Bucking Tradition

Spanning 4,700 square feet, the Mira Vista House, designed by Texas-based architecture firm Specht Novak, stands out for its contemporary design within a community of traditional suburban estates lining the championship Mira Vista Golf Course.

The home’s site drives the design. The lot drops more than twenty feet toward a creek at the rear, and the design uses that grade to lift the living spaces into the tree canopy.

Vertical wood slats screen the entry and temper the western sun, a motif that carries inside as wood screen walls. Expansive glazing and glazed corners make the living room and primary suite feel open and suspended above the slope, as views unfold through the branches toward the creek and course beyond, while deep overhangs shade the Texas sun.

“ The house answers with restraint. Rather than assert itself, it keeps a deliberately low profile while reflecting the neighborhood’s material language — native limestone, warm wood, and the mature  trees surrounding the site. Neighbors have praised it for fitting in because it doesn’t try to dominate.”
– Jakeb Novak, Specht Novak

“The exterior’s stone holds it down as the glass lifts it into the trees — proof that a modern house, carefully made, can earn its place in even the most traditional neighborhood”

– Jakeb Novak, Specht Novak