Bethesda, Maryland / USA - March 30, 2020: Downtown Bethesda is empty amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

From ‘frat house’ to family home: A major remodel in Bethesda

Bethesda, Maryland / USA - March 30, 2020: Downtown Bethesda is empty amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

When a rainbow-painted gladiator statue is the housewarming gift from a builder to the homeowners, you know there must be a great story behind it.

“My grandmother’s cousin sculpted this concrete gladiator statue that had a lamp on top and eventually it ended up in my parents’ garage,” says John Frye, 43, who is in commercial air-conditioning sales. “My friend Matt loved it and brought it to our frat house when we went to college together in Cleveland. He spray-painted it silver and then … it sat in his parents’ basement for 20 years.”

Frye’s friend Matt Covell, also 43, founded Structure, a custom home builder and renovation firm based in North Bethesda, Md., in 2016. He remodeled Frye’s house in 2019-2020 and brought the gladiator to Matt Corrado, an artist and mutual high school friend, to “paint it rainbow colors as a housewarming gift,” Covell says.

Read more