With his signature flair for glamour, antiques dealer Darryl Savage brings the wow factor to his Annapolis home.

IMPACT.

Some find it in bold colors and graphic fabrics.

But experienced interior designers like Darryl Savage know the power of simplicity, like the visual interest of black and white. When designing his third home, located in the Annapolis community of Epping Forest, Savage decided to set aside his penchant for beige walls and natural textiles and instead create a space that revolves around drama. “I’ve always lived with neutrals,” says Savage, owner of DHS Designs, purveyor of fine antiques in Queenstown, Md. “So using white was stepping it up a notch. Because of the view and the light, the house wanted to be monochromatic—very dramatic and very chic.”

Setting the tone for the dramatic interior are the eye-popping wooden floors in the great room, painted a dead white and detailed with a black Greek key border. “The floors reflect the light and blend with the walls so the eyes go right out the windows to the water,” says Savage. “It makes the pieces sitting on the floor appear to float, and, therefore, seem much more like sculpture.”

This central space is a study in hybrid design, a blending of European and exotic, neoclassical and mid-century, modern and retro. A Venetian chandelier, crafted from Murano glass (and found by Savage at a Paris flea market), illuminates the powerful setting; its rippled crystals reflect on the modern glass coffee table below, where a set of late nineteenth-century glass English apothecary jars create a sculptural focal point. “The house is very in-your-face, very graphic. There’s an element of sparkle with the chandelier and the huge cluster of quartz crystal above the doors near the fireplace—there’s lots of razzle-dazzle going on.”

Here, seating is purposely separated into multiple conversation areas, which creates intimate settings. Contributing a subtle modern flair are the two streamlined leather and chrome Le Corbusier club chairs, found in a Soho shop; a pair of zebra ottomans add a dash of spirit. A row of eighteenth-century stone life-size warrior statues guard the striking view; they were finds from the Duke of Nancy’s chateau north of Paris. “I have not made it feel really ‘housey,’” says Savage. “There aren’t rugs or drapes or lamps—all the creature comforts. It has a sparse gallery effect because of the vaulted ceiling and the view. I just wanted the interior to recede. I didn’t want to compete with the volume of space and light. And I didn’t want the view upstaged by a lot of things.”

The bedrooms in the house are no less dramatic. In the first-floor master suite—complete with walk-in closets, a full bath, and an office—Savage created a cozy lounge area, centered around a George Smith sofa and club chair covered in blue mohair fabric; an Isamu Noguchi paper lantern, worthy of a James Bond boudoir scene, gives the room a sixties undertone. The French embossed alligator leather chest, bought off a showroom floor at the Washington Design Center, follows the modern theme.

But bold neoclassical elements, a signature of Savage’s style, are never far away: They show up here in side tables and accessories scattered about the room. “When creating drama in a gentleman’s bedroom,” he says, “you go for bold, masculine strokes, like the black and white photos and bronze geometric screen. Nothing fussy.”

Savage moved into the 3,400-square-foot house with his two children, Julie and David, in 2004; he bought it from his parents, who had lived in it as a second home for the past ten years. Other than turning the two-car garage into a media room, Savage did very little to alter the architecture. By simply repainting the exterior a shade of grayed white and changing the entry to include nine-foot-high, monolithic French doors and windows covered with ebonized plantation shutters, he was able to morph the former 1950s rambler into a contemporary cottage. “I’ve done what I wanted to do, in that I didn’t want it to look like every other New England-style shingled cottage,” says Savage. “I’ve incorporated many references from many different locales so that you can’t put it in a box. I was able to add my personality.”

When entertaining in summer months, Savage likes to dine on the screened-in porch, an intimate space connected to the hundred-foot-long back deck, where the view is equally spectacular. The floors are tiled in inlaid marble, “reminiscent of Venetian flooring with a modern feel,” says Savage. Eighteenth-century stone urns flank a massive late-nineteenth-century terra cotta finial. The dining table is crafted from four circa-1920 marble balusters salvaged from the Arlington National Cemetery Amphitheater, which Savage topped with French limestone.

As the sun sets and the light begins to fade, the interior becomes all that more intriguing, with the monochromatic palette delivering up an even more impacting punch. The glass wall and accessories recede, while the furniture takes center stage. Says Savage, “It shows what you can do with very few pieces and using very little color, with just the right amount of ornamentation.”