A house carefully crafted to please the trees.

The challenge was set forth. Make it fit around the trees.

Make it modern, make it glassy, make it timeless. (This house has to last, at least until the last of three young boys goes off on his own.)

Most of all, make it well-proportioned and warm, not cold, as so many contemporary homes can be. This was to be a house all about natural materials—textured Texas limestone, burnished cream plaster, bleached cypress wood—not screaming for attention but quietly rewarding a second look, as the architects intended.

For such a calm and collected home, it was a demanding build—calling for creativity in design and execution. A pandemic meant patience and flexibility was required from all. In the end, the mission was accomplished — in only 18 months, not two or three years, as the client had imagined. The house features roof planes that range from low to medium to high, a concept that offers a variety of interior moods as well as a stepped exterior massing, with a low-slung curb appeal punctuated by the taller volumes acting as architectural crescendos. The large expanses of glass are carefully oriented to provide shaded natural light and protect or embrace views as required for privacy. The whole composition is light and lean, with a minimalist aesthetic to almost every moment and detail—which also presented building challenges.

A stunning spiral staircase in the entry hall, a sculptural curve of solid steel plates, white-oak treads and a satin-brass handrail. Allgood/Pfannenstiel identified engineering opportunities to employ steel supports at the staircase’s top and bottom, rather than traditional wood supports, because of the sheer weight of the unit—it had to be craned into place—and to augment each wood tread with a steel support underneath, unobtrusively, so as not to detract from the intended minimalism.

For the house’s tall, slender, steel columns at the rear, supporting the roof over the covered terrace, Allgood/Pfannenstiel took great pains to fill, sand and paint the columns for an exceptionally smooth and uniform finish. In the main bedroom, one wall called for a tightly radiused bullnose edge, a curve impossible to achieve by bending drywall. Allgood/Pfannenstiel devised a custom bullnose cap made of plaster that was seamlessly blended into the rest of the wall, which is sheetrock.

Visual comfort is found in the house’s furnishings, a balance of contemporary pieces mixed with vintage pieces that have history and patina. Everywhere, the homeowner wanted texture and warmth—not just in the sofas, tables and chairs but in the structure, too. In the earliest discussions, the homeowner felt that Allgood/Pfannenstiel understood that desire, implicitly, and awarded the firm the job to collaborate with the talented team from Smitharc. It would be Allgood/Pfannenstiel’s very first build.