Ignacio Salas-Humara Architect LLC

Home Improvement Professionals , Architects & Building Designers , Accessory Dwelling Units , Home Remodeling , Home Additions , Universal Design , Basement Remodeling
17 Reviews
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Ignacio Salas-Humara Architect LLC
17 Reviews

Cielito Lindo

Modern villa set in the rolling Texas Hill Country. The client, an artist of Mexican descent, asked for a modern interpretation of a Mexican hacienda. She and her doctor husband have a sensational collection of Mexican religious art and artifacts. The hacienda itself is a piece of colorful sculpture in which to house the collection.

The home was featured in the HGTV series Homes Across America.
Country: United States
The house plan is organized around a stand of live oaks. There are three main objects: the stair tower (far right), the cylinder in the main living space (protruding through roof), and the pool/guest house (far left). A circulation spine connects all three sculptural elements. The exterior is a...
Modern Hacienda
The galvanized steel flue is outside the house and serves as an exterior design element. Cabinets are natural birch.
Modern Hacienda
View from the living room toward the dining room inside the cylinder. The bridge from the cylinder to the bridge that connects the pool house to the main house can be seen at top center and upper right.
Modern Hacienda
The main room is a two-story space with a 16-foot diameter, blue cylinder that divides the large space into kitchen and living areas. Inside the cylinder reside the dining (downstairs) and library/office (upstairs), connected by bridges to MBR and outside to the guest house through the trees.
Modern Hacienda
The yellow room in the foreground is the round dining room. The room beyond is the living room.
Modern Hacienda
The dining room is in the base of the two-story cylinder separating the Living and the Kitchen. It is accessible through four openings that face the four points of the compass.
Cielito Lindo
The living room has an 18'x18' window wall overlooking a horse pasture and rolling hills beyond. Built-in cabinets house books, electronics, and music system. Flooring is flagstone throughout the ground floor of the house.
Modern Hacienda
At the top of the stairwell is a light monitor that captures diffused northern light. The stair tower acts as a thermal chimney, drawing the warm air out of the house when the light monitor window is open.
Modern Hacienda
The kitchen has windows in many locations: the picture window shown, the slot window above the stove at sitting level so that people eating at the bar have a view to the hillside. Counter top is black granite embedded with white crystals, resembling a night sky. Upper cabinets are fluted glass.
Modern Hacienda
View of the kitchen from the bridge above. The same bridge runs outside through the oak trees to the Guest/Pool house.
Modern Hacienda
Master Bath. The countertop and splash are travertine stone.
Cielito Lindo
A north-facing light monitor atop the stair tower floods the stairs with soft daylight.
Cielito Lindo
The guest house is accessed by a bridge from the main house. If you look through the glass door you can see through the bedroom, through the other glass door to the exterior balcony and the hills beyond. The balcony is the terminus of the circulation spine that runs through the house.
Modern Hacienda
The pool house/guest house has a bathroom and kitchen at ground level and a guest bedroom upstairs. The structure is accessed from the main house by a covered walkway at ground level and a bridge upstairs. The bedroom has a balcony that overlooks the pool and the 35 acres of pastures and woods...
Modern Hacienda
Schematic drawing showing the north/south circulation spine as well as the SE to NW oriented vertical openings to allow prevailing SE winds to pass through the house.
Cielito Lindo
Axonometric drawing of the house.
Cielito Lindo
Floor plans. Circulation spine connects the three main sculptural elements of the house.
Cielito Lindo
The recessed side entries are vertical glass slots at the southeast and northwest ends of the main house and allow for prevailing southeast breezes to pass through the house.
Cielito Lindo