After accepting a 12-week internship at a bakery in Marfa, Texas, Hannah Delagi—who was living in Austin at the time with her dog, Bernie—scrambled to find a place to rent. “I was messaging Airbnbs and people would say, ‘I can’t host you the whole time’ or ‘No pets allowed.’ It was all no's,” she says. A storied arts scene and fiery sunsets are drawing visitors en masse to the West Texas town, creating a lucrative short-term rental market for some and a shortage of housing for others.

Fortunately for Delagi, her search led her to Candid Rogers, a San Antonio–based architect interested in creating housing for permanent residents of Marfa. In 2015, he purchased two adjacent lots in the town’s West Heights neighborhood—one empty and one with an adobe casita that (naturally) he’d list on Airbnb when he wasn’t using it for creative respite. On visits over the years, Rogers noticed a growing need for long-term housing, so he developed the empty lot with two 360-square-foot homes (on paper, a principal dwelling and an accessory dwelling unit) that he now leases to community members like Delagi.

“Even though it’s small, it’s super versatile,” she says, mentioning how the living/kitchen area regularly becomes her yoga studio. Delagi’s place came furnished, so she pays more than her neighbor, name twin, and now pal, Hannah Lange, who moved from Houston with her dog, Cloudy, for an art gallery assistant position and met Rogers through a family friend. Lange’s monthly rent is $950, including utilities, about one-half to a third the cost of the other longer-term offerings found on Airbnb or Marfa List, if you can find one at all.

Given the nature of the rental market, Rogers realizes he could have scrapped together a lean-to and found a tenant, but he wanted to do more. “How can I make something healthy, comfortable, and resilient with minimum maintenance?” Rogers remembers wondering.

The Goat Heads—he named the buildings after a weed that pervaded the site—are made of inexpensive materials that reference ranch vernacular: poured concrete for the floors; corrugated metal siding in colors Rogers likens to the red sky at sunset and the turquoise of local flora after a late-summer rain; and timber and metal for the flat roofs. He splurged on Douglas fir to cover the interior walls and closed-cell insulation, which reduced the need for expensive heating and cooling systems.

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“I took a big pay cut to come here, and then I realized living costs were crazy. I’m so glad I met the owner. I don’t know what I would have done.”
—Hannah Lange, resident

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The two Hannahs often relax or eat dinner outside their units, where concrete breeze-block walls enclose small patios near the entry. Translucent polycarbonate panels at the front of each home bring light into the living/kitchen areas. At night, the panels glow softly under the dark desert sky.

“The light in Marfa is so incredible,” says Lange. “I don’t know what it is, but the sunrise and sunsets make the place look really stunning.” When she’s not up before dawn to get to the bakery, Delagi takes in the morning shine from bed: “The first thing I see is intense pinks and blues.”

Project Credits:

Design: Candid Works and J.W.G. Jerik Gilly

Structural Engineering: Dan Ray

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