Great Room

There's a 7,400-square-foot rancher in Baltimore County that is so elegant inside it seems apropos that visitors are greeted by a butler dressed in formal attire.But this is no ordinary formally dressed butler. It's a nearly life-size soft sculpture of a household servant and it bears an uncanny resemblance to Albert Einstein."Our dogs were a little leery of him at first," says the woman of the house. "Then they warmed up to him and now he's just part of the family."The pleasant-looking figure stands attentively in the foyer of the contemporary-style home, which is owned by a husband and wife.

Garrett County welder and fabricator George Scheffel was ready to install oak flooring when he decided to test the acoustics in the 26-by-22-foot great room of the Oakland home he was building. The room, with 5-by-9 Southern pine beams, would be furnished with sofas and chairs but - more importantly - a Steinway grand piano, an electronic keyboard, an 1875 pump organ and a three-keyboard Rogers classic organ. For the sound test, Scheffel temporarily moved in the piano on the plywood subflooring and played a few notes.

Some interior designers think of neutrals as comfortable, safe and soothing. Darryl Savage uses them for drop-dead dramatic effect. "I get tired of color," he says. "I love white. It's very crisp. You can always change things up by adding flowers or pillows. Or add a little bit of black for punch." A decade ago, Savage's parents bought a small 1950s rancher on the Severn River to use as a weekend house. They couldn't have dreamed that when they sold it to their son after his divorce, he would transform the simple structure into a combination art gallery, stage set and rustic lake getaway.

It seems that no multi-million dollar house is complete these days without a wet bar, and the home that recently sold on Ivy Reach Court in Cockeysville is no exception. Here at the Real Estate Wonk, we're into our second month of featuring some of the most expensive homes sold each month in the Baltimore area, and being the sleuths we are, we noticed this recurring theme. (A wet bar is one that comes with a sink and running water.) Check out the pictures to see the one at this house.

The Baltimore Washington Corridor Chamber and the BWCC Foundation are holding a holiday mixer Thursday, Dec. 1 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Great Room at Savage Mill, 8600 Foundry St., in Savage. Cost is $45 for members prepaid and $65 for non-members and all at the door. Invite your employees and clients to attend. Use this event as an office holiday party. Net proceeds are used to support scholarships for area high school students to attend college. Register, http://www.bwcc.org/BWCC_Data/getEventDetails?

Apple Tree Homes has opened three new models at Willow Oaks, a senior rancher home development in Laurel. Public water and sewer, gas heat and hot water and electric cooking are standard features in this Prince George's County community.The Charleston starts at $144,900 for 1,600 square feet of finished space.Two full baths, a foyer, garage, 13-by-11-foot kitchen, 20-by-21-foot great room, 16-by-12-foot master bedroom and 11-by-11-foot bedroom complete the model.The Boca Raton starts at $137,900 for 1,400 square feet of finished space.

Masonry Macks Homes Inc. has begun pre-construction sales at Kensington in Owings Mills, where the firm is building 93 three-level townhouses with gas heat and cooking and public utilities.The Hampton is an end-unit townhouse with 1,496 square feet of finished space on two levels and an unfinished lower level with a beginning price of $125,990.An entry foyer with guest closet, powder room, 14-by-20-foot great room and 21-by-13-foot kitchen/breakfast area with walk-in pantry are on the first floor.

Along a graveled drive buried deep in the Green Spring Valley, bright pink rhododendron point the way to the stone and gray-shingled home of Rebecca Hoffberger. Hoffberger, founder and executive director of the American Visionary Art Museum at the Inner Harbor, stands in the wood- canopied, flagstone breezeway that connects the house to polished gardens of Asian influence. A pond with trickles of water dancing on rocks provides shelter for overgrown goldfish. Wooden benches placed among exotic plants offer restful contemplation.

If the courtyard that greets visitors to Denny and Cindi Mather's beach home in Fenwick Island, Del., looks like the entrance to a motel, that's because it once was. The walled courtyard with foliage, fountain and an arched wrought-iron gate that opens to the road was there when the couple purchased the Sea Charm Motel and the property it sat on in 2008. They purchased the former motel with the intent to tear it down and build their dream home. Since they wanted to build a home larger than what would have been permitted on a vacant commercial lot, they had to keep part of the motel to satisfy the variances.

When seated in the great room of Jim and Adrienne Davis' rambling Howard County home overlooking seven acres of bucolic meadowland, it is hard to visualize the rancher that was, and the couple's reason for buying it in the first place. "The house was as ugly as could be," said Adrienne Davis, 56, who works for the Project Literary Program of the Howard County Public Library system. "It was a brown brick rancher with dark brown trim — drab. We bought it for the view. " Coming from a two-story home in Columbia, the Davises desired a more rural area and, perhaps more importantly, one-floor living.