THE DRIPPING SPRINGS USONIAN
A chronicle of our "adventure" building a
Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Usonian home
in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas.
Bercy Chen Studio Concept
My Sketch.
Reality.
It all started in 2012.
My husband and I both attended the University of Texas
and had grown to love the beautiful Hill Country west of Austin.
Our quiet Cypress home was no longer in the country.
The city and the noise had moved to us.
We should move into our new home in 2024.
Took 11 years to find property, find an architect and build.
Who would have thought it would be so hard.
2012 • 2014 • 2015 • 2016 • 2017
2018 • 2019
• 2020 • 2021 • 2022 • 2023
2023-2025
I used to use COVID as our excuse.
It is so hard to move all that stuff
we have collected and inherited over the past 30 years.
We have actually spent the night there a few times.
Things keep interrupting us but I plan to make it in 2025.
2022
August, 2022
My grandmother's dining room is home.
Living Room is only missing the couch.
28 April, 2022
Can't have a Frank Lloyd Wright style house without a baby grand piano.
Living Room with my grandmother's Baby Grand
Fireplace on the right.
9 February, 2022
A look on the inside.
View through Living room windows.
Stickers removed. Shiny recessed plugs in the floor.
Fireplace on the right.
Kitchen
Pendant lights in kitchen.
Contractor mess still on island.
Kitchen Counter Top & Switch Plate
Close up of kitchen countertop with white tile
back splash, my craftsman styled switch plate and
WilsonArt's Rock 'N Roll Ruby Red
Retro Boomarang Linoleum.
Dining Room
Electrinstalling the Artichoke Lamp.
The dining room table will be under it.
You get a good look at the recessed lighting
on the vaulted ceiling.
13 January, 2022
Getting there. What you can see from the road.
Front steps, front door.
I have "photoshopped" the stickers off the
livingroom windows
and doors to give a better idea what it will look like.
What a view through all those windows.
Looking from the Living Room toward the Bedroom Wing.
Dining room windows on left.
East end of house, our bedroom.
Looking West along the View Side of House.
2021
22 December, 2021
Finishing the Interior.
Wood burning fireplace (in case of grid failure).
Countertop with WilsonArt's
Retro Ruby Red Rock 'N Rock Laminent.
Too much in the way to show you the whole kitchen.
This is just a small counter cabinet with the great countertop.
I love it.
Entertainment unit in the "Nook" just off of the Living Room.
Still have not cleaned the stickers off the windows.
Over 20 feet of storage space.
I am so looking forward to this.
Master Bath.
Master Walk-In Closet.
30 November, 2021
View side looking at Living Room with floor to ceiling windows.
Looking at West side of house. Left row of 4 windows is my studio.
Fireplace with decking above. Will be recessed lighting.
Windows open to the view.
Front porch with steps. Stone cladding.
Road side view of house showing clerestory windows down hallway.
24 feet of hallway storage.
8 September, 2021
Windows Are In!
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Looking up from view side at living room.
Still so much trash in the way.
Left photo is looking straight out of the living room
Right photo is looking to the corner of the living room.
You can just see the fireplace in the far right edge.
8 August, 2021
Red Roof Finished at Last.
Red steel roof is finally done.
The house sides will be covered with stone.
Front door goes here.
Lots of extra lumber piled on red concrete steps.
8 July, 2021
Things are moving slow. Lots of supply delays.
Windows are being installed. The Andersen Windows look
as beautiful as they did in the show rooms.
Half windows on wall next to front door.
You can see right through to the view.
Windows for Guest Bedroom and William's Office
on South Side (view side) of house.
31 May, 2021
Getting the Roof On.
Hate the look of the house with the insulation wrap
but that is where we are right now.
The exterior stone is supposed to arrive soon.
Partial Roof.
Road side view of Master Bedroom with Roof.
3 March, 2021
Progress Dispite the Weather.
View side (south) of house.
North side (road side) view.
Road side view of Master Bedroom.
Dining room with view. Hallway that will have cabinets on right side.
29 January, 2021
Beginning to Look Like a House. View of South Side.
They are going to have to trim the tree.
Red concrete front steps.
10 January, 2021
It snowed in Dripping Springs.
A neighbor-to-be took these photos for us.
View downhill to barn.
Detail showing "tower" and "chimney"
with some "photoshop" help.
2020
28 December, 2020
As 2020 comes to an end
we are beginning to have something
that looks like a house.
