
"Clarksville is one of Austin's few truly walkable neighborhoods, with a main commercial street, school, and public park all within a roughly square-mile radius, satisfying the needs of daily life. It was here that romance blossomed for architect Michael Hsu and his now wife, Sarah, a contemporary art adviser. Soon after the couple met in 2020, she moved into a bungalow just down the street from the plot that he had recently purchased, envisioning settling down in the area."
"In March 2023, the pair married and eight months later the two of them, along with his son and their two dogs, all moved into the completed residence: a 4,300-square-foot feat topped by a swooping roof. "This is a historic neighborhood, so we didn't want to build something that wouldn't fit in at all," says the architect, referring to Clarksville's origins as one of Texas's earliest Black communities, founded and populated by formerly enslaved people in 1871."
"The lot's existing structure, built on the site of a 1928 home, offered both a guide and foil for the ground-up residence, constructed on more or less the same footprint, with a similar elevation. From the front, the new house appears as two parallel volumes, each topped by a curved gable that echoes the area's pitched vernacular. Whereas handsome brickwork renders the left side-dedicated to the primary suite-nearly opaque,"
Clarksville offers a walkable, roughly square-mile neighborhood with a main commercial street, school, and park. Michael Hsu and Sarah met in 2020; she moved into a nearby bungalow while Hsu had purchased an adjacent plot and begun designing a new house. They collaborated on materials and finishes, married in March 2023, and moved into the completed 4,300-square-foot house eight months later with Hsu's son and two dogs. The design balances respect for Clarksville's 1871 Black-community origins with contemporary form: built on a similar 1928 footprint, the house reads as two curved-gabled volumes with opaque brick enclosing the primary suite and pivoting window walls revealing living spaces that wrap to a courtyard pool.
Read at Architectural Digest
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