Great Escape in Virginia
From the Early Spring 2004 Issue
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They wanted a getaway from their everyday lives…
A place to balance their active schedules and recharge. So, back in 1997, Claudia and Jim Thomas started to look for a dream location. Working from real estate brochures during a vacation in Western North Carolina, they began to scour the countryside for lots. To stay within an easy drive of their main residence, Jim drew a two-and-a-half hour radius on their map for the search. Happily, they knew exactly what they wanted. 



"We were looking for rustic mountains, big trees, lots of mountain laurel and rhododendron,” Claudia Thomas recalls. “And solitude.” 

In four weeks, they found their dream, five acres – the county’s minimum acreage requirement – with an almost natural clearing atop a mountain in Independence, Va. There were no houses. No neighbors. Just untouched land. 

“It was really rough,” Jim recalls, “but we looked at the lot and said, ‘This is it.’” 
Through the Internet, they checked out features like altitude, native foliage and views, then bought the land on a mission trip. 


Claudia and Jim Thomas take to the high ground during a hike near their cabin in Independence, Va.

The Matching Element 
Just as they knew the perfect lot when they saw it, they were equally sure of the perfect architecture for the location. 

“We knew we wanted a log house because it would blend into the surroundings,” says Claudia. To get what they wanted, she and Jim searched publications for ideas and designs. Eventually, they found a plan in a log home book. With that and a rendering as a guide, Claudia made changes to suit their personal taste. 

Later, they interviewed builders, eventually choosing Chuck Frazier of C&H Log Homes in Dugspur, Va., a man who felt as strongly as the Thomases about preserving the natural habitat. Frazier put the couple’s plans into working order and provided material pull-offs so the couple would get a sense of the finished product. 

“This was his final house, his swan song, so he really put himself into it,” Claudia says. Construction started in September 2000. In April 2001, the Thomases moved into the development’s first house, a stick-built Adirondack-style cabin that was cut and measured on-site of solid, round northern white cedar logs devoid of chinking. There is also a chalet influence to the exterior, which is accented in forest green at the windows and doors, and boasts a covered entrance, cedar log columns with stone bases, and picnic dining area to the right. 

The couple’s second home, evolved from a revised log home plan, is close enough to their Charlotte residence to make weekend visits quick and easy. 

Amazingly, only five trees were removed for construction. 

A Style of Her Own
If Claudia has a decorating credo, it’s “make your home in your own image.” 
What she advocates is creating a gathering place that tells the world who you are, what you like and how you live. It’s something she practices in her own homes. 
For the cabin, she’s put together splashes of whimsy and color against unusual elements. At an outside picnic, she uses a quilt as a tablecloth, combining it with wicker chairs, ferns, wildflowers, and a wrought iron chandelier dotted with white candles. The effect: totally casual, yet fresh and festive. 

Everywhere, her personality is on display.

Signature Pieces
Visitors are greeted at the entrance with the traditional Spanish message, “My house is your house.” Inside, collections of books, pottery and birdhouses fill the rooms, while Claudia’s own paintings punctuate walls, and long-collected and treasured quilts are draped at strategic points throughout the 2,000-square-foot home. 

Pottery is one of the most distinctive additions. 

“I’ve been collecting for 14 years,” Claudia says. “Many of the pieces have come from Bet and Rob Mangum in Sparta, N.C. I also commissioned regional artist Shelly Johnston to create the charming group of leaf-patterned salad plates I’ve displayed here.” 
There are more unique touches. 

Highlighting the foyer, for example, is a slate floor panel inset with handmade leaf tiles and slate fillers, a pattern Claudia created in conjunction with the tile installer. Of special interest, too, are three large glass accessories: a brilliant red charger in the foyer, cobalt blue on the screen porch and a wavy yellow design from a European glass blower that now accents the stone hearth. For a final coup, there is the polished floor of antique heart of pine, a treasure that Jim discovered via Internet that had been the flooring in an aged International Harvester warehouse. 

Simple pleasures such as open air and mountain views make any outdoor excursion an adventure at the cabin. 

