Family Room

The white house on San Domingo Creek in St. Michaels is where Jeanne Ruesch has taken to stretching summer weekends into five days with extended family and friends. The home, which has a cottage look and is featured in the current issue of Architectural Digest, reflects what Ruesch dreamed of in a retreat: an inviting place in harmony with the Eastern Shore's slower pace of life and a world away from suburban Washington, where her primary home is. In many ways, it embodies the vision her late husband had for an idyllic escape that lets all comers be as lively or private as they'd like.

Sturbridge Homes has opened four models at Seabreeze of Annapolis, a townhouse and single-story flat-styled community in Annapolis.Public water and sewer, gas heat and hot water and electric cooking are standard features in this Anne Arundel County community.The Poplar and the Tilghman both start at $126,900 for 1,470 square feet of finished space.The Poplar has a 19-by-14-foot great room, an 11-by-14-foot dining room, a 10-by-10-foot den and a kitchen with a morning room. A 14-by-14-foot master bedroom with a walk-in closet and master bath, a 13-by-9-foot bedroom with a walk-in closet and another bath complete this flat.

Tinkering with hammers and nails used to be a hobby for Norman Seff, family counselor. But he turned in his clipboard for a tool belt and 20 years later heads his own remodeling company.Mr. Seff, who counseled runaways, has never regretted his career switch.It gives him "the ability to create things and see at the end of the day tangible results, to come up with a solution to a problem and see the satisfaction the owners get."Today, Mr. Seff, 40, is president of Adkim Builders Inc., a Pikesville design-build remodeling company, which is considered by the remodeling industry among the most highly skilled in the state.

For Denny and Vicki Smith, one of the best things about building their Carroll County home was the rapport they developed with the builder. "Bob Ward builds a great home," said Denny Smith of his large single-family, "Yorkshire" model in the Manchester Farms development. "They worked with us and gave us a lot of suggestions." Another advantage to choosing a new house is watching the day-by-day evolution, from the pouring of a foundation to the final interior touches. "We'd come up on weekends and take pictures of the progress," Denny Smith said.

"There's no doubt at all that today the living room is the dinosaur in new-home construction," said Earl Robinson, sales and marketing manager for Ryland Homes. Well, not quite. Living rooms are still around, but getting smaller as family rooms get bigger. "Having done a lot of building in Baltimore and the Washington, D.C., market over the years, I've found that there generally is a hesitation on the part of builders, especially here, to go against convention and eliminate the formal living room," said Joseph Link, president of Marketwise, an Ellicott City consulting firm to the homebuilding industry.

Grovemont Winchester Homes has a new model open at Grovemont in Elkridge. The Howard County community, near Patapsco State Park and Rockburn State Park, offers sites of one-third to one-half acre with gas heat and public water and sewer. All homes come standard with gas fireplaces, brick fronts and stoops and two-car garages. The model, the Browning, starts at $376,000 for 3,339 square feet. The first floor features a foyer, and a 13-by-14-foot dining room, 14-by-14-foot kitchen with 13-by- 14-foot breakfast area, 15-by-22- foot family room, 13-by-10-foot study, powder room, 13-by-14-foot living room and two-car garage.

The Child Advocacy Network is seeking volunteers to help abused children.People are needed for administrative duties, court-school coordination and court advocacy.Volunteers also are needed to work as court-school leaders and to follow-up cases and supervise the family room.Call 396-5165.

Sara J. Williamson Raras, the 35-year-old Elkridge mother who was slain a week ago in her home, was remembered yesterday as an earthly angel, someone who would do anything for a friend.About 150 friends and co-workers from the National Security Agency attended a memorial Mass at St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Elkridge.The Rev. Gerard Bowen read their testimonials, eliciting tears and sniffling as he recalled a mother who leaves a 1-year-old son."She was just different, a whole different type of person," Bowen said after the service.

A master suite with a sitting room would be a desirable feature in any house. But what if there were four master suites - in the same house? That's the embarrassment of riches in this Tudor-style house sitting on more than 2 acres in Harford County. Four of the five bedrooms are on the upper level; each spacious bedroom has its own adjoining seating area - some with fireplace - and its own bathroom. "It's not a cookie-cutter house," says owner John G. Berger. "It's unique." Berger, who has owned the property for about four years, has overseen many of the renovations, including transforming a deck into a sunroom, upgrading the floors to a deep-red mahogany and refacing the kitchen cabinets.