The Elephant in the Room
Economy at its finest
Words by Jessica Devenyns Photos by Leonid Furmansky
Everything comes with a price; for Sean Guess, that was 50K dollars.
Although Guess is the owner and principal architect at Faye and Walker Architecture, like many Austinites, owning his dream home became a question of finding balance between finances and creativity. However, life happens and after years of living in a one-bedroom apartment on South Congress with his wife and two children and an office squeezed in Tetris style, Guess knew that it was time to upgrade. But first, he had to reimagine his idea of a dream home on a $50K budget for a piece of land, hopefully as central to downtown Austin as possible.
As an architect, Guess figured the solution was to take a piece of land that everybody else overlooked and reimagine the space. Eventually, he found his answer within East Austin in the Montopolis neighborhood.
Today, on the busy corner of 183 and Montopolis rises a monolithic structure that silently stares out into the continuous flow of traffic just south of the Colorado River. Encased in corrugated fiber cement, the Elephant House earned its name from the texture of its walls which play with light and shadow. In fact, it was this material that inspired the entire construction of the home. “It really just compelled me to make the form of the house quite simple,” explains Guess.
From the outside, this simplistic form has echoes of the past: its presence on the property seeming ancient despite only standing for two years. At roughly 3,000 square feet, the home spans three floors which are stacked on top of one another before smoothly draping upwards into a pitched roof. The simplicity continues throughout the house where the walls are lined in pine plywood that gives an airy quality to the already incredibly open space. Guess is a proponent of foregoing doors. “Doors are always open, so why have a door?” he shrugs.
Welcoming guests into the home is a ground floor that consists of rooms dedicated to what Guess calls “public living.” Similar to his indifference to doors, he is adamantly opposed to shutting his family off from the outside world, so the expansive windows that encircle the kitchen/dining/living area offer an uncovered view to the world.
On the second story, the family lives more privately as each of their rooms feature Luis Barragán-inspired window shutters. The hallway is a communal space where the walls are lined with a banquette of desks that house a colorful explosion of arts and crafts. The third level is a multi-purpose, sunny space that doubles as the children’s playroom and Guess’s at-home architecture studio where he and his staff of two spend their days.
Surprisingly, this carefully orchestrated home was constructed at $140-per-square foot for materials and labor, making this an incredibly economical approach to a design-build concept. That’s exactly what Guess is interested in providing. “Economical architecture,” he says, “is to have great architecture, but not have it cost money for the sake of complexity.” Having that discussion, however, is addressing the ‘elephant’ in the Austin property market.
Contact:
fayeandwalker.com
sean@fayeandwalker.com