Steel being welded to roof structure.
You can see the low profile of the roof.
November, 2020
Looking down the "hallway" toward the living room.
You can see the red concrete floor.
10 October, 2020
New photos from architect. All steel beams in place.
Front steps marked in center of photo. Garage wall in front of you,
Edge of eaves overhang on North side.
East end of house. Master Suite.
18 September, 2020
New photos from architect. More steel beams in place.
Beginning to look like something.
Front steps on right. Worker at left givs proportions.
Looking from front steps toward bedroom suite of house.
View from Master Suite end of house. See beams for broad eaves.
Looking from hillside north of house.
8 August, 2020
Concrete has been scored. Steel beams in place.
Plywood covers the floor to protect it during contruction.
10 July, 2020
Red concrete foundation/floor has been poured.
26 March, 2020
Layout of the house,
forms created in preparation for
concrete foundation.
Papers signed. Money has changed hands.
Grading is to start on Monday, February 24, 2020.
Met with Bercy Chen's representative last week and
went over the construction schedule. It is going to happen.
Time for me to get busy picking out faucets, fixtures,
sinks, countertops, tile, etc.
Watch this space. I hope to have some photos of the progress soon.
2019
Finally in December of 2019 we have gotten a green light
from a bank to have a construction loan. Seems to be a problem
getting a loan if you are retired no matter how much colateral
you have. Anyway, at last we are to schedule a closing
after Christmas. The earth will move when we sign, I know.
Ever since June of 2018 we have been seeking financing.
After all we had been through we decided it would be better
to take out a mortgage and a construction loan
than pay cash for everything.
Never did we understand how difficult
that might be for two retirees.
2018
Monday, August 13, 2018
So far we have a barn, a road to the site,
electricity, a water well and
a septic system which runs to the barn.
I now have a half bath in the barn and do not have to
drive 20 minutes for a bathroom break.
But no house.
We have a neighbor who is a Hydrologist,
a water engineer. We visited with him about what the architects
and their engineers were saying. He gave us other ideas.
So we hired our own hydrologist. He surveyed the land
and said, "if you rotate the house 10 degrees you don't need
a retaining wall. The architects differed. Our engineer explained.
A new drainage system was designed. New costs.
Now we are two retirees with lots of assests
looking for financing of a one-of-a-kind house.
2017
Things were moving forward until Hurricane Harvey.
Our house in Cypress nearly flooded.
The garage and the enclosed patio got some water
in them but the house itself did not.
Thank goodness.
We had put furniture up on bricks and had moved everything out
of low shelves. (I am still trying to find things.)
Nothing can ever be stored in a cardboard box again.
After Harvey my concern turned to the water flow
down our hillside. We had already gone through extensive
discussions about building a retaining wall. The price was
out of this world and it was ugly. I did not want it.
2016
In the meantime we had been working out the plans with
Bercy Chen Studio, LLP.
Trying to keep the house under 2500 square feet was hard.
We wanted 3 bedrooms: a master suite, a guest bedroom
and the third that would double as William's office.
Part of the FLW Usonian ideal is a red concrete floor.
Finding someone who understood
what Integral Color meant was difficult.
The color had to be in the concrete, not on top.
Finding someone who could do it. Hard.
Finally we found a company.
Easier was finding someone who could supply 2' wide
floor to ceiling windows and matching french doors.
Andersen fit the bill. They could also supply
1' x 4' clerestory windows that rim the hallway
on the north side, the public side of the house.
It was add here, take-away there.
What I have to have vs.
what we can afford.
Everything had to be on the same level.
No stairs inside of the house.
Every doorway has to be 36" wide.
I don't want to have to move out
because one of us is in a wheelchair.
So, in August , 2016, we finally got our own road.
August 30, 2016, we meet with PEC
(Perdernales Elecric Company)
to get poles and electricity hooked up.
Bee Caves Water Well Drilling and
a septic company both came out to the site.
THE BARN
We have a barn which we organized.
They put it up in 2 days once the foundation was poured.
Yes, I have a concrete hallway and tack room floor.
We finished out the tackroom, added a ceiling
and a half bath with a sink and toilet.
Nice and cozy.
The idea was to get everything worked out on paper
before construction started. That way we wouldn't be
knocking out a wall that had just been built.
But dealing with engineers and architects on paper
has been just as bad.
