a project begun almost 25 years ago, and still in the works. What if you took a little barn with the humblest of beginnings and made it everything a little barn could be...
...a peaceful place not of here, but from here
we started from here...
the charge--a pizza oven and grill outdoors and full kitchen indoors, but free flowing in-between. The new love of Italy and the old heart in Texas drove everything from there...
...then the garden plan got out of control
this is the place sunsets go to live...
A house for a young family in a remote part of New Mexico. Pure shapes and volumes intact but connected. A contemporary expression and definition of space but wrapped and grounded in local and vernacular materials. The spaces in-between, in the Navajo Language-"kisombi", become the most powerful.
Yes..."the Logo". It is still my favorite--built, but I have never seen it. The charge was use the vernacular language so rich in New Mexico...oh, and everything has to come form the local farm & ranch supply store. The closest lumber yard was not close.
House Floor Plans
A house designed in the early part of the 1990's for a young family whose head was a forward thinking entrepreneur who just knew he could run his endeavors for nowhere New Mexico. At that time the idea was unheard of, however now the idea is almost commonplace.
Garage Plans
We began in 2007 with the mandate to, without starting completely from scratch, turn it into a hacienda befitting its new expatriate Peruvian owners. This was one of those dream projects that maybe only comes along once in a career. I was not only responsible for design, of both building and landscape, but also execution. Normal Construction Administration became almost day to day Construction Supervision. I also became responsible for all finishes selection and some of the furnishings selection. I also designed and built several landscape features.
We began with a late 20th century house....
...all that can be said for the interior was...white.
Soon the program extended and expanded to take in roughly 2 acres of the ranch site.
The landscape became as much of a challenge as the interior.
Entry is just break in the wall.
Frances Heller built this house sometime immediately after his purchase of the 500 acres of land in 1852. Although the primary rooms of the house are enclosed with rubble stone construction, there is a unusual combination of wood structure, that from the outset of restoration caused some consternation. Much discussion was had concerning the question that it seemed like the house was built by a carpenter and not a mason. Further research did in fact reveal the Frances Heller was a finish carpenter in his homeland of Alsace, then a part of Germany and that he had plied that trade in Philidelphia before coming to Texas. The restoration began in 2013 and is ongoing.
Other entrees telling the story of the Heller House restoration will, hopefully, appear in my BLOG as time permits.
East and South Elevation
North Elevation
This is the beginning point. A house rich in history and muddled by a century and a half of "adding on" and "modernization". It had only been owned by a handful of families, that last of which was a world renown heart surgeon. The new owners made the not so easy decision to restore "Mary's House" to the best and highest of standards. The process is underway to seek National Register of Historic Places designation.
The discovery of arches spanning the dogtrot or center hall was a game changer. Something I had never seen the likes of or ever heard about in this region, made it important to consider a true restoration and not just a reutilization of the house. The decision was made to go with a more faithful restoration tot he period.
Most all of the structure of the original stone part of the house uses some form joinery and not nails or any other form of mechanical connection.
A preservation and restoration plan is put into place that also provides for the "new" that the current day and owners now require.
Essentially, the front part of the house is stone construction and was built first. We feel like the South "pen" or room was built a little before the North, as there are slight differences in the construction. Again, this was a carpenter building a stone structure, so there was a learning curve.
The wood frame, rear portion of the house "tees" into the stone part approximately in the middle aligning with the center hall. Materials and methods used in this portion of the house construction indicate it was built in the late 1900's. Additional changes made by subsequent owners in the middle part of the 20th century that were ill built or were in such poor condition that the decision was made to remove them and get back to a simpler version of the building.
The stone part of the house had a small cellar on the north end that took advantage of the slope of the hill on which the house was built.
The new bathrooms in the original part of the house will be a bit innovative to try an make an indoor shower look as if it could have been there all along.
This image shows the new living and dining room. The casework at the end of the room was a much later addition to the center hall and it will be relocated to the end wall with a grand picture window in the middle.
The stone construction of the house is unusual if not marginal in method. Almost every wall had structural issues that in some case needed to be entirely rebuilt. One of the best restoration masons in the region Ken Schultz of Schultz's Stone & Steel was brought in to accomplish the task.
