One of the best remodels comprise a number of necessities: a transformative earlier than and after, no scarcity of setbacks turned design epiphanies, and naturally, a narrative. It’s a story born by way of an intensive inventive course of—one which’s formed organically by way of intention and a collaborative strategy. For Harper Smith, an achieved style way of life photographer, and her husband, Midland guitarist Cameron Duddy, it was evident from the start of their Dripping Springs, Texas top-to-bottom rework: they wouldn’t be afraid to have a bit of enjoyable.
Alongside that, an entire dismissal of conference. (In spite of everything, innovation solely occurs whenever you function exterior the traces.) The couple labored with designer Amy Pigliacampo to deliver their imaginative and prescient for the four-bedroom, three-bathroom venture to life. And relatively than conducting the primary assembly in-office or through Zoom, Amy packed up her truck and drove 17 hours solo to camp with Harper and Cameron of their Airstream. She displays on the journey, calling it “a crash course in all issues Harper.” The expertise helped Amy and Harper attain a shared design center floor—discovering widespread footing in every lady’s “undefinable inventive course of.”
Featured picture by Claire Schaper.
Tour Cameron Duddy and Harper Smith’s Dripping, Texas House
It’s proof that persistence and an unfettered embrace of creativity pays dividends. What’s extra, with a lot of their lives spent on the street, Harper and Cameron naturally sought a rustic haven for his or her passions and pursuits exterior of their skilled work. With that, the house is grounded by an evident worth of household. The couple has a younger son, Kitt Cassidy and an always-budding farm of canines, cats, pigs, chickens, donkeys, and extra. Ample house is devoted not solely to accommodate the {couples}’ classic finds however to help their love of gathering and connection.
The lengthy eating desk shortly transforms right into a post-dinner card recreation and the stand-up piano is the place of many an impromptu live performance. You step inside, and it’s instantly evident: inventive folks stay right here. Considerate folks stay right here. Individuals who each need to make the world all of the extra lovely and vibrant—whereas additionally leaning into its simplicity. Let’s take a tour.
This venture was conceived with distinctive beginnings—tenting together with your shoppers of their Airstream, permitting you to realize a deep understanding of what they needed from their house. How did attending to know your shoppers on such a private degree positively affect your course of and the ultimate consequence?
I ask Amy this, deeply curious in regards to the extent to which this venture differed from different remodels she’s labored on prior to now. She displays on her and Harper’s mutual historical past—a background that reaches again to the previous decade when each girls labored in style. They had been briefly launched, however as Amy notes “the universe clearly had plans for us, however we had been a bit of early.”
Quick ahead these ten-plus years to when Amy discovered herself street tripping to Spherical Prime, Texas the place they kicked off the venture. “We principally had a sleepover that night time and talked about all of the issues.” (She provides as an apart, a want to repeat this with each shopper.) From the expertise, it was clear that “finally, we needed the identical issues out of the venture.”
What in regards to the property resonated with you? Contemplating that the whole lot within the house was redone, the place did you see the potential within the house?
With Midwestern roots, Harper isn’t any stranger to a life on the farm. Having grown up in Iowa, house to roam and discover her passions took precedence. “The wraparound porch was main,” she says. Nostalgia—that inescapable sense—sealed it. “The stream of the home jogged my memory of my childhood house, with the hearth because the central pillar.”
And naturally, Harper loves a problem, notably within the type of a home venture. “This house had simply sufficient to like with simply sufficient to repair.” An ideal stability of give and take.
Have been there parts of the unique construct that you simply needed to maintain? How did you weave in elements of the unique structure into the ultimate design?
Good bones give a designer lots to work with, providing the liberty to iterate whereas additionally offering a peek into a house’s previous. From growing such an intimate understanding of her shoppers’ wants, Amy knew that whereas the “nearly quintessential Texas farm home” structure was a bonus, Harper and Cameron needed to seek out their private imaginative and prescient throughout the last design. “The principle traces and form of the home stayed the identical,” notes Amy. “Along with main repairs and a main suite addition they had been ready to make use of supplies that felt contemporary however nonetheless basic.”
What had been a number of the main modifications you centered on within the redesign?
Amy shares that the first focus centered on the house’s exterior, noting that it was in determined want of a refresh and a technique to tie the addition into the unique house. “Their builders, SRD, actually listened and collaborated. [They cleaned] up the traces, textures and drained supplies, unifying the whole lot with easy board and batten siding, a steel roof, and superb new home windows.”
But it surely took changing the home windows and including a brand new, customized entrance door that reworked the house “from drained to love new with out stripping away any of the character,” Amy observes. Aware of this push-pull rigidity inherent in any renovation—eager to honor the unique character whereas additionally giving the house a contemporary really feel—required a lot enter and leaning into completely different views. “In the long run, everybody acquired it and made it occur,” says the designer.
What’s your concept of “farm life”? How did that affect what you needed from the house? How does it manifest within the last venture?
As a metropolis lady myself, I ask Harper this with real curiosity. I need to perceive how a quiet life—one which’s deeply linked to the character and animals that encompass and help it—informs not solely the design course of, however how one inhabits that house.
“If I may have put a ramp as much as each window to permit my animals to greet me every morning, I might have,” she says, noting that “all rational folks concerned within the venture” shut the thought down. However with an unfaltering conviction and maybe a tone of wistfulness, she clarifies: “Farm life to me is just listening to the noises of your individual human and furry household. Every day chores devoted to caring for the animals, and the potential to boost and rescue extra.”
“We simply added a brand new buddy to the household (my Christmas current). Honey Bear, the Highlander cow. So I suppose the quick reply is that I can commerce within the finer items in life for soiled, noisy, loopy farm buddies.”
There’s a deep sense of character woven all through the house. From the pictures alone, it’s straightforward for somebody to construct an understanding of who lives there. How would you describe the expertise and feeling you had been seeking to create within the last design?
Harper’s fast to slate herself and Cameron as “eclectic,” and I like her conviction when describing her final want for what the house could be. “I needed this place to be painfully private, i.e., not for everybody. We needed to take dangers and avoid protected.”
Her phrases apply in a much wider sense, chatting with what one ought to really feel in any inventive endeavor when bumping up in opposition to a real and genuine last consequence. “There have been instances I believed we went too far, which on reflection I believe is what you must really feel when making a eternally house.”
In the end, it was a daring and unabashed breaking down of boundaries that led Harper and Cameron to a house reflective of the place their lives have been and the way they want to orient themselves to the longer term.
This space of Texas is understood for its beautiful panorama and exquisite pure parts. How did you search to combine the redesign into the encircling surroundings?
Amy sums up this space of Texas in naming its definitive “magical” high quality. There’s romance alive in its lush, ample nature—an ideal place to play with the design of a house. “Harper and Cam’s private type had advanced, they usually each needed to include extra trendy supplies in some actually enjoyable and stunning methods.”
As a result of the rework required a lot work, a stretched finances pressured the couple to get inventive. Amy cites a number of examples, together with calacatta viola marble, customized cabinetry, and plaster work—to not point out making their very own tile when what they needed was out of finances.
Amy embraced the couple’s need for a deeply private home. The house “is crammed with so many home windows and lightweight”—to not point out a scarcity of neighbors because of the property’s 22 acres. As such, “there wasn’t actually a have to deliberately combine the surface in.” And in that means, as she notes, it grew to become merely one other component of the house.
With something we take from an concept to concrete actuality, it’s gratifying to see it evolve into one thing that expands previous the place you initially sought to land. It’s a simultaneous intentionality and openness to the method that leads you to someplace that feels so clearly and distinctly like house.
