Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/594381
BY REBECCA SHERMAN. ART DIRECTION MICHELLE AVIÑA. PHOTOGRAPHY CASEY DUNN FOR SISTERBROTHER MANAGEMENT. A PARED-DOWN HOUSTON HIGH-RISE EXPOSES ITS BONES IN A VIBRANT MIX OF CONTRASTS. STRIPTEASE In the living area, pair of vintage Italian leather chairs and French gold-leaf bergère, all from Watkins Culver. Vintage Plexiglas and steel coffee table from Found. Philippe Starck Rosy Angelis floor lamp for Flos. Silvered cowhide rug and furry piano stool, both from Vieux. The sharpest contrasts often make the most exciting design statements, especially in minimalist spaces. There's no better example than this 14th-floor condominium inside Bayou Bend Towers. French and Italian antiques rub elbows with iconic mid-century furniture. Warm white oak is toughened by gleaming stainless steel. Neutral tones are hit with unexpected fuchsia and red. Exposed concrete contradicts the refined high gloss of a grand piano. And theatrical faux ivy abounds on the terrace, where one would expect to find nature. But all bets are off when the orchestrator of this highly youthful and minimalist residence turns out to be 78-year-old Barbara Hill. "Most designers in their 70s might be doing things like Ralph Lauren curtains," says the homeowner, who shares the three-bedroom condo with her husband and 11-year-old daughter. Instead, there are bare windows framed by rough concrete support columns with exposed bolts and braces. "Barbara is just one of a kind. She's a lot of fun. She was Miss Texas in the 1950s, and she's maintained a very youthful attitude. She keeps things fresh and up to date." The couple, both trial lawyers with a prominent Houston law firm, first met Hill through mutual friends in Marfa, where they have a house. Hill has designed two houses for herself in Marfa, including a converted 1930s dance hall, which she sold. The couple hired the designer to redo their Marfa house without even seeing her work. "I knew I'd like working with them because they had great style and were fun," Hill says. "You can just kind of tell those things. Maybe it's all part of the cosmic journey into the unknown … !" Hill later designed a beach house for her clients in Port Aransas and a previous apartment in Bayou Bend Towers. "They both love art and have an artistic way of thinking, so it's always been easy to work with them. They have it in them to open up and do some fun and unusual things." Originally dark with heavy draperies, parquet floors and a warren of small rooms that blocked the views, the unit had been virtually untouched for almost 30 years. "We totally gutted it," says Hill, who removed multiple walls to allow the kitchen, dining, living and library areas to flow together, transforming the space into an open and airy loft. Walk in the front door now, and you're greeted with a panoramic skyline view of downtown and Memorial Park's lush environs and bayou below, thick with magnolias. W hen concrete support columns and beams were revealed during demolition, "I got really excited," says Hill. "I told the workmen not to clean up or paint over them." Red metal braces and pencil scribbles made by the contractor on the concrete 27 years earlier were treated as art. "It just made the apartment so much more interesting to leave them." It wasn't the first time the couple had gone minimal. "We'd already been indoctrinated in our previous house with the Barbara Hill lifestyle," jokes the wife. "She told me I didn't need so much stuff. So we purged." Many of their existing pieces of furniture — such as the dazzling vintage fuchsia Womb chair — worked perfectly in their new abode. Other pieces were purchased for the larger apartment, such as a spectacular pair of vintage Italian leather arm chairs in the living room and a rare antique Italian walnut table in the dining room. Metal fabricator George Sacaris built custom stainless-steel shelving, a center island