An imaginative couple relocated to Texas from the Boston area, where they could design a house set off the street on a knoll surround by trees and a rock outcrop. They wanted a house like no other, with golden boulders rising, as if out of the ground, rolled, pushed and stacked by men with sturdy backs!
The quest for the ideal stone became a patient search leading to the California coast. They wanted house from ages past, reinterpreting history. A site with trees and views suggests large windows, capturing dapple light.
The gothic arches became a presiding architectural element. The doors were conformed to the arches with great study and care. The inspiration for the windows, was a seventeenth century Irish manor, refined detail brought to bear on a rough hewn building. The doors, that were not arched, retained a gothic pattern in the transom, several windows used a similar configuration. Steel casements were used throughout the house between rock and timber both bed chamber, scullery and dormer. The delicate steel windows, with an internal strength, were a counter point to the massive uneven rocks. Not an installation for the faint of heart. The best way to flood light in to an otherwise dark entry is to build an massive bay window on the main stair. The eighteen foot tall bay makes the view of the impending rock outcrop dramatic. The window has strength by virtue of its size and refinement and scale by virtue of its light pattern. In the custom, of English glazing a small operating sash is operable on the lower far left. The client requested the window have a lavender tint.
This case study is based on architectural comment and submitted entry photography for recent entry in our Crittall Architectural Prize