The entirety of the north end wall and portions of the west and east walls at that end--everything but the chimney--had to be brought down and rebuilt.
Where possible and practical, materials in need of repair will be, parts needing replacement will be with like materials and the methods originally used in the construction.
Even the origianl window sashes showed certain particular details that indicated Mr. Heller's expertise as a cabinetmaker. While a mortised and pegged frame is usual in this region, that tiny sliver of a wedge, to stiffen the joint, is not.
In preparation for the masonry work we discovered that the exterior of the stonework had various types of coatings for protection. From "lime paint" to full stucco and at for a time, nothing but exposed rock. The restoration will incorporate most of these on one wall or another in finish form. the more protected porch will leave the stone exposed, while the exposed north and south end-walls will have full stucco finishes. The same will be for the interior plaster finishes. This picture shows some of the interior plaster that will be saved and repaired.
This slide shows the top of the 14"x14" oak beam with the beautifully carved underside shown in slide five. The most unusual feature of the construction of the structure is this wood framing above the stone walls. Normally the horizontal joists and rafters would be let in to the stone wall for support. Mr Heller, still being the woodworker, put this system of beam "plates" to support those members, with minimal connection or "tie down" to the stone. Obvious changes and repairs to the roof framing indicate that this original construction decision was constantly problematic for the family.
A house deeply rooted in the history and vernacular forms from the 19th century that are so strong in this region, but with a few surprises that link it to a specific period of the middle part of the 20th century. Designed around art and furnishings of the mid-century so strong that the walls of the enclosure had to respond...not the least of which was a 1970 GTO convertible with its own garage.
The Kahn & Stanzel Building has served as one of the anchors the northwest corner of the Lavaca County Courthouse square in Hallettsville, Texas, since its construction in 1890. The two story stone Italianate, Neo-Grec and Romanesque Revival building today has been restored to its beginnings when it was designed by the famed Texas architect, James Riely Gordon. In November of 2014 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
...around 1950
We started in 1999. THe rear coner 1/4th of the building was brought down stone by stone and rebuilt exactly as it had been originally.
As difficult as the rear reconstruction, the repalcement of individual carved stones on the front resulted in sleepless nights for the 2 weeks or so the construction lasted on the east facade.
A steel armature was constructed that attached itself to the exterior. The srmature had to entirely support all of the stones in the wall above the springline of the arches in the transoms.
The armature had to provide both support for the stones above, but more importantly provide access the stones that needed to be replaced..a not so easy feat.
The interior of the first floor was almost already gutted before acquisition by the owner, however it did profide the clues necessary for its reconstruction.
The last piece, the exterior cornice, was in place finally in 2012.
A view of from the porch of the courthouse.
A view towards the rear of the building showing how it looks today.
A view towards the front of the building showing how it looks today.
Maybe the most essential parameter of Texas vernacular architecture and its geometry is the ease with which each succeeding generation or owner can add-on and make it their own. This house is undergoing its third--at least-- such transformation to accommodate its new family.
Jacob built one of the first, maybe the only, cast-in-place concrete houses in southeast in 1913 for his new bride Annie. Annie soon kicked him out and he moved another little abode 12' away, with their front doors facing each other. Observed from afar for years, the owner finally purchased and began the transformation of the little buildings into a compound of spaces inundated with grandchildren today. The supreme directive--make it look like it could have been there always, use old and recycled materials with very few exceptions and none visible to the exterior..well except the cement pond.
Jacob's front door from Annie's porch
The first addition was a bathroom/kitchenette to Jacob's house in 1996. The silo is a shower.
inside Jacob's bathroom
A master Plan was developed in 2005.
the relocated old garage was elevated and turned in the "Sleeping Porch"...watch your head
the silo is the bathroom
inside the silo
the "Party Barn soon followed in 2008
This little cottage constructed from local sandstone began its life in the 1850's. It was painstakingly restored by its new owners and simply furnished with period furniture to create a weekend retreat with not too much and everything.
