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MAY | PAGE 35 | 2015 snapped pictures of homes and details he liked. Dubbed "Napa modern" by the architects, the house underwent a total gut job to give it the open, uncluttered feeling Cory wanted. "It was important to take down the walls," he says. "And in the living room, we were lucky to discover that when we took out the drywall, we found the original beautiful butterfly beams." That room, with its vaulted ceiling and exposed beams, could have been torn from a page in one of Keaton's books. Once the house was opened up, it was time to focus on the details. "We did a lot of digging for materials," Cory says. "The tile on the roof is from an elementary school in Kansas, which we shipped here. The timber that wraps the beams is from a gold mine in Colorado. An old man in Mexico carved the front door. I wanted to have things with stories, as opposed to everything being slick and modern." But the devil's in the details. "It's the most creative thing I've ever done but also the most gut- wrenching," he says. "When you do a brand campaign, you link up all the concepts and connect the details. What I didn't foresee in this project was there were so many more details than I'd imagined. I was literally overwhelmed. If you are a visual person, rehabbing and building from scratch is hard and emotional. It was 10 times harder for me to pick something like a doorknob. I would pick a window and three days later find a better one. I was always changing my mind. I drove the architects crazy." What should have taken a year dragged into two. But the end result was "a thousand times more amazing than I ever imagined," Cory says. If building a house is much like building a brand, then authenticity is the glue that holds it all together. "For a modern home, what works is something natural that comes from the earth," he says. "At the office when my team is designing for a client, I'll say, 'Where's that piece that feels organic? Where's the texture with the story behind it that doesn't come from the computer?' When people come in my house, they often say, 'It's so modern!' But, really, when they look deeper, it's not — there are old textures and weathered materials. It's the aged and the authentic meeting the modern and the new." The philosophy has rubbed off on Walt, and father and son enjoy driving around Highland Park studying the architecture. "Walt will say, 'There's a great modern house, but it needs an organic piece to it. They should take the facade and put some natural stone on it so it feels more human.'" Clockwise from left: In the dining room, the custom barn-wood table was made by craftsmen in Forney. Attending it, a 1930s Thonet high-backed bench from Collage 20th Century Classics and Norman Cherner dining chairs. Restoration Hardware hanging light. Landscape by Idaho photographer Annie Bailey. A vignette in the dining room includes an 1800s Sabino wood coffer purchased in San Francisco. Herman Miller clock. Horse art by Jimmy Lee Sudduth. Vintage portrait. The family room has a Restoration Hardware leather sofa, vintage white leather bench, two vintage Eames lounge chairs, vintage cabinet from Dilbecks in Forney. From left, family dogs Bishop and Hiro. Continued on page 36