Art, Architecture and a Giant Metal Horse: The 2026 Hollin Hills House + Garden Tour
At House Moxy on Rebecca Drive, a sculpture by Jonathan Bowling from Nepenthe Gallery (photo: Stephen Brookes)
The official poster, beautifully designed by Rick Heffner
Ok, serious question — was there anything not going on in Hollin Hills last Saturday? You could head down to the pool to take in either a yoga class or an antique car show, or stroll along Marthas Road and watch a flock of sheep eat its way through Jolande Goldberg’s garden. You could head over to Rebecca Drive to check out the six-foot-tall metal horse that had suddenly appeared by the side of the road, or scavenge for treasures at a “seconds” sale from local potters on Elba. Design lovers could explore an exhibit of cutting-edge furniture on Marthas, or shoot the breeze with the small army of artists, architects, landscape designers and gallerists that were stationed around the community. In a quieter mood? You could commune with the historic Hollin Hills artifacts on display on Glasgow Road, or maybe just toodle around the ‘hood on one of the free trolleys that circled by every few minutes. And if you found yourself working up an appetite, there were kids selling snacks and lemonade on just about every corner.
But of course, these were just the sideshows to Saturday’s main event: the much-anticipated 2026 Hollin Hills House + Garden Tour, which featured a dozen art-filled houses and gardens and drew over 1,800 visitors from around the country — and seemed to celebrate everything there is to love about Hollin Hills.
The biennial Tour has grown in size and scope over the past couple of decades (not to brag or anything, but it’s now the largest modernist tour on the East Coast). It’s lost none of its unique, offbeat charm, though, and this year’s tour ran the gamut from art-filled nests to architectural showstoppers, all of them radiating the kind of fresh, inventive thinking that Hollin Hills is known for. And some of the most intriguing homes showed how classic Charles Goodman designs from the 1950s could be upgraded to satisfy 21st-century tastes — while losing none of their distinctive “midcentury” character.
re-imagining goodman
Tour visitors approach the Murrin-Phillips home on Nordok Place
Geometric landscaping complements the clear lines of the architecture
Innovative architecture is always the Tour’s main draw, and it’s fair to say that the home and art studio of Jim Murrin and Debbie Phillips on Nordok Place disappointed absolutely no one. The striking, dark-charcoal house — a 2023 expansion by Randall Mars Architects of an original 1961 “Mainline” design — is magazine-ready from top to bottom: a light-filled and often exhilarating space, with dramatic, sweeping lines that lead you effortlessly from room to room, and from inside to outside and back again.
What’s maybe most intriguing is how the house feels thoroughly up-to-the-minute, yet also completely in tune with the midcentury flavor of the community — a 21st-Century re-imagining of the modernism of original Hollin Hills architect Charles Goodman. Bumped up to two levels and expanded to over 3,000 square feet, it manages to be both coolly sophisticated and warmly inviting — a nice trick — with its interior spaces deftly integrated into the precisely-defined outside gardens (which were drawn under the guidance of Hollin Hills landscape architect Dennis Carmichael.)
Murrin-Phillips House, interior (photo: Elyssa Wenzel)
But this wasn’t the only architectural “re-imagining” on the tour. The Cornelius House on Rippon Road underwent a similarly bold renovation in 2024 (by Hollin Hills designer Sean Vann, founder of Abundant Design & Build), and is now a sleek, ultra-contemporary space — a major change from the original Goodman Type 1B design built in 1950. The home has a dramatically lighter and airier feel now; a super-cool black-and-white kitchen stands out against the light-colored floors and stark white walls, and the colorful artwork and sculptural furniture give the house a very polished look — set off by a whimsical pink fiberglass cow in the back yard.
Cornelius House, on Rippon (photo: Elyssa Wenzel)
bath envy
A bath with a view on Marthas Road
In fact, many of the tour houses made a compelling case for updating the classic Goodman floor plans, especially when it comes to the cramped, utilitarian kitchens and baths of the original homes. The intriguingly-named “Grey Gardens South” (Little Edie? Is that you?) on Marthas Road at Recard offered a master class on how to expand the interior of a 1952 Type 3 home, tying together an open living-dining-kitchen space, a striking floating staircase and a spa-like bath. Not everyone might go for the floor-to-ceiling view from the soaking tub … but people who live in glass houses, after all, have no secrets from their neighbors.
A detail from the Willcoxon kitchen
Over on Rebecca Drive, meanwhile, architect couple Frank and Elma Willcoxon showed off the striking addition (and multiple upgrades) they’ve added to their home over the past decade, including a boldly-colored kitchen that looks serenely out over a sycamore-shaded deck.
