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"View Slideshow\n\nIn the nation&amp;#39;s capital, where elected politicians are here today and gone tomorrow, real estate developers may move often, but they tend to stay in the city. One developer and his wife started out in an apartment in a neighborhood near Georgetown. They moved to a house nearby after the birth of their first child and expanded it twice. By the time they sold the three-story structure, they had three children and 12,500 square feet of space.\n\n&amp;quot;After 10 years there, two of our children had gone off on their own, and we no longer needed nine bedrooms, an industrial-size kitchen and a basement that housed a tae kwon do studio,&amp;quot; the wife says. &amp;quot;We were ready for a cozier house.&amp;quot; As a developer, the husband was &amp;quot;excited by the challenge&amp;quot; of building a smaller house and found an older property to tear down around the corner. Working with architect Anthony S. Barnes, of Barnes Vanze Architects, they decided that the new house would have a Mediterranean-style exterior of ocher-painted stucco.\n\nInitially the wife wanted &amp;quot;an old English interior,&amp;quot; she says. The couple&amp;#39;s previous designer had died, so they went to New York to pick a successor. They interviewed seven designers and chose Stephen Shadley. The wife liked him because he had done a lot of set design. &amp;quot;I wanted my new home to have a theatrical look,&amp;quot; she says. Her husband favored Shadley because he didn&amp;#39;t put on airs: &amp;quot;He said he&amp;#39;d gladly use any furniture we already owned. He was practical.&amp;quot; As for Shadley, he was surprised to have been selected. &amp;quot;Most of my work is modern and quiet, and I hadn&amp;#39;t used English antiques,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I thought, English, huh? Sure, I&amp;#39;ll take a stab at it.&amp;quot;\n\nShadley and his associate Kelley Jackson Garcia&amp;#39;s first purchase for the couple was a pair of Anglo-Indian sofas. Next they chose antique European and Oriental rugs for the three principal downstairs rooms\u2014the family room, the library and the dining room. &amp;quot;Our previous designer told us that we&amp;#39;d find the right carpets after we moved into the house,&amp;quot; the wife says. &amp;quot;We didn&amp;#39;t. We lived with bare floors in the dining and living rooms, so this time we started with the rugs.&amp;quot; They later bought additional antique rugs for the master bedroom, the entrance hall and the sunroom.\n\nThe real inspiration for the design came when the wife showed Shadley a photograph of a Venetian chandelier she had admired in a Georgetown shop. He was skeptical at first, but when he went to Washington to see it firsthand, the designer acknowledged, &amp;quot;like almost everything else the wife loved, it was theatrical, but it had more patina and age than the photo showed.&amp;quot; Shadley proposed taking the house &amp;quot;a little more in the direction of Venice.&amp;quot;\n\nThe couple decided to take a trip to the south of France and Venice to shop and asked Shadley to join them. The designer had been to Italy but never to Venice, and he accepted the invitation. Before they left, the husband said he would consider the trip a success if they found one great piece. After shopping in L&amp;#39;Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Avignon and Venice, they had a container filled with furnishings for their new residence, including two marble pedestal tables and a number of Venetian pieces: a gilt lamp, a pair of sconces and a pair of etched mirrors for the dining room (&amp;quot;We love pairs,&amp;quot; the wife says).\n\nThe owners&amp;#39; previous house had a modern dining room, with two round tables and upholstered chairs. For the new house they chose something older, an 1815 Regency mahogany table. &amp;quot;We then searched for interesting chairs,&amp;quot; says Jackson Garcia. &amp;quot;We ended up with black-painted, parcel-gilt Regency chairs, which Stephen accurately describes as lyrical.&amp;#39; &amp;quot;\n\nThe couple spend most of their leisure time in the light and airy family room. A huge pouf in front of the Anglo-Indian sofas is covered with an antique Oriental carpet they found in Palm Beach. Shadley helped them select the yellow-and-blue tiles for the antique fire surround. The library is darker in tone. The wood-paneled walls are glazed a deep red, and a circa 1885 Persian rug covers the floor. A portrait of Helen Murray, attributed to Thom-as Gainsborough, which has been in the family for de-cades, hangs above a chesterfield upholstered in navy leather. &amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s the most English of the rooms,&amp;quot; Shadley points out. &amp;quot;There&amp;#39;s a sense of quiet contemplation.&amp;quot;\n\nA pair of antique Japanese screens inspired the design of the master bedroom, which is pale and infused with an Asian influence. Each screen has six gilt panels and rests on a blacklacquered base. The wife uses the drawers Shadley built into the base to store clothes. He also designed the bed and covered it in a rich brocade.\n\n&amp;quot;We wanted this house to look as if it had always been here,&amp;quot; the husband says. &amp;quot;No one believes it&amp;#39;s new.&amp;quot; Adds the wife, &amp;quot;We wanted a very European house. We got exactly what we wanted.&amp;quot;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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