A Tribute to A. Russell Versaci

Russell worked at Dewberry & Davis in Washington, D.C., before cofounding Versaci Neumann & Partners in 1985. The firm designed award-winning period houses from the hunt country of Virginia to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, from Kansas to Connecticut.

He wrote two books:  Creating a New Old House and Roots of Home, which trace modern American architecture to its Colonial roots and ce\ebrate traditional architecture for its authenticity, durability, and pleasing proportions. He had a talent for making new materials look old, including a secret recipe for growing moss on stone, using draft beer.

Russell Versaci wrote a column in New Old House magazine, was a sought-after lecturer about classicism, and gave the keynote address at the 2007 Traditional Building Conference.

His editorial teammate at New Old House, traditional designer and columnist Christine Franck, said of Versaci, “The early classicism movement was academic, limited to those of us in the field. Russell made traditional architecture resonate with the public, with the consumers of design. He raised our level of consciousness about classical and vernacular design.”

New Old House editor Nancy Berry describes Versaci as “a brilliant writer whose knowledge of the classical vernacular, region by region, was unmatched.” His former partner, David Neumann, said of Russell, “he was self-taught. In pursuit of deepening his knowledge, he assembled a very good library; he was on a first-name basis with every antiquarian bookseller from coast to coast. I would often find out about his book-buying binges when a bookseller’s invoice showed up in accounts payable. In retrospect his commitment to building a good architectural library couldn’t have been more right.”

In 2005 Russell Versaci started his own firm, Russell Versaci Architecture, where he championed accessible, scalable traditional houses, in part to dispel the myth that classicism was only for the wealthy. Like the American vernacular “pioneer” houses his writing celebrated, Russell Versaci was an early pioneer for the new classical tradition.