DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE

COOKING UP LUXURY

KNEAD Hospitality + Design not only designs and owns restaurants around the country, but—perhaps surprisingly—has a side line in designing luxurious residences. Magnolia Peak in Delaplane, Virginia, is the latest success story…

MANDI KEIGHRAN

For Michael Reginbogin, Founder and Principal of KNEAD Hospitality + Design, a luxury home should take its cues from its surroundings, celebrating a larger-than-life aesthetic laced with equal parts drama, flair, and elegance. It’s a sensibility that was shaped by his background in hospitality design and has been carried over into his work on luxury residences. “It was only natural that my interests and sensibilities for hospitality design would transcend into the residential design world,” he says.

Founded six years ago by Reginbogin with his partner Jason Berry, KNEAD Hospitality + Design is a multi-concept restaurant company with ten brands and 14 locations—and it’s also one of the few hospitality companies that not only owns, operates and creates concepts, but also designs its restaurants in collaboration with an in-house architect.

While Reginbogin and Berry occasionally dabbled in residential projects for clients, most of their residential work has been for their own personal residences and retreats. “Fortunately, our ‘touches’ have allowed us to flip homes quickly and at record prices,” says Reginbogin. “Unfortunately, we rarely get to enjoy them ourselves!”

Magnolia Peak—a sprawling Mediterranean-inspired property set on 20 acres amidst the rolling green pastures of Delaplane in Virginia’s wine country— is the perfect example. The renovated property was originally designed as a weekend retreat for the couple, but quickly attracted attention from realtors promising three times what they had paid.

Designed around a central, open-air courtyard, the 6,500-square-foot, six-bedroom, seven-bath home epitomises sophisticated country elegance, with an organic colour and material palette inspired by the surrounding countryside. It boasts a two-storey great room, soaring galleries, lounge and bar with display and storage for more than 200 spirits and a 350-bottle wine refrigerator, family room, and Viking chef ’s kitchen with attached butler pantry and fireside breakfast nook. The ample recreational amenities include a gym, sauna, spa, 50-foot heated pool and games room. And, in keeping with the estate’s focus on entertaining, there’s also an outdoor kitchen with dining for ten overlooking a babbling brook in the distance.

“For me luxury extends past the obvious material acquisitions,” says Reginbogin. “Luxury is an experience, which can be transformative. While good materials certainly provide impact, it’s the use and application of those materials that creates drama and perceived value. In a home, luxury is the sense of space—every room, from the grand foyer to the bath, should open up and unfold the space elegantly.”

Reflecting this approach, the interior spaces flow seamlessly from one to another, through eightfoot doorways that maintain a sense of openness. Throughout the home, interior and exterior spaces are seamlessly blended together—think a large interior courtyard, ten-foot balcony windows, and seamless walk-outs on the lower levels that invite alfresco entertaining.

“Magnolia Peak goes against the expected grain when it comes to residential country house design in Delaplane,” says Reginbogin. “It’s an intimate home but also has no trouble catering on a grander scale—it was built for the buyer who enjoys peace and tranquility, but at the same time likes to let down their hair with a few hundred of their closest friends.”