Soon after earning his bachelor of fine arts degree at Virginia Commonwealth University, Louis Poole began to notice a house he passed daily on Parham Road.

A pink stucco house.

"It was an interesting structure," the Richmond painter recalls during a chat amid the paintings in his show at Page Bond Gallery.

"It stood by itself, and it had a big lawn. I kept noticing it under different light at different times of day. It had a lot of awnings that made interesting shadows.

"I decided I wanted to do a painting of that house."

But Poole, now 50, faced a big hurdle in 1982.

"When I came out of VCU, I was doing large, color-field, gestural abstract paintings," he says. "I had been indoctrinated in VCU's abstract formalism. Now I had to figure out: Was there any way I could paint that house in an abstract manner?"

The answer was a resounding yes, and that's what "Structure: Louis Poole" is all about.

"A house provides abstract geometry, but it has a human context, too," Poole says. "After a while, I didn't worry about abstraction anymore."

The 11 vibrantly colored oil paintings - all but one completed since the beginning of this year - continue Poole's quarter-century obsession with the house.

In one sense, there's nothing extraordinary about his houses.

They're simple structures, usually one-story. Some bespeak the beach - although only one gives a glimpse of the ocean - and carry titles such as "Kitty Hawk," "Coastal House" and "Dune House."

Poole insists his houses aren't abandoned, but they show no obvious signs of people. No cars in the driveway, no toys on the porch, no figures peering out the window.

"The house itself suggests human presence, and it has a personality," Poole insists.

What's extraordinary is his way with paint.

Some viewers might call Poole's vision haunting.

"I try to make the images compelling," he says. "If viewers think they're haunting, too, I don't have a problem with that.

"To me, these paintings have an air of an existential encounter between the viewer and the image. I see an intense reality that verges on unreality here."

Fellow Richmond painter Diego Sanchez, one of Poole's biggest fans, would agree.

"Louis' work is special because of the loose, descriptive, gestural way he handles paint," Sanchez says. "Everything he puts on his canvas is essential to define the form. I like his highly saturated palette, which makes his structures dynamic and bold.

"I also like his wonderful sense of balance. Usually his compositions are very elegant with a nice balance between the representational and abstract elements."

Then Sanchez puts his finger on what may be the bedrock reason for Poole's popularity here:

"Louis plays with the idea of home, with our memories of what home is like."

Poole, who renovates buildings and teaches art at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond when he's not in his Fan District studio, usually works on several paintings at once.

"I'll paint on each one until I'm satisfied," he says.

The houses are either specific houses or a combination of houses.

"They're portraits of houses to a certain extent," he says.

His colors often seem arbitrary - the sky might be blue in one but fiery orange in another - but Poole sees them as evolving elements.

"Color is very important to me," he says. "It develops over many layers of paint, and the first color I put down is never the color I end up with. It's not important to have a blue sky. The color of the sky will depend on the color of something else in the painting."

After painting and drawing hundreds of houses over a quarter-century, isn't it time for Poole to move on?

"It might be," he concedes. "Houses still intrigue me, but why not show something else, maybe figures or landscapes or still life?"

Sanchez thinks he knows why Poole has stuck with houses so long.

"Louis is searching for the perfect house," he says.