By Diane Mehta | Aug/Sept 09 | 

Natural Formation

Texas architect Trey Rabke reimagines his family's country getaway, tying the design firmly to the land around it 

Rabke then chose a layout that would allow the house’s interior to feel open to nature. In his interpretation of the classic Texas dogtrot (a Southern style of breezeway that connects two buildings of a house, one usually being a kitchen), Rabke put the kitchen in the breezeway space instead, screened it in, and equipped it with rolling glass doors for the cold-weather months. The adjacent bedrooms and lofts have the screen and glass door treatment too, which makes sleeping inside like sleeping outside—minus the bugs. “It’s like elevated camping,” he says, laughing.

Even the materials used to build and decorate the house bring familiar regional details inside, from the native cypress used in construction, right down to bathtubs made from galvanized water troughs, and door hardware from the local farm and ranch supply.

Rabke’s final touch was an exterior arbor planted with fast-growing wisteria that will one day cover it entirely, an addition that will allow the arbor to blend just as seamlessly into the green space around it as the rest of the house. The arbor also provides shelter after a long day on the river, complete with a wooden outdoor shower and storage nooks for fishing gear.

But above all else, the new house has the same sense of family as the first cabin. Only now, the eight adults and seven children tramping through at any given time (including Rabke’s son, Cypress, and daughter, Meriwether) are part of a new generation spending weekend after weekend swimming, fishing, eating, and falling asleep to the sound of night unfolding outside.