"It was awful, just awful," remembers Washington, D.C., architect Stephen Muse. "But when you squinted your eyes, it had great bones." "It was a ruin," admits Sally Quinn, who with her husband, Ben Bradlee, hired Muse for the restoration project. But to Quinn, that was the point. "I love ruins," she says. "I have to feel that the house is saying, 'Come save me.'"

Even in its weakened state, Porto Bello's voice must have resonated. It was built in the 1740s by William Hebb II about the same time George Washington's half-brother, Lawrence, was building Mount Vernon. The setting was also historic. The Colonial-era manor is perched upon a pastoral bluff overlooking St. Mary's River, a tributary of the Potomac, and the nearby town of St. Mary's City was capital of the Maryland colony for much of the 17th century. So the house's credentials were impeccable. But to restore it to livable condition would require more energy, talent, and money than it would take to tear it all down and begin again -- which made it the perfect project for Quinn.

"When she called about Porto Bello," says Muse, "there was a special tone in her voice." There was also a built-in sense of urgency. The collapsed roof was already endangering the interior, and the structure of the house needed stabilizing before work could begin. The couple closed on the house in the spring of 1990, moved into a quickly renovated guest cottage on the property that summer, and helped supervise a renovation faithful to the spirit of the 18th century and, eventually, comfortable enough for year-round family escapes from D.C.

Muse and his clients weren't tempted to modify the interior to squeeze in more than the existing three bedrooms and two baths. For guest quarters, there are updated outbuildings. The nods to modernity are the single-room wings on each side for a kitchen and a sunroom; both have large windows to capture river views. Although it's clear the wings postdate the main house, they show reverence for style and place in the overall design.