Take the Coleman House, for instance. Owned by psychiatrist, author and gardener Brian Coleman, the place is a Victorian dream, cast of warm rich colors with whimsical touches — an owl, a sunflower, a turret with the Latin phrase quo amplius eo amplius ("more beyond plenty") — and set amidst a garden that changes with the seasons.
An article in the Seattle Times tells me that this house is featured in Private Gardens of the Pacific Northwest, edited by ... Brian Coleman, who does not reveal in the book that the house is his own.
I know the houses of my northern Virginia suburb can't be as unconventional as this one. But they could try a little harder, couldn't they?