Grand Award - Total Residential Contracting

Colao & Peter is an award-winning landscape architecture and construction firm serving Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC.

1. While masterminding a modern addition to an historic 17th-century, log-and-stone dwelling, its owner, an architect, tapped Colao & Peter to overhaul the landscape. “We created a private entrance gate with a circular driveway; renovated the swimming pool; devised a Japanese garden; and added masonry walls, steps and walkways, as well as plantings throughout the property,” recounts partner and landscape architect JR Peter. He and his design team employed stone in the landscape plan that complements both the addition and the original structure, creating a visual bridge between old and new.

Highlights

• An automatic concrete-and-cedar gate at the entrance ensures privacy
• Concrete walls surround a Japanese garden designed with pea gravel and places to sit
• A pebble finish clads the pool interior, creating a resort-like blue hue to the water that can be seen from the house
• Clean, modern tile at the pool’s waterline complements the pool coping. Color-changing LED lights throughout the pool glow at night
• A wood-burning fire pit located on the pool deck near the pool house promotes easy entertaining

Colao & Peter began as stone -and-masonry company Colao Stone. Partner Joe Colao comes from a long line of stone masons, while partner JR Peter is a landscape architect who creates complex projects featuring pools, spas, decks, carpentry, masonry, hardscape and landscape. In business for over two decades, Colao & Peter maintains a client-first, no-ego approach, from consultation to completion.

Distinction Award - Outdoor Living Area

2. When creating a landscape to complement a lodge-style abode in Winchester, Virginia, Colao & Peter conjured the right look with a natural-look stone veneer and boulder accents. The finished project includes a pool, spa, pool deck, fire pit and hardscape.

Grand Award - Craftsmanship

3. Hired to renovate a dull, outdated pool in Oakton, Virginia, Colao & Peter replaced cracked concrete decking with imported limestone bordered by bluestone. Lighting and firebowls atop masonry walls add interest.

Colao & Peter
703-553-0123 — colaopeter.com