Residential and interior design · Chevy Chase, MD
Residential & Interior Designer in Chevy Chase, MD
Chevy Chase was planned as a garden suburb from the start. Beginning in the 1890s, the Chevy Chase Land Company laid out streets along the Connecticut Avenue streetcar line, with generous setbacks, a canopy of street trees, and houses meant to sit quietly in their landscape. More than a century later, that intention still guides the best work here, and it is the frame Talha Gursoy brings to every renovation and addition in the community.
A residential design history worth reading closely
The early houses draw on Shingle Style, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and Arts and Crafts traditions, with wide porches, steep roofs, and carefully proportioned windows. Later decades added brick Colonials and more restrained traditional houses. Inside, many of these homes keep their original stair halls, fireplaces, and millwork, along with kitchens and service rooms that were never meant to be the center of family life. The design task is usually to give the kitchen its due without diminishing the formal rooms that carry the character of the house.
Additions that defer to the street
Because the streetscape is so central to the identity of Chevy Chase, additions are typically placed to the rear or set back so the original house still reads first from the sidewalk. Rooflines, porch depths, window proportions, and exterior materials are drawn from the existing house rather than borrowed from a catalog. Inside, the joint between old and new deserves the same attention: ceiling heights, floor levels, and trim profiles that carry through without an awkward seam.
Layers of local review
Chevy Chase, Maryland, is not a single jurisdiction. It is a group of incorporated municipalities, including Chevy Chase Village and the Town of Chevy Chase, alongside unincorporated neighborhoods. Several of these municipalities keep their own building regulations and permit processes in addition to the county permit from the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services, and properties within the Chevy Chase Village Historic District are also reviewed by the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission. Homes on the District side of the line fall under the DC Department of Buildings instead. Talha confirms the governing authorities for each address at the outset, so the design is shaped by the right rules from the first drawing.
Begin an inquiry
If you own a Chevy Chase home and are weighing what it could become, Talha would be glad to hear about it.
Projects typically begin at $150,000, and each begins with a paid design study credited toward construction.