And around the corner on Popkins Lane, architect Christine Kelly showed off her own drop-dead-beautiful addition from 2024 (complete with vaulted ceiling paneled in wood and, mirabile dictu, operable upper windows). Over on Glasgow Road, Allison and Patrick Heck’s home featured a 2022 renovation by architect Michael Cook (who was on hand to talk about the design) with a spacious, high-ceilinged new kitchen that opens to the back yard, giving easy access to a patio and, of course, the family’s pet ducks. (To be clear: the ducks are not, we understand, used for culinary purposes.)
Architect Christine Kelly’s warm, elegant addition (photo: Elyssa Wenzel)
it’s hollin hills, so of course there’s art
And, as always in Hollin Hills, every home was full of art — and even a few actual artists. Painter Jim Murrin (fresh from the easel in paint-splattered pants) held court in his studio on Nordok Place, architect and musician Frank Willcoxon cheerfully discussed his music in his instrument-filled Rebecca Drive home, Matt Smith displayed his own sculpture and Nakashima-inspired tables on Davenport Street, designer Jeff Jenkins staged an open-air exhibit of hand-made furniture, and there were imaginative art and furniture collections in virtually every home.
Painter Jim Murrin makes a point as fellow artist Mary Ann Rametta takes notes
Many of the collections, in fact, were quite personal and adventurous, and reflected a strong community connection. The lively Boling House on Rippon Road, for instance, featured several works by the renowned Hollin Hills abstract painter Bobbie Godwin, while Becky McCarthy’s colorful and eclectic home showcased many of her own glass works. The Heck collection mixed work by family members with striking pieces by Lori Larusso and Cig Harvey, and the Kelly home featured a stunning modernist quilt by Lily Marie Mueller, as well as other eye-catching works.
Why? Why not! A painting by Brazilian artist Romero Britto asks the questions at Moxy House (photo: Elyssa Wenzel)
But it may have been “House Moxy” on Rebecca that stole the show. The owners are avid collectors who have filled their colorful, comfortable home with everything from pioneering work by Andreas Caussen, to 1960s classics inherited from their families. The one piece that seemed to delight everyone who saw it, though, was the dramatic six-foot-tall horse standing at the end of their driveway — a metal sculpture by Jonathan Bowling that the nearby Nepenthe Gallery loaned the couple. (Want to make it yours? Get in touch with the gallery — you can take it home for $14,000.)
The dining room at Moxy House
The horse, as it happened, was part of a unique “pop-up” art exhibit that Nepenthe held across the neighborhood during the Tour, with more than a dozen other works — from sculptures to paintings to mosaics — on display at Moxy House, the Willcoxon home, the Wenzel home and the Ezeanolue garden. Gallery owner Carrie Garland was on hand to discuss the art — and she also threw a reception for the Tour last week that showcased the art of the late (and legendary) Hollin Hills artist Kathleen Spagnolo, which drew an enthusiastic crowd.
geometry (and whimsy) in the garden
The Japanese-influenced garden of Matt and Mikki Smith
And let’s not overlook the gardens! It’s a tenet of Hollin Hills philosophy that architecture and landscape should connect and enhance each other — and the homeowners showed exceptional personality and imagination in their designs. The gardens ranged from the precise, rather formal lines of the Murrin-Phillips home (an approach that original landscaper Dan Kiley would have applauded) to the more organic and even whimsical style that Mikki and Matt Smith adopted in their revival of the Japanese-influenced garden at Sherwood Hall Lane and Davenport Street.
The Smiths have kept the existing boardwalk paths and bamboo fencing that have made that garden a landmark for decades, while opening up the front corner and filling the beds with native species. The Japanese feeling is still very much intact — you cross to the house on a wooden “bridge” over a “sea” of gravel and plantings, an unmistakably Asian touch. But the garden is overflowing with fresh and offbeat touches, including metal sculptures by Smith himself. The whole vibe is so playful, in fact, that the couple even installed a coin-operated gumball machine at the front door that dispenses not candy — but gumballs from an overhanging Sweetgum tree.
The overall crowd favorite, though, may have been the meticulously-designed Ezeanolue garden, on Rebecca at Popkins. Created by landscape architect Andrea Mains (who was on hand to talk about the design), the garden uses corten steel, boulders and gravel beds to carve out paths and curving lines that draw the eye through the garden, as the vibrant colors and textures of the plantings play off each other. It all makes the garden seem to flow, stream-like, around the house, with brightly-colored furniture (including an orange Magis Spun chair) creating small islands where the life of the street and the life of the house seem to meet.
on glasgow, a hunt for history
Searching for the past in a 1955 map of the community
One of the most exciting innovations of this year’s Tour was an exhibit of rarely-seen historical artifacts that traced the early development of Hollin Hills.
