Living room

Native Texans and married designers Elizabeth Alford and Michael Young came home to roost 10 years ago, when they ditched big-city life in New York for a ranch house in Austin. The couple immediately knew that the home, originally built by architect Jonathan Bowman in 1957, would need a remodel, but realized that a complete restoration would be too costly and perhaps "not that satisfying" for the designers to work solely within the existing structure. So they stripped it down to the footprint and rebuilt, shaping a family home that would reflect both the hypermodern lives they left in New York City and the deep-rooted cultural heritage that comes with growing up in Texas.