The owners contacted us to design an addition to their historic, turn-of-the-century home on a prominent street in the residential neighborhood of Rossyln Farms. The program consisted of an addition that contains a two-car garage with a recreational room above for their three teenaged sons. This addition is connected to the original house by a new glass-enclosed entry and mudroom. A major challenge of the project was addressing the significant elevation change that occurs between the existing house and the site for the addition. We addressed this challenge by creating a split-level stair in a new entry and mudroom, locating the garage approximately 5 feet below the original house’s first floor elevation and recreational room above it. We strove to design the addition to defer to the original homes’ design, scale, and materials.