by Liza Roberts photographs by Nick Pironio Some people build beach houses or mountain houses to get away from it all. Tina Shanahan built a barn. Home to two mares and a filly, the custom barn is the realization of a dream Shanahan,…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Lissa Gotwals When Broadway star Lauren Kennedy was growing up in Raleigh, she put in her time doing wholesome-kid things like catching salamanders in the creek near her house, and playing games like freeze tag with her…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Mark Petko For Monica and Dalip Awasthi, art is the glue. It helped cement their relationship early on, and it links the two of them – and their three young children – to the Indian…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Lissa Gotwals At their hot new restaurant in downtown Raleigh, brother-sister duo Vansana and Vanvisa Nolintha are doing something revolutionary. With one of the few true Laotian restaurants in the United States, these two twenty-somethings are introducing Raleighites…
by Liza Roberts photographs below by Juli Leonard When Steve and Sujitra Martin decided to move to Raleigh from Charlotte in 2006, they knew what they wanted in a house here: Something small but efficient, in a walkable, downtown neighborhood….
by Liza Roberts photographs by Dustin Peck and Mark Petko When he set out to design a new home for the chancellor of N.C. State University, Marvin Malecha knew the house had to serve many masters. It had to be…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Missy Mclamb As Raleigh sparkles in the slanting light of a winter afternoon, Red Hat President and CEO Jim Whitehurst, eight stories above it all, looks dazzled. The view of America’s third-fastest-growing city from his company’s new…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Lissa Gotwals When magnolia farmer and luxury wreath-maker Erin Weston inherited 30 acres in Garner from her uncle a decade ago, she was busy pursuing a publishing career in New York. Becoming a farmer had…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Jimmy Williams When Carolina Ballet artistic director Robert Weiss found a seat in Raleigh’s intimate Fletcher Opera Theater one recent afternoon, he and the rest of the audience settled in for an event that has…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Leslie Baker Charles Winston Jr. is a self-described ice cream nut. The owner of North Raleigh’s Winston’s Grille, he loves it so much he took himself to ice cream school at Penn State a few…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Jimmy Williams You might not know it, but you’ve probably seen Thomas Sayre’s art. It’s big, it’s bold, and it’s public. In Raleigh, his three gigantic earthen ellipses spool across a field at the…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Travis Dove Mike Phillips speaks at a decibel all his own. He booms and hollers and even shrieks, but with such visceral, upbeat enthusiasm – even joy – that you find yourself raising your own…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Lissa Gotwals Raleigh’s hottest chef has no back burner. Take one week in late July: Ashley Christensen’s cross-country commitments had her outside and up all night in Sonoma, Calif., cooking a pig for a…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Juli Leonard On a treeless, dead-end street of storage units, warehouses, and tinted-window flex space, the studio of acclaimed Raleigh artist Shaun Richards sits anonymously. High-concept, large-scale contemporary art like Richards’ – art that is…