Making a Masterpiece - A Website for a Movie Star
- Steve Gaitten
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- 12 hours ago
- 8 min read
Making a Masterpiece is the name of a new blog series from Loudoun Digital, where our website designers talk about the sites they've created and showcase our most innovative work. This is the first edition and it's about my good friend and client, Peter Leonard-Morgan.
Peter Leonard-Morgan "aka Mr. Middleburg"
Peter is one of those people I've known for so long I can't actually remember how we met. Peter claims that we shook hands for the first time when he visited Historic Carter Hall in Millwood, Virginia -- a $12 million dollar historic estate. But truthfully, I feel like I've known him for at least 20 of the now 30 years I've lived here in Loudoun County. Everybody knows Peter Leonard-Morgan, he's "Mr. Middleburg"
Since engaging with the team at Hunt Country Sotheby's International Realty back in September of 2022, I've wanted Peter as a client. I did a little bit of work for him here and there -- but Peter was holding on to a website he had built himself on a platform called Weebly.
Peter had done a very competent job building his own website. It wasn't the prettiest site on the web, but he made a lot of good information available to clients and site visitors.
And I am strongly in favor of Realtors owning and building their own sites. Remember, that's actually how I got into this part of the business -- building a site for my wife the Realtor. We wanted to fully control every aspect of our website, and I definitely understand my clients who feel this way.
Finally an Opening
Back in the spring, I got an email from Peter letting me know that his legacy platform was going away, and that he was willing to consider coming on as a website client. I jumped at the chance.
Showcasing Video Content
If you know Peter, you're probably aware that one of his super powers is his camera presence. He busts out that charming British accent, dilates the dimples and presents luxury real estate tours that command attention. People often refer to him as "the Robin Leach of Loudoun County" -- but frankly, Peter is much more likable and brings a certain intellectual gravitas to these million dollar properties.
So I knew heading into the concept phase that video had to be front and center on Peter's new site. More than that, we needed a way to showcase the depth of Peter's expertise in conducting video home tours. Peter has more than a decade's worth of video tours in his YouTube channel, Virginia Luxury & Country Real Estate -- and we really needed to surface those and make sure that anyone who visits the site gets the message -- nobody, absolutely nobody is better between the camera and a multi-million dollar real estate listing.
The first decision I made was to feature Peter's epic tour of Historic LLangollen in the hero section (the top of the page) of Peter's new home page. I remembered the video being gorgeous -- but the first time it rendered, I knew it would be a permanent fixture of the site.
Demonstrating Content Depth
While getting the Llangollen video on the home page showed Peter, in his element, at the absolute peak of his powers -- it didn't do much to demonstrate that Peter has been cranking out the hits for the better part of two decades. I mulled over the problem for weeks and couldn't come up with a solution. Finally, after a long conversation with Claude, we developed an approach. The idea -- embedded playlists.
Fortunately, Peter and I had invested some effort in organizing and building out his YouTube channel. Thematic playlists containing all of his video tours, categorized as homes or land already existed.
By embedding playlists, site visitors can scroll through Peter's entire career of video tours in a single widget. And best of all, that widget gets automatically updated every time Peter adds a new tour to his YouTube channel.
The embedded playlist worked so well on the home page, that we created a Tours page that surfaces every playlist on Peter's channel. Now the website drives activity in the channel, and the YouTube channel provides core content for the website.
Showcasing Client Feedback
A weakness of Peter's previous site was his display of testimonials and Google Reviews. Peter has 20 5-star Google Reviews and an enviable stack of client testimonials.
In my opinion, putting a fancy wrapper on self-reported client testimonials is somewhat passe. I think it's obvious to most people that you can author your own testimonials -- or just excerpt the bits you like. I prefer directly pulling in Google Reviews. This provides the credibility of an impartial third-party AND keeps the client focused on collecting Google Reviews -- an activity that can have benefits on SEO, advertising and more.
We deploy a widget by Elfsight that automatically pulls in the latest reviews.
Deploying an IDX - Adding Real Estate Listings to the Site
Peter's legacy website did not have an IDX -- meaning he could not display real estate listings from the MLS on his site. Our Realtor clients often agonize over the decision to add an IDX feed -- understandably as it adds about $100/month in cost. The rationalization for not having an IDX usually goes like this, "Everybody's just going to go to Zillow anyhow." I used to believe this as well. It took 5+ years of looking at the data from Realtor websites to prove to myself I was wrong.
