The Doctor`s Oasis - Marika Meyer Interiors

HOME LIFE
REAL ESTATE NEWS AND OPEN HOUSE I INSIDE HOMES, LOFT-LIKE LIVING AND MY WASHINGTON
Danielle, Catherine, John and Jack
Dooley enjoy multi-generational
entertaining in their grown-up but
kid-friendly living room.
BY LAURA WAINMAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
JOSEPH ALLEN
WWW.JALLENIMAGES.COM
Physicians John and Danielle Dooley
share their inviting, family-centric
Georgetown home.
WA S H I N G TO N L I F E
| SUMMER
2012
| washingtonlife.com
85
HOME LIFE | INSIDE HOMES
J
ohn and Danielle Dooley grew up less than 20
miles away from each other. They attended the
same summer camps and had mutual friends. It
took an anatomy lab at Columbia University
Medical School for them to meet and hours of
poring through medical books together to fall in love.
Medicine connected them, so it was no surprise that when
time came to design their 1,748-square-foot dream home
in Georgetown, the Dooley’s let medicine advise them.
“There is a concept in the medical world called a
patient centered medical home,” Mrs. Dooley says. “You
try to make the medicine as personalized to the patient
as possible, while at the same time empowering them
to take care of themselves. We approached finding a
designer with that same thought process.”
She goes on to explain that she and her husband were
seeking guidance through the design process without
losing themselves along the way. As a couple who spends
their days caring for other’s families, Mr. Dooley as
an internist at Foxhall Internists and Mrs. Dooley as a
pediatrician for Unity Health Care, they needed their
home to be a sanctuary where they could enjoy the
remaining bits of the day as a family. And though it wasn’t
a short road that led them to their 1985 Georgetown
townhouse, they saw more than 50 houses in two years
before they found exactly what they needed in designer
Marika Meyer. The designer prides herself on “practical
luxury” and “functional beauty” while Mrs. Dooley
describes her primary design goal as“enlivening the home
with functional elements in a luxurious grown-up space.”
The two couldn’t have been a better match.
Inside the Dooley residence on the Wednesday before
Thanksgiving, a photographer, a near-term pregnant designer,
a nanny, two doctors and two children (Jack and Catherine)
scurry about in different directions. Not surprisingly, Mrs.
Dooley says it is typical of the daily life of two doctors
raising small children. Mr. Dooley indulges a photo shoot
in the 30 minutes he has to spare before leaving for work
as his wife helps Catherine change from her party dress to
86
WA S H I N G TO N L I F E
| H O L I D AY
2012
| washingtonlife.com
LEFT: The Dooleys gather in
the kitchen to play games
of Uno while John makes
dinner. BELOW, FAR LEFT:
The owners in their living
room. CENTER: Danielle
Dooley craved color for her
children’s rooms and used
decorative paint studio Billet
Collins for the walls. FAR
RIGHT: Family heirlooms
scattered throughout the
Dooley house include a desk
in Catherine’s room that
was passed down from her
great-grandmother.
OPPOSITE PAGE, FAR LEFT: The
pride and joy of John Dooley’s
map collection is a 1795 plan of
Washington, D.C. according to
L’Enfant’s design. TOP: Marika
Meyer used a neutral cream
palette with aqua and apricot
accents to create the soothing
living room her clients desired.
BOTTOM: Modern pieces like
the hand-crafted dining room
chandelier, made of branches
and painted white, add to the
room’s architectural integrity.
WA S H I N G TO N L I F E
| H O L I D AY
a school uniform while simultaneously entertaining Jack.
Five minutes later Mr. Dooley is out the door, the nanny is
whisking Catherine to school and Jack is contentedly playing
a game on an iPhone. They are a well-oiled machine.
The house should be chaotic and messy but it feels real
instead. It has life, character and family touches in every
corner — from the volumes on the bookshelf written by
Mrs. Dooley’s father and the desk in Catherine’s room that
once belonged to her great-grandmother to the centuriesold map collection that Mr. Dooley has been painstakingly
assembling for years. Even the vintage sideboard that Mrs.
Dooley found at a neighbor’s yard sale was refinished by a
mother-daughter duo.
“We had so many pieces that were crucial for us to
incorporate and [Marika Meyer] did it so well. Not everyone
2012
| washingtonlife.com
could take old family items and mix them with modern
pieces to create the same respite that she gave us,” Mrs.
Dooley says.
She loves that they finally have a grown up house to
entertain in, with space for the kids to play. For the first time,
Catherine and Jack have their own rooms, decorated to their
liking, plus a playroom in the basement.
“You have no idea what a big step it was for us not to
have toys in our living room constantly,” Mrs. Dooley says.
Watching her and Ms. Meyer chat animatedly about
their holiday plans and how much fun they had bringing
their project to completion, it was easy to see that what
they had achieved was more than an aesthetically pleasing
interior design. They had created a welcoming oasis and a
living testament to the enduring power of family.
87