Deep Eddy: A modern downsize for a couple leaving 6,000 square feet
New constructionAustin, TexasPublished Updated
Deep Eddy is a modern new-construction home in Austin for an empty-nester couple downsizing from a 6,000-square-foot traditional house. Barley Pfeiffer Architecture designed it and Risinger Homes built it. Cravotta Interiors made the smaller house feel as considered as the one they left.
The brief
The couple wanted to live closer to the hike-and-bike trail along Lady Bird Lake, in a home that was modern, open and easy to maintain. They were also changing style, leaving a traditional aesthetic they had lived in for years. They loved color. The work was to make the new house as intentional as everything they were leaving, without recreating it.
Scope
Interiors for the new house, developed with the architect and builder: materials, the fireplace wall, color, furnishings and the plan for how the rooms flow.
The design
“We focused on being efficient with space and on traffic patterns,” Mark Cravotta told Austin Home. In a smaller house, circulation matters more.
The living room fireplace wall is black granite with vertical oak strips dyed black. It works as a piece of sculpture and anchors the room whether the fire is lit or not.
Color appears in careful doses. The owners love it, so each use is deliberate, and the house stays modern and relatively quiet around it. Every material was chosen to hold up to an active life and still look like a decision was made.
Austin Home featured the house in Summer 2017 as “No Small Change.”
- Collaborators
- Architect: Barley Pfeiffer Architecture. Builder: Risinger Homes (Matt Risinger).
- Press
- Austin Home, Summer 2017, “No Small Change.”