Terrace Mountain Residence

Terrace Mountain Residence is set on the site of an abandoned structure atop a limestone bluff overlooking the Texas Hill Country and distant Austin skyline. The house reuses the existing driveway and portions of the original retaining walls, minimizing disturbance to the hillside and mature trees. The steep terrain and seasonal springs that emerge from limestone outcroppings informed a cascading sequence of water elements descending the hillside as vessel, reflecting pond, and pool before returning to the natural creek below. The 5,000-sf house, which bridges this water garden, comprises two interlocking systems: limestone volumes embedded into the hillside and a lighter glass-and-wood structure cantilevered on slender steel columns. An exposed structural wood roof organizes light, structure, and space, while an irori-inspired hearth anchors the transparent living pavilion, framing water, valley, and skyline beyond.

“This is an elegant total composition of understanding a site and a site section, engaging that site section, and making every moment come together as a whole through materiality, light, discovery, and landscape. It’s a house that you want to live in. So many houses are done for show, but the totality of this—every moment inside, out, and around it—is about living and habitation and not about architecture for show.” —Everald Colas, AIA, NOMA

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