenging. Architect Gary Schwerzler of Fourth Street Design Studio in Eastport sketched out a floor plan for a new three-bedroom, 3,200-square-foot building and Berliner added his own details to the design. An experienced woodworker, Berliner also designed the moldings and woodwork that adorn every room and give the new house a much older feel. “You’ll notice the scale of the house,” says Berliner. “The doors are big, the windows, high and large. It just has a scale that works well.”
Berliner also designed the living room’s walnut mantel to highlight the embedded rosettes that Dahl found at a Baltimore antiques shop. “The owner swore to me that they came out of [actor] Jack Palance’s house,” she says. “So we designed the mantel around them.”
Dahl spent hours combing eBay for the French Art Deco light fixtures that hang in the dining room/library and hallway. She also found two deco sconces from an old Western movie theater. “I thought they were the most outrageous things I had ever seen,” recalls Berliner.
“He said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t bring them in the house!’” says Dahl, with a laugh. But Berliner eventually made peace with the fixtures, and they now hang prominently on the walls of the entry foyer.
The couple cooks and entertains frequently, so the kitchen had to be spacious and well-organized, and allow for easy flow. “Not that I’m an efficiency expert, but I’ve done hundreds of them so I’ve seen every mistake that people make,” says Berliner. One side of the kitchen, divided by a granite-topped island, is the “cooking side,” which contains the Sub-Zero stove and area for food prep, while the other side serves as storage for plates, serving bowls, and the like. Even the island’s double stainless-steel sink has “a cooking and a cleaning-up side.”
Vera Karelian of Vera Karelian Designs in Tracys Landing picked out the mix of 18 to 20 different, mainly neutral custom paint colors for the house. Dahl’s budding collection of art, an eclectic mix of abstract paintings, adds color, as does original photography by her brother-in-law, Harry Tarzian.
All in all, the couple couldn’t be happier with their home, which they occupied in 2007. “It was a pleasure to do,” says Berliner. “There are times when you want to do things your own way and you can’t on [someone else’s] house. But I really enjoyed this process.”
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