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JANUARY | PAGE 26 | 2015 and west sides, which get the heaviest sun loads. The ground floor and courtyard are screened from Banks Street by a chain-link fence laced with vertical white strips that maintain visual connection between the house and the street without overexposing the interior. All lighting is LED. With references to a garden pavilion, the living/ dining/kitchen area is a continuous space bracketed between walls of glass that can be slid back, uniting inside and outside as though Ranch Estates were Santa Monica. The kitchen — Andy's territory — was designed for cooking-centered conviviality. Lantz incorporated such touches as angled ceiling planes slotted between the exposed structural beams to deflect acoustical reverberation. She also suffused the house with daylight and a sense of serene spaciousness; the scintillating light creates a backdrop for the couple's collection of contemporary art, while controlled views on the second floor capture the feeling of a tree house. Ever alert to a party opportunity, Lantz designed the roof above the carport as an outdoor living room, paved with dark river rock and equipped with a barbecue pit and plenty of room for seating. Downstairs is the basement-level entertainment and media room. Here again, Lantz subverts expectation by opening up a below-grade patio, with its own dramatic circular stair, to bring daylight down below. The (Almost) All-American Home was one of only two Houston buildings to win a design award in the Texas Society of Architects' annual statewide design competition in 2014. In addition to Swartz's article in the New York Times, it has been featured in Architecture magazine, Connection: the Journal of the Young Architects Forum and Texas Architect. It has also achieved LEED Platinum certification. Lantz sees her house as an opportunity to expand the awareness of Houstonians, where "there is not enough chatter about sustainable architecture and what that means, and who is practicing it," she says. "Andy and I not only grow food and herbs, we also collect water, generate electricity, heat our water with the sun and make sure we support local manufacturing and construction." The (Almost) All-American Home is architecture with a mission: to be smart, responsible, healthy and beautiful. Chic peek. See more stunning interiors at papercitymag.com. In the corridor above the entry, the glass floor by IPB GlassWalk was made in Texas. Commissioned skylight art installation of brass, mica and milk glass, titled Fractaluz, 2013, is by local artist Amber Eagle and her husband, Guillermo Rosas. In the kitchen, cookbooks and dishes on cypress shelves beneath a framed menu from El Bulli (located in Roses off the Costa Brava in Catalonia, Spain) and Texas artist Peat Duggins' Untitled (Worms/Mushrooms), 2012, an ink-and-watercolor work from Art Palace Gallery. Architect Karen Lantz on the front porch of her steel-frame house, next to a lap pool that features an endless pool swim system.