You make a change from their idea and they have to
re-do everything again, call out the structural engineers
and re-survey the property, all of which the owner has to pay for.
Their answer, of course, is that we are novices at this.
How many houses does one build in a lifetime?
2015
In July, 2015 we went to Bercy Chen Studio,
the firm that had started the Lakeway Usonian
and signed a contract to design our Usonian.
This has been a learning experience.
Building on raw land is not like building in town.
Though we have a Property Owners Association (POA)
and a gate and a hardtop road to our property,
we had no road to our building site.
In order to get an address we needed a road.
In order to get electricity brought in
(from across the road) we needed our own road.
In order to get the engineers' report
we needed our own road.
2014
After 2-1/2 years of looking and many exhausted realtors
in November of 2014 we found the spot.
We had driven out to Fredericksburg
just for fun.
We looked at the galleries
and had some German food
and found another real estate agent
who took us to see
a propery in Las Colinas Ranch, a POA
just west of Dripping Springs.
Here it was: the piece of property I had been looking for -
a property entered from above.
The first thing I noticed was the quiet;
no road noise just birds and the wind.
Then we saw the view.
The idea of the Usonian was having a public side and
the view on the private side
Finally found it in Las Colinas Ranch.
Along the way we had found a builder who was an admirer
of Frank Lloyd Wright. He traveled all over with us
looking at property but when we got down to the actual
planning he backed out. I think building a Usonian is
more difficult than we thought.
So, I turned to Mr. Sutton.
He suggested that I had the foremost expert on FLLW
design right there at the Unversity of Texas.
That seemed to go well until we
got down to the nitty gritty and
suddenly he had
more to do elsewhere.
2012 -2013
In June, 2012, after looking over our present situation,
we decided that we should consider moving from Cypress
to where we both would rather live: Austin.
Being UT grads we both wanted to be nearer the University.
With our "unexpected windfalls" we might be able to
build my dream home: a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian.
I started looking for an architect or builder
who could help us design and build a
Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian.
Easier said than done.
The ranch style house I grew up in
was derived from Wright's ground hugging design.
My neighborhood was filled with long low houses,
one room wide with a hall down the perimeter.
That was the basic Usonian design.
The first Jacob's House was my inspiration.
The Palmer House living room has a look
I hope to re-create.
I have inherited a baby grand piano.
We will have a red concrete floor
and decking with indirect lighting.
But first we needed to find the right piece of land.
To follow the design of the Wright Usonian -
the road side is the "public" side. No picture windows.
Only clerestory windows (1' x 4') under the eaves.
The private side is toward the view with floor to ceiling glass.
In order to replicate this design the property needed to be
approached from above. The view had to be over the hill.
Having the road to the property in the view
defeats the purpose of the design.
In fall of 2012 we found a real estate agent
and started looking at raw land.
We wanted to stay near Austin,
somewhere on the west side.
It would be embarrassing to go into the details
of all the agents we went through.
I looked through the Internet for a builder
who understood Frank Lloyd Wright design.
As much as people admire FLLW it is not a design
that you pick off the shelf.
I soon understood that we would have to
hire an architect.
I found a website called the Usonian Red House.
Someone actually building a Usonian,
Thomas (Tim) Sutton, an architect in Ohio.
Mr. Sutton was kind enough to correspond with me.
Over and over he answered my questions and
freely shared with me his advice.
He actually sent me a plan that he drew himself.
I will always cherish his hand drawn plan.
I began to see how difficult this would be.
At the same time I came across a website
for the "Lakeway Usonian".
It was not going well.
The owner was not happy.
I do not know how it turned out. *
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Fall, 2012, we met with our first realtor and
started looking for raw land.
I drew a circle from the west side
of Austin using I-35 as the center line.
I did not want to go as far west
as Fredericksburg.
It was the time of the severe drought.
Lake Travis was a shadow of its former self.
Never had I seen the water line so low.
Lake front property was cheap
but I did not want a lake view.
I wanted a hill view.
I have lived on flat ground
(the Houston area) all of my life.
The real estate agents took me at my word.
We saw so many drop offs,
I was afraid to get out of the car.
The proud owners of this home will be: William & Olva Pharo
The Architect of record: Bercy Chen Studio, LP, Austin, TX, Taipei & Mexico City
To comment or ask a question: opharo@texhorseman.com
Last Update: 12 April, 2025
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