In Austin, An Architect Helps Friends Build a Home Where the Neighborhood Is Welcome

A brick-and-glass house embodies Southern hospitality with a street-facing window, airy interiors, and shaded courtyards.

Mar 17, 2021 - 01:00

In Austin, An Architect Helps Friends Build a Home Where the Neighborhood Is Welcome

A brick-and-glass house embodies Southern hospitality with a street-facing window, airy interiors, and shaded courtyards.

Sherry, Anthony, and their children, Zuri and Mateo, make the most of the kitchen and dining area in their new home. Harbour chairs by Menu surround a Tulip table by Eero Saarinen for Knoll. The A-Beam pendant is from Hand&Eye, and the ceramics are by Gopi Shah. Appliances include a Fisher & Paykel stove and a wine cooler from KitchenAid.

When Sherry Birk and Anthony Orona moved into their dream house, it wasn’t the ideal time to meet the neighbors. It was April of 2020, and Austin, like much of the world, was under stay-at-home orders. But the couple soon discovered that their house was a point of connection.

People walking by could see into the office where Sherry and Anthony take turns working, and where their dog, Bo, keeps an eye on the street. Sherry hung a poster by artist Nicole Lavelle that could be seen through the front window—"i can’t do this but i’m doing it anyway," it says—and its truck a chord. Neighbors waved and stopped to chat from a distance. "Now we’re all friends," says Sherry.

Sherry Birk and Anthony Orona, tapped HR Design Dept, whose co-principal, Eric Hughes, is a longtime friend of Anthony’s, to design the midcentury-inspired, one-story house in Austin. The dark metal fascia emphasizes the home’s horizontality and complements the earth-toned brick facade.
Photo: Leonid Furmansky

"Brick was such a good material for this project," says Hughes’s partner, architect Heather Rowell. "It creates a rhythm and simplicity on the outside—a mathematical rigor—but on the inside, it’s so easy to set up a playful contrast with bright white drywall."
Photo: Leonid Furmansky

It wasn’t quite the move-in experience the pair expected, but the home is exactly what they wanted. They credit their architect, Eric Hughes of Houston firm HR Design Dept, with creating a house that feels like a part of the neighborhood. Sherry, who was born in New Orleans, and Anthony, who comes from Houston, embody Southern hospitality. "I want people to feel at home in this house," explains Sherry. "Like if we had a party, people could just walk in and get a drink."