Organized by Allison Heck (and beautifully displayed at the Heck home on Glasgow), it featured documents and photographs from the 1950s that brought the past to life — including an original Charles Goodman blueprint from 1952; an original landscape plan by Dan Kiley; the first sales brochures published by developer Robert Davenport; magazine and newspaper articles from the 1950s; early sales contracts; original issues of the Hollin Hills Bulletin; and much, much more.
Two of the most attention-getting items were a scale model of a Goodman home on Range Road that was built by the home’s original owner; and an enormous, yellowing surveyor’s plat from about 1955 that showed the original, “old” sections of Hollin Hills, with the names of the first homeowners included on each plot. Displayed under plexiglass on the Heck’s wide kitchen island, it drew a steady stream of Hollin Hillers looking for a little history of their own home.
The artifacts came from the personal collections of a half-dozen current and former Hollin Hillers, and the Heck display was a rare opportunity to feel the past come alive in a particularly vivid way. Most of the documentation of Hollin Hills is tucked away in the official archives at George Mason University (with more at the Library of Congress) and can be difficult and time-consuming to access. But a broad collection of these materials has been digitized and put online by the Hollin Hills Journal, and can be found in the Archives section. The collection continues to grow and is always looking for new additions — especially photos — so drop us a line if you’d like to contribute! (We’re happy to scan materials and get them right back to you.)
don’t forget the yogis and the sheep
The Spittell family, trolleying around the ‘hood in style (photo: Christina Curley)
While the focus of the House + Garden Tour is — unsurprisingly — houses and gardens, there’s always a lot more going on during the event, and — in the words of Tour organizer Holly Wetzel, “it’s the people who breathe life into this community.”
Jess Purtell, for instance, ran a yoga class in the morning for our yogis and yoginis, while Matt Kies masterminded a display of vintage automobilia down by the pool that featured a particularly adorable Morris Minor 1000, which could be seen roaming the hills all afternoon.
Or, if you have a Morris Minor, you could take that around, too.
Designer Jeff Jenkins staged an open-air exhibit of handmade furniture, Sally Chadbourne kept up the decades-long tradition of a sidewalk “seconds” sale of work by local potters, and a number of past and present Hollin Hillers were available at the history exhibit to talk about the early years of the community.
Kids got into the act too, setting up tables all along the Tour route and selling lemonade, hot dogs and snacks — a welcome addition to an event that can fill the entire afternoon.
Jolande Goldberg in her garden, with sheep (photo: Stephen Brookes)
And since no Garden Tour is complete without a flock of sheep, the always-colorful Jolande Goldberg hired a dozen of them for the day (you can do this too, and save on lawnmowers) and invited the world over to watch the things graze around her Marthas Road garden, which is otherwise filled with her remarkable bronze fountains. The sheep, you will be delighted to learn, are known as “Babydoll Southdowns” and were (as you have already guessed) a huge hit with the tour-goers.
The Tour also provided an opportunity for the Friends of Hollin Hills to display in situ the new, brushed-steel historic house plaques they unveiled last month — and they looked very snazzy indeed. (You can get one for your own Hollin Hills home — learn more at the FOHH website.)
thanks to the purple shirt brigade!
Volunteers Gretchen and Bailey Spencer, manning the gates and rocking those purple shirts (photo: Stephen Brookes)
Putting on a tour like this is a massive effort, with hundreds of moving parts and a near-infinite number of things that can go wrong. And incredibly, it’s all produced by community volunteers. Major thanks — and congratulations! — go to the fearless Holly Wetzel, who headed up a team of more than two dozen organizers, as well as the many purple-shirted volunteers who acted as house docents, traffic wranglers, and Trolley guides during the Tour — and pulled the day off without a hitch.
“I’m so proud of the team for all the great work they did,” said Wetzel after the Tour. “And so proud of how everything turned out!”
Many thanks go as well to the homeowners, who graciously allowed hundreds and hundreds of visitors to tromp through their houses and peer curiously around, and the many experts who patiently answered questions about the community’s history, art and architecture. Special thanks to the gifted Hollin Hills graphic designer Rick Heffner of Fuszion, who put together the Tour brochure (featuring the fine architectural photography of Elyssa Wenzel); and the dozens of sponsors who chipped in to make the Tour a success.
How much of a success? The numbers aren’t final yet, but Wetzel says the Tour netted well over $110,000, after expenses — important funding that will go to supporting the community. But in a way, the more meaningful impact may be in the sense of identity that the Tour seems to evoke — the feeling that Hollin Hills is not just a place to buy a home, but a place to really live. And that its distinctive cultural, social and even artistic character are just as remarkable as its extraordinary houses and gardens.
— Stephen Brookes
The 2026 Hollin Hills House + Garden Tour Committee, chaired by Holly Wetzel (center, in white and black shirt); photo by Johnny Pearson