Hunt Country’s Star Architect Goes to Italy
Written by Bill Kent | Photos by Michael Butcher
From now to the end of November, 700,000 visitors will gather in Venice, Italy, to attend La Biennale, a festival held every other year that represents the cutting edge of international architecture.
Among those exhibiting at this most prestigious gathering is Hunt Country’s Jim Burton. In 2023, Burton represented the only firm from America’s mid-Atlantic region at La Biennale. This year he gave a talk about his work.
“This is a very big deal for Jim,” says Ron Mangas, a McLean realtor and founder of listModern. Mangas is developing a residential project with Burton in The Plains and has attended La Biennale in the past.
“At least now he’s finally getting the attention he deserves.” –Ron Mangas
“At the Biennale, you get the ‘star-chitects’ who have made their reputations,” Mangas continues. “But you also get those who may not be so famous whose work is worthy of attention. The Biennale puts these people together. Then they go very deep into what architecture is right now, what it could be, and where it could go.”
Burton, Mangas adds, “has been keeping a modest profile and letting his work speak for itself. He has lectured at Virginia Tech. He publishes technical essays in books that are read by his peers. To be honest, I think he’d rather go fly fishing than attend the Biennale. At least now he’s finally getting the attention he deserves.”
Jim Burton is the son of Jim Burton Sr., a former Loudoun County supervisor and retired Air Force colonel. Burton Sr. lives in Aldie with his wife, Lina. His son lives in Winchester with his wife, Cynthia, managing editor of the Winchester Star.
For more than 25 years, Burton and his firm, Carter + Burton Architecture, have occupied the second and third floors of the former Masonic Lodge, now called the Carter Building, on Berryville’s Main Street. Though he has designed and built some 40 buildings on sites from Massachusetts to North Carolina, most of Burton’s work has been in Hunt Country in a style that film producer Burton Gray calls a “a quiet wow.”
With homes in the District and Florida, Gray says his favorite place is his River House, an award-winning Madison County vacation home designed by Carton + Burton on a farm overlooking the Rapidan River. “It is quite simply a joyous, happy place to be,” he says.
Gray admits the 200-degree views of the Blue Ridge bring some of that joy, but so do the geothermal flooring and green, living roof. “The house is at a constant mid-60 degrees Fahrenheit. Even in winter, we’ve never had to blow air around.”
It’s quiet inside, too. “I listen to music, so I’m very sensitive to sounds,” Gray shares. “There are no bouncing echoes in this house. It is quiet, in a good way. You come from wherever you’ve been in and you say, ‘Wow.’”
Growing up in Springfield, Virginia, before moving to Aldie, Burton never thought he’d become an architect. “I was going to be a professional basketball player or a cartoonist,” he says. He took architecture courses in high school and ended up finding his calling at Mississippi State University, where he majored in architecture and minored in art.
One of his many influences is Frank Lloyd Wright. Like Wright, Burton situates his buildings so that they take advantage of views, sunlight, the slope of the land, proximity to water, and other natural features unique to the location. But he differs from Wright, whose buildings tend to emphasize design over comfort and practicality.
Burton wants his buildings to be “uplifting. Our designs are often inspired by time-tested regional knowledge while we incorporate the warmth of more familiar materials to create a retreat for living.” He continues, “Our clients have often said the homes feel like you are arriving at a special pilgrimage or vacation spot while living there every day.”
A short walk from Burton’s Berryville office is an example that has uplifted the entire region.
Completed in 2011, the Barns of Rose Hill include a concert hall, museum, and welcome center for Berryville and Clarke County. Part of a gift from the Smithy family, the site comprises two 1910 dairy barns arranged in a T shape. Burton did the design concept work without charge as a community service because, he says, “good things come from it.”
Berryville Township Manager Keith Dalton, who has attended several concerts at the Barns, calls it “the centerpiece of Berryville’s historic downtown. The facility is well known for its Great Hall, which is visually pleasing, warm, and intimate. It also has incredible acoustics. Several performers have returned to the facility to record tracks for release.”
Burton’s most celebrated buildings are closer to Middleburg, where he built a house for himself and his family that he named “Loggerheads,” after the expression “to be at loggerheads.”
The house is fully sustainable with a comforting inner quiet and spectacular views. Loggerheads won an American Institute of Architecture award.
“Our clients have often said the homes feel like you are arriving at a special pilgrimage or vacation spot while living there every day.”
–Jim Burton
The property is now owned by lawyer and biotech executive Paul Mahon and his wife, Annie, who founded the Circle Yoga Cooperative in the District. The Mahons liked the house so much, they asked Burton to renovate their Washington townhouse. They also commissioned a building adjacent to Loggerheads where Annie could offer yoga classes.
“Jim mentioned that he had drawn up sketches for a studio consisting of three curved planes,” Paul Mahon recalls. “Of course we had to see that. We were so impressed with his sketches that we asked if he would design and oversee construction management for us.”
The result is a narrow, airy two-story yoga studio that also doubles as a guest house. It gained attention as Hunt Country’s first U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold residence. In creating it, Burton incorporated some of the ideas he had developed as an architecture student.
“Of course we had to see that. We were so impressed with his sketches that we asked if he would design and oversee construction management for us.” –Paul Mahon
Called the Yoga Studio, it won seven regional, national, and international awards. That building, along with a Staunton vacation home, Elk Run Ridge, got so much international attention that Burton received his first invitation to exhibit at the Venice Biennale.
For several years, Burton was too busy to accept. His architect partner, Page Carter, had retired, and he and his staff of four had projects to complete.
Currently, among several designs in progress, the firm is working on a barn in Massachusetts, a nature preserve with outbuildings and a boardwalk for the Powhattan School in Boyce, as well as a welcome center and museum for the Patsy Cline House in Winchester, where Burton is a board member.
Another project awaiting funding is a sanctuary near the Appalachian Trail in Bluemont to house a Nakashima Peace Table. Conceived by the late Pennsylvania artist and furniture maker George Nakashima, Peace Tables are meant to bring people together from all backgrounds and faiths.
Burton, who likes to hike and mountain bike, got the idea for a Hunt Country Peace Table from artist Tom Nakashima, his fly-fishing friend and George Nakashima’s nephew.
“It was to be an endowed artist retreat that adjoined a larger multipurpose pavilion to serve as a respite for weary hikers,” Tom Nakashima remembers. Chris White, a supporter of the sanctuary and founder of Bluemont’s Native American Church, says, “This Peace Table could bring together individuals from various backgrounds to facilitate meaningful conversations. There’s no better time to elevate its importance than now.” He considers Burton a “dedicated visionary.”
With a number of projects on the drawing board and La Biennale still ongoing, Burton’s future as Hunt Country’s star architect is only growing brighter. ML
Published in the June 2025 issue of Middleburg Life.