

“The exterior façade and the interior spaces and floor plan have to work together. “Proportion is everything,” Wallace says. A bigger challenge for the architect was the interior. The Cottrells gave Wallace the lighthouse from the jewelry store-it would be a template for the exterior design.

“When we decided to build the lighthouse, we thought he would be the perfect architect, because almost everything he does is on the water,” says Christy.

Leah brought the picture home, and the Cottrells liked it. As part of his presentation that day, Wallace handed out pictures of a house he had created on Kiawah Island for Olympic gold medalist and ice skating star Tara Lipinski. Skip Wallace, president of Chester-based Island Architects, has designed hundreds of homes on Kiawah Island in Georgia, Hilton Head Island in South Carolina and North Carolina’s exclusive Figure Eight Island, but the Cottrells were unaware of him until he gave a career-day presentation to Leah Cottrell’s class at St. Next they needed an architect-and found one with help from their daughter, Leah. So the couple had a spectacular setting, and they had a model of the house they wanted to build. “It is an amazing spot with great views of Urbanna and the harbor, and in the winter we’ve got wonderful river views,” says David Cottrell. The Cottrells had one year earlier bought three adjoining waterfront lots in a newly carved subdivision named Urbanna Harbour. When we saw it, we knew instantly that this was the one.”Īnd they knew just where to put it. “They had a big collection of lighthouse miniatures,” recalls Christy Cottrell, “and we saw one that was of an actual lighthouse on Sister Island, in the St. Finding the right design was the problem- until nearly nine years ago, when they wandered into the Rappahannock Jewelry Company on Virginia Street, Urbanna’s main thoroughfare, and got an unusual jolt of inspiration. Over the years, the Cottrells had spent many weekends in their waterfront condominium in Urbanna, but what the Richmond couple really wanted was a lighthouse vacation home. There aren’t many lighthouse homes around, to be sure, and in this case the motivation to build it came from an unlikely source-a jewelry store. They would love to have you be a part of their team.On a grass-carpeted bluff just across the water from Urbanna, a Middle Peninsula town famous for its oysters and maritime traditions, David and Christy Cottrell have created the one nautical structure that had been missing from the cozy harbor scene: a lighthouse home. Safe Harbor believes that sexual and intimate partner violence impact us all and we all have a part that we can play in addressing and preventing these complex issues. If you are looking for a place to volunteer, this might be the place for you.
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Services are available in both English and Spanish, and all services are offered FREE of charge to anyone seeking help.įor children / youth services, emergency shelter, hospital accompaniment, court advocacy or community training – Someone is available to talk 24 hours a day. If you want to talk to someone about your experience with domestic and/or sexual violence, please call the confidential helpline at (804) 612-6126. You don’t have to suffer in silence and risk your life, or the lives of your children, to domestic violence. If you are experiencing partner violence, you should make a call to talk with one of Safe Harbor’s qualified counselors who can help you. Safe Harbor Women’s Shelter in Richmond, VA is a place where women and children can go for help and hope. Calls for help to shelters and hotlines always increase during December and especially around the holidays.