A tricky addition to a potentially historic building. A mid-century modern townhome abutted on both sides and a part of a potentially historic group of homes that in the beginning were of a very singular and simple ethic and execution. At best you don't compete and you don't copy. The worldwide accepted ethics of historic preservation, addition and adaptive-use say do those things you need and want but maintain the integrity of the form, scale, fenestration (openings) and materials of the original. There should be contrast between old and new--so that there might be no questions as to which is which.
A most thoughtful and insightful caregiver for the mind looks inside her own mind to gain a new language for expression in painting. To create a space that might foster that inspiration is always a great challenge. A new way to enclose a space seemed necessary and perhaps the experiment paid off.
I had always thought this shape created a unique and perfect space and certainly the modern day version of the Quonset Hut is a very economical way to get it on the ground. The clients had heretofore created such a delicate intervention in the landscape, it seemed best to site an unusual enclosure in the thicket all to itself.
Given the requirements of guest house and studio the decision was to let the program "collide with the structure and see what space were created. The owners subsequently created a delightful garden to surround the building with its own world view.
Okay--we played a bit at the end.
A grand expression of the owners' lifetime of pent-up desires and world wide collecting. I just tried to stay one step ahead to provide structure, reason and coherence. A small partition of a world famous, high hill country ranch, we hoped to just have it rise out of the landscape. All the stone was collected from within a mile of the structure.
This house began as a one room log cabin near what would become Flatonia, sometime before the Civil War. Through the nineteenth century it added rooms twice until around the turn of the century the log room was buried beneath a skin of the late Victorian period. In danger of being razed, a family with great foresight and fortitude took on the huge task of moving it 45 miles to north of Round Top to begin a new life that will take it well into the 21st century.
This is the house inits original foundation still very much unchanged by anything but age since the turn of the 20th century.
It is rare these days to find a house that is still sitting on its original foundation. In this case, sandstone piers.
More times than not the roof and small and protruding additions have to be removed to make a house able to be moved any distance at all. Months later and over bridge and dale it sits in a new foundation ready to be put back together.
While the house is separated and moved a vision of what the house will look like when finished
The plan is to place the old summer kitchen in the same proximate location as the original site and connect it to the main house. The diminutive building will then be re-utilizied as the new master bath. The hallway connecting them will be the same pitch and proportions and the original back rooms but be just framing and glass to open views to the lake from the new master bedroom and log room library.
The old kitchen had extensive restoration to be done as it was last used by a pair of nest turkey vultures. Documentation and measurements of the structure before the move was not met kindly by the former tenants.
The finished master bath from the north side. The silo on the side is the shower.
The master bath with the finished connector hallway also in place. It is almost as transparent as the "al fresco" walk had originally been on a trip to the kitchen, but heating and air-conditioning have been great modern accomplishments.
In the beginning the hallway provided new access to the master bath, but in the future it would become circulation for future additions.
the original rooms along the north wall were almost certainly added in the late 19th century, but were only 5 1/2 ft. at the plate and they had to be removed to make the house moveable. in the picture below they are the shed addition on the left of the porch.
The idea for the hallway was to make is fundamental and transparent as possible. The framing and its connections are all exposed much in the same way a log structure has its connections exposed. Special stainless steel connectors were fabricated for their task.
This picture shows the hallway from the exterior and the one below shows the interior.
The restored log room would become the library and a circulation hallway.
A look inside the old kitchen before the move...and after the vultures had been evicted. an interesting detail on the dividing wall between the two rooms had been painted over. A vertical board & batt for a sort, but the battens were custom cut tin strips folded to slip into the groves between boards and flanged to be nailed to each side. This wall was restored and is shown in the picture below.
Phase One: Restoration of the main house and Phase Two: master Bath and Connectore Hallway are complete
Phase Three to come. Every farm needs a Barn, doesn't it?
Jim..I have this metal building and garage that I stay at when I come up to the farm. My wife...won't come with me to stay here. Can we tear this down and build something she will tolerate. Well...what if we kept the building? Huh...I don't know about that...
The first four images are at completion of construction.
The rest of the images 15 years later.
