AIA San AntonioIgnacio Salas-Humara, Cielito Lindo HousePoteet Architects/FAB Architecture's Capps Loft

LoftyWords.com is dedicated to Loft Spaces and Urban Living, but from time to time, you come across a rural/suburban home so noteworthy that you feel a moral imperative to share it with the rest of the world. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the AIA Home Tour in San Antonio, Texas, where I viewed two such noteworthy projects from three impressive architects. The first, by Ignacio Salas-Humara, from Lopez/Salas Architects, Cielito Lindo House, and the second from Poteet Architects/FAB Architecture's Capps Loft project . The following are my impressions of Ignacio Salas-Humara's Cielito Lindo House.

Ignacio Salas-Humara is one of the most talented, nationally recognized, architects working in Central Texas. This week I had the pleasure of viewing his most recent work in Boerne, Texas, the Cielito Lindo House.

Driving up to the multiacre hill country house, you get a sense of his wonderful use of color as the pumpkins and purples of the house compliment and harmonize with the scrubby Texas hill-country in autumn. Ignacio's simple yet playful take is a central cube, pinned by a cylinder projecting, off-center, from the top of the house. This playfulness continues throughout the house, teasing you to expect cubes or common square rooms within, yet he has turned the axis of the interior of the house, so that each room only has one 90° angled wall on the exterior corners.

Upon entering the house, you focus on a small central hallway that visually impresses as it opens to a central turret housing the dining room, and further on the right to an expansive living room that somehow still feels warm and comfortable. His use of the cylinder or turret in the center of the house allows not only the dining room on the first floor, but also a large home office and library on the second floor adjacent to the master bedroom. The hallway splitting the second story runs directly above the first floor hallway, and focuses ones complete attention out and down the gallery, outside across 40 feet of piered deck, ending in a small second story guest room overlooking the icy blue pool framed in the warm and dusty Central Texas Hill Country.

Ignacio, bravo! To another Great House!

To view the work of Lopez/Salas Architects click over to www.lopezsalas.com, or click below to view more pictures of Cielito Lindo House.

Comments

[Hart, R. E.]

Is the fire place a nod to the Roman aquaduct architects?

[Hart, R. E.]

Is the fire place a nod to the Roman aquaduct architects?

[Bunnie Lee Moore]

I am privileged to know Ignacio personally and he is not only talented but also a man of integrity. It is a pleasure to see him recognized this way.

[Ignacio Salas-Humara]

Dear Mr. Hart,
It's amazing, but you are the first person to recognize that the design of the fireplace is indeed influenced by my affinity for and study of the architecture of Roman aqueducts. In this case it's the aqueduct in Segovia, Spain. Well done!

[Thomas G. Odiorne]

I have had the pleasure recently of meeting and working with Ignacio on some initial plans on a potential remodeling project in Comfort Texas. I am pleased to see someone appreciate his work as he is a very deserving individual, not only professionally, but personally.

Thomas G. Odiorne
President, Dimension Custom Homes