This house, newly constructed in the Lavaca Historic District near downtown San Antonio, is home to a retired professor of architectural history, her five cats, and her extensive collections of vintage Art Deco furniture and light fixtures, ceramics, bead work and tropical plants. Located between an extant 1920’s Craftsman duplex, and a contemporary home constructed a year earlier, the design reflects the client’s unique sensibilities as well as the diverse material and formal vocabulary of the neighborhood. Clad with fiber-reinforced cement siding with rough cedar trim, the gabled form of the exterior is deferential to its neighbors but dynamic in the use of oblique angles whose sight lines belie the small scale of the house.

Interior colors were chosen from beads collected in South Africa by the client, and the interior spaces were designed to highlight specific pieces of the client’s collections while maximizing daylight and views to the exterior. Circulation through the house was designed with both human and feline needs considered.