A prominent Washington, D.C. architect, whose great-grandfather once designed an addition to the U.S. Capitol, has fallen in love with the modest, mid-century homes in Central Beach and opened a satellite office here as he buys and renovates them.
“We love to bring life back to these late 1950s homes so they can live on,” said Jim Rill, who founded his award-winning D. C. practice, Rill Architects, in 1986. “It is not a tear-down process. We go to the bones and then build back to code. We [also] design the yards. The landscaping is incredibly overgrown in some cases and people like to spend a lot of time outside. We connect the inside and outdoors.”
Beach houses are not a new line for Rill. Homes along the Maryland shore in Annapolis, Easton, St. Michaels and Bethany make up a significant part of this design portfolio. There are some similarities among those and local projects, but Vero Beach’s 1950s architecture is unique, Rill said.
“I don’t know what style to call it, but it has a simplicity I like,” he said.
Rill discovered Vero Beach through his parents, who lived here three months a year for 35 years. They stayed with his mother’s sister and husband, timing visits when the Dodgers were still in town so his father could take in spring training.
Rill bought his parents their own vacation home at 725 Hibiscus Lane in 2012, but then traveling became too much for them and he and his wife Mary “took it over.” Renovating that house, which serves as a satellite office for the firm, whetted his appetite for the area.
He has since completed another renovation in Central Beach, at 575 Bougainvillea Lane, a rental property, and converted his cousin’s condo at 900 Beach Road in John’s Island. Two other renovations are in progress on Live Oak Road and Dahlia Lane.
“I used Jimmy, not because he’s my cousin, but because he’s a good architect,” said Rill’s cousin Cabell Williams.
“Jimmy’s funny. You know he was drafted by the NFL – the New England Patriots – but they fired him after two weeks because he just wasn’t mean enough, “ Williams said. “We thought he was just a jock. Turns out he has the architecture gene. It runs in the family. My great-grandfather was an architect for the (United States) Capitol.”
Williams’ sister, Catherine Sullivan, also has the gene.
“She’s not an architect, but she’s renovated 10 houses in Vero and lives on Painted Bunting,” Williams says. “She’s a brilliant decorator.”
Rill and Sullivan have worked together on all the projects in Vero Beach.
Rill does extensive computer-aided drawings that take the client through his vision for the house, down to the finest details. Because of those consultations and redrafts, there are very few changes in renovation plans once the job gets started. “It saves money [to create a clear vision] before you start,” Rill says. “Changes in construction are expensive.”
Williams had his sister look over Rill’s drawings for the condo conversion. “I let them slug it out. They slug out a lot of things together.”
Sullivan and Rill keep a close eye on cost efficiency while developing design, construction and landscaping budgets with the client. “We create line-item budgets. We give the client options. Sometimes they want to splurge on the outside or inside. [But] we’ve never left a room undone to eke out a budget. Catherine is a master of decorating cost-effectively.”
Two elements that characterize Rill’s renovations are enlarged windows and glass-sliding doors. He also rids homes of 1950s stippled ceilings, and uses wooden painted beams, forcing the eye to take in the room from top down instead of the eye circling the walls and floor.
Rill Architects has been among Home and Design’s “Top 100 Design Firms” every year for the past 10 years. In 2015 the firm won the Designers’ Choice “Hall of Fame Architect” award.
Rill’s work has been featured in many publications, including the Washington Post, Washington Post Magazine and Robb Report.