Look inside mystery house on Austin AIA Homes Tour to see how two architectural eras meet
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From the road, Dan and Sylvia Sharplin’s household appears to be like a freshly painted and landscaped 1915 cottage overlooking the expanding modern downtown below.
Located in the Castle Hill Regional Historic District west of Lamar Boulevard and section of the West Line Countrywide Historic Sign up District in Aged West Austin, the property maintains some of its quirkiness in its off-center front doorway, and its appeal in the in depth geometric window muntins.
Behind that very carefully preserved entrance exterior, however, is an expansive contemporary house with all the creature comforts of the 21st century. The home is on this year’s AIA Austin Houses Tour, place together by the Austin chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
This year, the tour options nine properties, all of which can be seen nearly and three of which can be noticed in-individual. This property, made by LaRue Architecture and built by Foursquare Builders, is one particular of the three readily available to see in particular person.
Best assets, not house
The Sharplins found this house in 2016. Sylvia’s now a actual estate agent, and Dan’s the govt chairman of FlashParking. They desired to move out of the suburbs into a close-in house, but acquiring an readily available whole lot or a home that had room to be up-to-date was a obstacle. They found this home and were being bought on the see.
“You will find not an additional house like this that has this kind of see in this community,” Sylvia Sharplin claims.
It was not for sale, but they started conversing to the proprietor, a girl in her 80s who experienced developed up in the property and put in a lot more than 50 years there.
They talked to her about their really like of the house and their wish to give it a new daily life. They observed them selves as being the stewards of this house. They would have to preserve the entrance façade, as was required because of the home’s inclusion in the Castle Hill Nearby Historic District.
The Sharplins experienced never ever even been within when the owner agreed to enable them obtain the house, and they gave her time to steadily transfer whilst they invested a yr performing with architect Jim LaRue on making the prepare for the house.
The earlier owner left at the rear of treasures with the household: About 300 Life journals from the 1950s and ’60s, an original carved hearth mantel and a chandelier, which ended up both equally at first in the Driskill Hotel. The Sharplins had the journal handles scanned and printed their favorites on glass, which now hang as artwork on a wall by a staircase.
The mantel was reconfigured and turned the self-importance for the powder area sink. The chandelier was cleaned up and downsized to turn out to be a assertion lights fixture in that powder room.
Inside of also have been surprises: The unique shiplap walls, wooden flooring and original lumber experienced some substantial problems, including from fire and h2o. The Sharplins saved what they could of the flooring and shiplap walls and marketed them to a corporation that specializes in salvaging supplies. They saved the entrance home windows, but significantly of the rest of the dwelling could not be saved and experienced to be rebuilt.
The moment inside of, they also uncovered that the residence had a handful of poorly executed additions, including a finished attic home. They preferred their personal additions to the original footprint to feel like they flowed from the entrance entrance — which alone feels pretty of the 1915-era — to the 21st-century place that opens up from the foyer.
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Aged produced modern
When people look up at the dwelling from Lamar Boulevard, they see the aspect profile of a fashionable dwelling of glass and metal. This normally can be bewildering, nevertheless, because when another person then comes on their road and sees a easy cottage front, they cannot determine out where the present day property went. I moved this graf up/EW
As soon as they locate it and enter the lobby, they’ll locate a nod to the first property, with a recreated look of shiplap walls in a lively blue.
The foyer is deceiving, also. People will ask the Sharplins: Where are the rooms they observed from the avenue? The walls cover two doorways that match the wooden partitions on possibly aspect of the room. Just one leads to an office, the other to a guest bed room with a full rest room. Each of these rooms have just one of the home’s original ornate windows that encounter the street.
The moment attendees leave this region, the fashionable home opens up with Texas mesquite floors a big wall of glass doors and windows in the living home that provide the town view a contemporary kitchen and a doorway to a second visitor bed room. Each of the guest loos element terrazzo flooring and counters.
The glass doors in the residing home totally open up to produce an indoor/outdoor dwelling house with the patio and pool. “We sit out right here a large amount,” Sylvia Sharplin states.
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The Sharplins seem down on a bustling Lamar, and men and women can search up and see their household, but not see inside it.
“It can be wonderful how substantially privateness we have,” Sylvia Sharplin claims.
“Considering we are sitting in the center of city,” LaRue states of the household.
Even while the house is now nearly 4,000 square ft, it however remains “the appropriate dimensions for the neighborhood,” LaRue claims.
“We crafted this dwelling like it belonged right here,” he claims.
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A position for particulars
For the interiors, the Sharplins selected a clean palette of off-white walls and grey accents in tile or cabinetry as a blank slate to not compete with the city sights. The dwelling place functions a grey stone hearth which is sleek and minimal on a single wall. The strains of the hearth are mirrored in the cabinetry in the kitchen throughout from the living home area of this open up floor prepare.
In each individual room, the Sharplins picked exciting lights fixtures that come to be signature art pieces. In the kitchen area, they also picked rows of unique colored tile to develop a pop in the backsplash and beneath the island.
They also added desire in a wine rack wall that blocks the see of the staircase leading down to the decrease degree. Throughout the wine rack and viewable by way of its fixtures is the wall of Lifestyle journal handles.
The Sharplins normally entertaine. Off the kitchen, they created a butler’s pantry total with whole appliances and lots of counter space that also qualified prospects to the laundry area.
LaRue was very mindful of not seeking to be capable to search straight from the entryway to a extended hallway into a bed room. Instead, soon after the kitchen area, he made a wall that blocks that lengthy perspective. The hallway normally takes a jag to the grasp suite.
Exterior the suite, LaRue designed a distinctive vestibule for a grandfather clock that was a wedding day present for the couple.
The master suite has two whole walls of windows that have the best views in the residence. A gray wall therapy on the wall at the rear of the headboard and grey window remedies that fully wrap about the home windows develop the truly feel of a lavish cocoon when closed.
The learn lavatory capabilities stone floors, yellow onyx walls and marble counters.
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The correct home for a extensive time
Each and every action of the way, when a determination had to be manufactured, the Sharplins went back to their mantra: “Let’s build the ideal dwelling we can,” Sylvia Sharplin says.
They also crafted it to be one particular that they could dwell in for a extended time and one that would adapt with them. The house is two stories with a decreased stage that has a garage, a bedroom and an exercise room. They intended the property to age-in-place or just take care of an ageing relative. The lessen-amount bed room can serve as a space for dwell-in support. An elevator can get them from the garage to the main level with out needing to use staircases. Flush thresholds, hardwood flooring and vast doorways make it obtainable in a wheelchair or with a walker.
Because the residence is constructed into the hill, it is really a engineering feat of hidden composition. 1 location in which the composition is unveiled is in the wall of the lower level patio by the exercise home, where by the concrete pour came out so properly, LaRue chose not to conceal it.
The construction and the amounts of depth in this property took time to realize. It was concluded in February 2020.
“We made the decision what we wanted it to be,” Sylvia Sharplin says. “We obtained almost everything we preferred. I enjoy this residence.”
AIA Austin Residences Tour
Nine residences are on the tour, but only 3 will be available to see in human being.
In-person tour: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 16
Virtual tours of all nine homes: Several moments Oct. 15 and 17
Tickets: $25 digital only, $50 virtual additionally in individual
Details: aiaaustinhomestour.com
