Austin Treehouse

Citizen Artist principals Joshua Rose and Rafael Kalichstein brought their signature approach to a guest pavilion on a private Austin estate, collaborating with acclaimed local architect Mell Lawrence to create a structure at once boldly architectural and deeply connected to its landscape. The site's commanding heritage oaks dictated the building's placement, while Lawrence's design, clad in Cor-Ten steel with a pyramidal wall and a soaring glass facade rising over 20 feet, anchors the pavilion firmly in its surroundings while elevating it well beyond them. A sleeping porch cantilevered from the steel frame and a platform designed to double as a stage for private performances speak to the client's vision for a space equally suited to intimate retreat and gracious entertaining. The interiors reflect the fruits of a dedicated sourcing expedition through Belgium and Italy, where Rose and Kalichstein sought out rare objects in remote shops far off the design circuit. A hammered-brass snail lamp assembled from a Florentine base and a custom Roman shade, a 1980s Murano Sommerso vase by Romano Donà retrieved dust-covered from a tiny Roman shop, and 100-year-old French hexagonal concrete floor tiles sourced in Milan—each bring an irreplaceable depth of provenance to the space. Converted Milanese street lamps hang as pendants overhead, their original patina left deliberately intact, while copper pots and utensils were commissioned from an octogenarian artisan discovered mid-craft on a cobblestone street in Montepulciano. The result is a residence that wears its refinement lightly and invites real living. De Gournay silk velvet on Louis XVI–style chairs was left deliberately unprotected. The designers' instruction to the clients was simply to use it, let it age, and allow it to acquire the character of something found at a Parisian flea market. In the loft bedroom above, an architect-devised bed on a track slides between its interior position and the open sleeping porch, capturing the full breadth of the Texas night. At once European in sensibility and unmistakably Texan in spirit, the pavilion is a testament to Citizen Artist's ability to craft spaces of genuine cultural resonance for clients who demand nothing less.