Industrial-Modern Vacation House on the edge of the piney woods
The clients for this house, descendants of a timber farming family, wanted a weekend house on their property in the Piney Woods. They imagined spending weekends and holidays year-round in a house suitable for three generations at once, including aging parents and children side-by-side.
The house, taking clues from the historic 'dogtrot' prototype, sets two bars (a two-story bedroom wing and a one-story living wing) straddling an open porch that buffers rowdiness at night and accommodates everyone for meals and games around the clock.
The porch is high, screened and louvered for breezes and against the sun in the summer, with operable translucent panels on the north side that close to deflect winter winds. The house, sited along the verge of the woods and the pasture, recalls the structure of the trees in its design while letting in filtered light (as in the woods) to interior spaces.
The house was the cover article for the "TexasArchitect" issue on East Texas. I have sense designed a renovation for the owners mid-century modern house in the city.
Paul Hester, Photographer