Fortunately, Timberlane's newest owners shared Good's conviction that remodeling could remedy the errors of previous decades and deliver a comfortable retreat for them and their two young children. "Maintaining the building's period character through rigorous updating meant borrowing from the original architecture to make the changes seamless," Good says. "Respecting the architecture was key."

The two-year process was challenging because the original construction Good so admired consisted of 6-inch poured-concrete walls with brick veneering, a first floor resting on an 18-inch-thick concrete slab, a second floor comprised of steel bar joists, and a steel-frame roof surmounted by concrete decking and slate.

"The rumor about Timberlane's original owner, Hollyday S. Meeds Jr., was that his family experienced a house fire when he was a child," explains Good. "Meeds instructed the Philadelphia architectural firm of George, Edwin, Pope, Albert, Kruse to use no combustible materials in the construction of Timberlane."

For his clients, Good envisioned a classic, open, Eastern Shore-style kitchen that might have evolved from a hearth-centered plan one would find in a house built centuries earlier. Unfortunately, there was no fireplace in the existing, unremarkable, 18-by-24-foot galley space.

Baltimore designer Mona Hajj was a perfect complement to Good's classicism. The pair worked closely to give the kitchen the feeling that it had evolved over time. In place of a real hearth, "we designed the stove's 'fireplace' alcove -- something that might have been there centuries ago in an authentic Georgian house," says Hajj. "We also distressed later-era beaded-board cupboards to conform to the dresser's look of wear."

To create concealed storage in the adjacent family sitting room, Good built out the wall around a preexisting fireplace with new raised paneling based on Timberlane's original staircase wall. He was also careful to design a new mantel sympathetic to the 18th-century-style paneling.

Two glassed-in wings, added on to the house in the '70s, were gutted to the studs because they lacked any real salvageable character. "The walls in both wings are composed of 14 windows mismatched by one to two inches in width," says Good, "and the spacing between windows varied, too -- not a symmetrical, Georgian type of attribute."

Because he wanted to add period boxed beams to the ceiling of the breakfast room wing, Good took an average of the varying spaces between the windows to calculate the sequencing of the beams. He then carried the look through to a Georgian-style chimneypiece with flanking pilasters.

The plan for the sunroom on the opposite side of the house was to play up its more contemporary porchlike, add-on character, even though it was designated for an office. "How could we make it look and feel like an office and retain the mood of the serene outdoor views?" was the question Good and Hajj asked themselves. Their solution: installing dark-green, exterior-looking horizontal paneling on the walls. The selection and placement of serious furniture tempers the casual effect of this porchlike treatment.

Thirty-inch-high knee walls constructed and plastered 2 feet from the attic's sloping perimeters serve as storage space and flank the bed attractively like bedside tables. In one bedroom, Hajj introduced a sunny yellow toile de Jouy as an appropriately country wallpaper finish.

Throughout the remodeling, Good and Hajj reached for subtleties to infuse the stuffy Georgian Revival of yesteryear with a fresh sense of style. "Country houses usually have durable wood furniture, some bright primary colors on the walls, and good rugs," says Hajj, who dovetailed her work with Good's to finesse a cohesive look. "Our whole idea was to update the feel of the house, whether it's through color, furniture, or fabrics, while preserving the classical elements of the interior architecture."