Across all of our Realtor websites, browsing listings is always the number one activity. Our clients who use the IDX functionality on their site to set up and manage searches for their buyers are consistently among the top performers in our portfolio.
Loudoun Digital exclusively deploys the iHomefinder IDX on our Wix websites. We were the first company to deploy the iHomefinder IDX in Wix and as a Wix Legend partner, we are far and away the biggest player in the Wix ecosystem.
The Wix Blog is Better
Peter published blog posts about his listings and community happenings around Middleburg on his old Weebly site. But that tool was clunky and had limited features. The Wix blog is amazing, allowing even non-technical users to quickly compose blog posts that include photos and photo galleries, embedded video, interactive maps, polls and any content we can embed as HTML.
We seeded the blog on the new site by importing all of Peter's legacy blog posts from Weebly. But not long after launch, it was time to get Peter back to blogging. I did a 20 minute video training session with Peter and hoped for the best.
I was so proud I had to text Peter at midnight the first time I saw him publish a new blog post to social media. It was gorgeous. With minimal training, Peter was cranking out magazine quality posts.
Private Aviation Hangars
Read Peter's About page and you'll learn a little bit about his fascinating life. Born in France, raised in London, fluent in multiple languages and early in his career representing luxury automotive brands like Rolls-Royce, Ferrari & Lamborghini. For a very long time, Peter has been selling the very best things in life.
I think that's why he was recruited to exclusively represent the sale of private aviation hangars at the nearby Winchester Regional Airport.
Of course we had to build a special site section reflecting this specialization.
Northern Virginia's Leading Realtor in Wineries & Vineyards
Over the past decade or so, Peter has regularly been asked to represent vineyards and wineries across Northern Virginia. He has successfully managed new ownership for some of the most beloved venues in Northern Virginia's wine country. I think it's safe to say that Peter is generally regarded as THE go-to real estate expert for wine related properties in the region.
The Meriwether Wine Portfolio
Currently, Peter is representing four major wineries in Northern Virginia. Peter introduced 868 Estate Vineyards to market in the Fall of 2025. In the summer of 2026, Peter was granted the honor of representing the Meriwether Wine Portfolio, a collection of wine destinations in Fauquier County, including:
A Masterpiece Realized
Since building my very first website for Loudoun Digital back in 2018, every single new site has felt like me best work yet. I'm always learning, always experimenting and always energized by the unique creative challenges of each client.
When the work was finished and I could step back and appreciate the full scope of the project, I felt proud and happy. I feel completely confident that I've built one of our best sites ever, for one of my favorite people. It's a good feeling ;)
But Now the Real Work Begins
A website is never finished. This isn't a print brochure that gets finalized and approved and sits unchanged for the next few years. This is a living breathing entity that requires care and feeding. It must be used strategically and with intent. This is what I'm really looking forward to -- the ongoing day-to-day support of leveraging Peter's website to market his listings and attract new customers.
How it Going So Far?
I'm proud to say that in the early going, Peter's website traffic is on fire! Having the launch coincide with all of the PR and news coverage related to his listing of The Meriwether Portfolio was definitely a stroke of good fortune. But, across the board, his site is crawling with prospective clients and luxury home buyers.
Peter's site was instantly above our "benchmark of health" -- 250 unique visitors per month. He's currently sitting at 385 unique visitors for the past 30 days.
AI Has Visited Peter's Site More Often Than Humans
What's at least as exciting is that number in the bottom right with a little yellow "NEW" icon. That figure, "User queries on AI" represents the number of times AI (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, etc.) has hit Peter's site looking for information to answer a question posed by a user.
And that's why, if you go to AI and ask who the best REALTOR in Northern Virginia for a luxury winery, you get answers like this:
Discovery via AI is a deep strength of the Wix platform and an area where Loudoun Digital is truly leading the industry.
Thank You Mr. Middleburg!
Thank you Peter for the opportunity to build this website and work more closely with you ongoing. I bet you're not fully aware of how much I like and admire you as a gentleman and as a contributing member of the community here in Loudoun. It was an honor and a privilege to work with you!
Do you want an amazing website like this? Do you want your website designer and digital marketing expert to care about you and your success like this? Get in touch ;)
P.S. NOTE: Our Websites for REALTORS are the best product on the market, however they are not available in the Washington DC market due to our exclusive partnership with Hunt Country Sotheby's International Realty.
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