VIEWS FROM EVERY ROOM
Modern Hill Country home takes advantage of bluff
Perched high on a bluff overlooking wide expanses of wooded Texas Hill Country, a new home in Cordillera Ranch has taken the classic limestone house and turned it on its head.
With walls of glass framed by thick black metal, sharp-cut limestone stacked more like bricks than a patchwork quilt and minimal, stark furnishings, the modern, 7,300-square-foot, four-bedroom home keeps it simple so that nothing interrupts the views captured in every room. And there’s not a trophy head in sight.
Working with architect Jim Terrian of J. Terrian Designs, the homeowners, who requested their names not be used in this story, oriented the house and its rooms to follow the curve of the bluff, capturing views of more than 180 degrees of the surrounding countryside through the house in the high-end Kendall County resort community north of San Antonio.
The home was just completed in September after 12 months of planning and 18 months of actual building.
Perhaps the most obvious difference between the home and more traditional Hill Country dwellings is the use of limestone from the area around Lueders, north of Abilene.
“Lueders limestone is more gray than brown like traditional limestone,” said Trey Garner, owner of
Garner Homes, which built the house. That grayish undertone makes the stones appear more white than their yellowy Hill Country cousins. “So it’s more up-to-date. You don’t see a lot of it around here, but it’s a great color for a modern scheme.”
Also, the large limestone bricks used for the home’s exterior, the interior foyer and the fireplace, are all coursed, meaning they’ve been cut to all be the same height, so there’s a straight line along the mortar joints. This, Garner explained, means they can be stacked more like bricks, instead of being fitted together in a jumble like in a lot of limestone buildings.
“It has a much cleaner look,” Garner said. Adding to that clean, modern feeling are the lightcolored floors throughout the house, as well as ceilings that rise anywhere from 12 to 18 feet high.
But it’s all about the views. The entryway and living room are basically an all-glass box, meaning that visitors have an immediate view inside the home and all the way through to the woods on the other side as they approach the house.
Inside, virtually every room — including the three guest rooms and the two home offices — has large windows and has been oriented to provide impressive Hill Country views.
At the center of the house, the great room has the living room, dining room and kitchen in a single, large open space. But there’s an unusual twist: the patio is located outside the kitchen instead of the more typical location off the living room to keep the views from the living and dining rooms uninterrupted.
“We had a lot of discussion about this,” Garner said. “We set the patio outside the kitchen and left the area outside the living and dining rooms open so you can see the full sky. The view’s not limited by a porch ceiling.”
The large, airy kitchen has dark cabinets echoing the black metal framing of the nearby walls of windows and a large, marbletopped central island with plenty of space around it. According to Garner, the owners, who split their time between Texas and Southern California, wanted there to be enough room so that one person could easily pass another without having to squeeze by.
The butler’s pantry behind the kitchen, fairly hidden but accessible by open doorways on both sides, also impresses. This “back kitchen” serves as a pantry and has open shelving for small appliances and a small library’s worth
of cookbooks and cabinets for china and tableware. It has another island with a sink providing additional prep space perfect for entertaining.
Project manager Jennie Briggs said the owners wanted the open shelving for easy access and so things wouldn’t get lost or forgotten like they would stored behind closed cabinet doors. But while everything is accessible from the back kitchen, none of it is visible from the living areas of the home.
The covered patio includes two facing porch swings, a seating area with a couch and chairs, and a well-appointed kitchen with sink, refrigerator, grill and pizza oven. There’s a handsome infinity pool in the middle area with a combination of large concrete stepping stones and an ipe wood deck.
“The site is elevated, so there’s always a nice breeze to keep the bugs away,” Garner said. “And if not, there are motorized screens that drop down to make this a fully screened-in porch.”
In the master suite on one side of the house, the homeowners’ bedroom is surprisingly small and spartan, measuring 16 feet by 19 feet and with just a bed, a linear fireplace and a television. But this is very on-trend, according to Briggs.
“We’re seeing many more clients tell us they only want enough space to sleep,” she said. “Instead of a separate seating area, they want to use that extra square footage where the entire family can use it.”
Some of that extra space went to the master bath, where there are two large, separate vanities and two show-stopping, walk-in closets, with shelving that seems to disappear in the distance, marble topped islands and windows to let in plenty of natural light.
Extra space was also given to the two long hallways that radiate out from the front foyer, the hallway walls serving as galleries for the couple’s impressive and extensive collection of photographs. Some are photos they’ve taken themselves while others are works from masters of the art.
The artwork collection goes beyond the hallway galleries. In one bedroom, for example, is a print of Marilyn Monroe signed and numbered by famed photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt.
Cordillera Ranch has a strict architectural approval process for homes. Yet this Modern Hill Country house style has a fresh, modern feel while still adhering to the rules, according to Terrian, the architect.
“We used materials that are similar, but with slight differences to those used in other homes in the area,” he said. “The Lueders limestone, the almost floor-toceiling windows and the metal components together give it a more modern, almost resort-style look.”
Together they make the home the perfect area to sit back, relax and enjoy that view.