An Easy-Living Design 
The house is meant for comfort. Situated on the first floor are the great room, kitchen, screened porch, master bedroom and bath, foyer, powder room, and utility room. The second floor holds two bedrooms, a guest bath and loft sitting area with balcony. 
With a professional eye for blending the unique, Claudia has assembled a striking gathering of furnishings gleaned from everywhere… suppliers, clients, flea markets and consignment shops. 

“I started gathering things over a year before construction started,” she says, “and put them in a storage unit while the house was being built.” 

Thus, the great room, with its soaring 21-foot ceiling, boasts such finds as an updated mahogany highboy from Charlotte’s Park Hotel, a Chinese vegetable basket set off with hydrangeas, a two-tiered twig console, which Claudia had made and uses to display more pottery pieces, a 15-drawer Pennsylvania Dutch painted chest and an antique Bessarabia rug. Setting off the mantel is a red Grecian urn by Ben Owen III of Seagrove, N.C. 
For dining under an oversized wrought iron chandelier, she mixed a glass-top table and ancient, five-branched grapevine base with rattan chairs from a client. And to prove the value of old things redone, there’s a childhood chest, stripped and painted by a Charlotte artist in a modified Indian-blanket design, with top and base marbleized, as well as a three-tiered display rack and handcrafted, hand-tufted wool rug from the New River Artisans of Piney Creek, N.C. 

Imagination and More
There’s more fun décor. In the open, U-shaped kitchen, Shaker-style natural-pine cabinets wear insets of ordinary chicken wire, a contrast to luxe counters in Absolute Black granite, stainless steel appliances, and barn-red island. A Mexican vessel sink dominates the powder room, and the cozy screened porch invites quiet moments on the sage-green porch swing, surrounded by a brightly toned Kiliam rug from Turkey on the dark-green, painted floor, a twig table, antique pie safe, drop leaf walnut table and slate fountain. 
But elegance can thrive, even in a rustic cabin. 

Claudia’s decorating touch permeates the entire cabin, making spots like the kitchen a reflection of her personal taste.

In the 18-foot-high master bedroom, where walls are part log and part plaster, Claudia has gone to pure sophistication with neutral-toned plaid silk drapes played against a butter leather headboard, satin damask duvet, matching shams, and vintage blue velvet French armchair. Adding to the room’s grace is a mix that includes an oak gate-leg table, geometric abstract in textured oil by Geoffrey Johnson of Atlanta, family pictures, more birdhouses and additional pottery. 

Ready for Company
With four children from previous marriages, Jim and Claudia have made room on the multi-skylighted second floor for comfortable visits from family, friends and grandchildren Garrett, 7, Luma, almost 5, and infant Lola. 

With a soothing fountain for atmosphere, the screened porch serves as a welcoming sanctuary for the Thomases’ private moments. 

At one end of the hall is The Tree House, a guest room constructed of three log walls, expanses of glass for a treetop feel, and such breezy touches as a crisp quilt from New Brunswick, Canada, a two-piece shutter shelf, carved and painted duck decoys and a landscape from Claudia’s art brushes. In the hallway’s central balcony area, a small coffee bar offers early morning refreshment to visitors while next door the raised bath features a green marble floor – a tile company bargain – and such flea market finds as sink, mirror and etarge. 

Finally, there is the fanciful loft area, planned for additional seating and as a children’s play area, with quilt-draped sofa, bamboo coffee table, birdhouse lamp and whimsical yellow pumpkin in papier-mâché. Directly across and separated only by red privacy curtains is the sleeping alcove, a clever space tucked under the home’s eaves. For the Thomases, the mountaintop cabin is a constant refresher. 

It’s a spot they return to often in summer, less in fall and spring, and whenever the weather allows in winter. They have even celebrated Christmas and Thanksgiving on-site, surrounded by family members. For the couple themselves, there’s more here than stone, logs and mountain air. 

“This house,” Claudia says, “is the baby we never had together.”

--Norma Lugar

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