The Bunkhouse is the third structure designed by FPC for this family’s ranch. The ranch is located in the heart of the most scenic part of the Texas Hill Country and is a cherished family retreat. The setting for the three structures is a crescent shaped ridge, embracing a bowl-like valley filled with oak trees. Over the past twenty years, as the family has grown, the ranch’s accommodations have also needed to grow. The Bunkhouse is linked to an existing one bedroom guest house by a courtyard paved with limestone quarried from the ranch. It is carefully sited to buttress to the end of the crescent shaped ridge. A long upper level porch provides views under tree canopies toward a pond used for swimming and views to a more distant lake above the tree lines. The porch widens at its southern end to provide ample room for viewing winter sunsets in front of a fire, and as a frame for a panoramic view of the horizon.
A massive chimney anchors the porch to the sloping site and is part of its structural support. All of the porch’s steel and wood structure is expressed and simply detailed like the rural hill country buildings it emulates. Folding doors on at the Living Room opens the house to southeast summer breezes. A ground level porch, paralleling communal grand children’s bunk rooms, is play space and assembly area for expeditions to the pond.