Collection by Adam Brodsley
Living room
The living room is five steps down from the kitchen and office space and features textured black slate tile from Olympia Tile, Voyage Immobile sofas with Farniente collection upholstery (a wedding present from Flanders’s mother) by Roche Bobois, and a rug from Turkmenistan the couple picked up in Jerusalem. The sliding glass doors are by Loewen and the glazing above is by Inline Fiberglass. Sawatzky relied on Wayne Arsenault for the custom millwork and carpentry.
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.
“The primary architectural strategy was to connect the exterior entry, primary interior living spaces, and exterior patio as a continuous spatial experience,” Hutchison says. Fleetwood Windows & Doors supplied the sliding pane to the outdoors. A crescent sectional by Camerich sits across from a custom steel-plate fireplace designed by Hutchison.
The larger volume of the addition, consisting of kitchen, living, and dining spaces, loops around to the smaller bedroom through a wooden passage. The same ipe, with differing finishes, is used for both the interior and exterior. Expansive sliding glass doors by Fleetwood dramatically open up the living space to the outdoors.
Although most radiant-heating systems are gas-powered, these ground-cement floors take the chill off with an electric warming system. Locally harvested cedar ceilings warm up the room and reach out to the matching siding, which was finished with a nontoxic bleaching oil to first speed, then arrest, the natural fading process.


















