Major Remodel on Lake Travis

This was a very large remodel on Lake Travis where I drastically improved the views from the house by adding a second and third story. Mike Nash and Tim Packard liked to entertain, so I made their pool intricate to the design of their new house. The existing house was approximately 2,000 sq.ft which we kept, but the total house was 5,126 by the time we finished. We used the existing house as the “play area” (theater, game room etc). Because I had to work around an existing house, I didn’t have the freedom to put the structure where I wanted it. The house had no backyard (or well, a really small backyard). Whereas the front yard had a view to Lake Travis, so it was obvious we should put the new pool in the front yard.

However, I still wanted the house to have a formal and definitive entry. I decided we should have a waterfall and I worked it into the concept of the design. The house was what I call an upside down house (living kitchen and master above) I did this because I thought the views would be awesome from the second level and they indeed were. So anyway, if you were coming over to go to a party or you were an informal guest, you came up as if going to the entry, but before you got to the main entry, you walked across the waterfall via stepping stones in the water and then you were on the middle terrace which was even with the game room and the party area. However, if you were the UPS guy, or a formal guest, you wouldn’t know to cross the waterfall, so you just kept going up to the main entry which was halfway between the ground floor and the upper level. This meant that guest coming over for the party didn’t have to walk up to the entry just to walk back down to the party area.