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Fair Oaks Ranch Golf Course New Build

A Ground Up New Build on a Fair Oaks Ranch Golf Course

Sarah Hardin Design came to this Fair Oaks Ranch project at the beginning, working alongside the homeowners and their builder while the house was still being drawn. New construction gives a designer the rarest thing there is, which is time, and the chance to settle a finish or a fixture before a wall goes up rather than after.

The family is a mother, a father and two sons, and the plan follows the way they actually live. A music room took the place of the formal dining room. An office was given over to a lifetime of Hill Country collecting. A closet was built around one dress.

The result is warm and collected rather than formal. White walls hold the background steady while antiques, custom furniture, commissioned art and a great deal of pattern do the talking. Details matter, and this house is made of them.

  • Built in shelves beside a carved limestone fireplace hold a pink ginger jar, blue and white porcelain and stacked books, with a painted French armchair in blue and white floral fabric and a pink shaded lamp in the foreground.
  • A bedroom with a blue upholstered headboard, layered blue and cream pillows, a brass chandelier, sheer curtains at a tall window and a blue bench at the foot of the bed holding floral bolster pillows.
  • A vestibule papered in a soft blue green botanical print with two gilt floral sconces, an antique wood side table holding a small landscape painting and a potted plant, beside built in shelves of blue and white jars.
  • A white kitchen corner with a plaster hood, pale zellige tile, a glass lantern pendant and an antelope mount on the wall, with bamboo counter stools in blue floral cushions and a terracotta urn of garden flowers on the island.
  • A white marble bathroom with a skirted vanity stool, a scalloped Venetian mirror, brass sconces, a freestanding tub and a burl wood side table, with pocket doors standing open to the closet beyond.
  • A mahogany sideboard under a picture light and a pastel abstract painting, styled with a blue striped vase of pink roses, a brass tray of turquoise vases and a small stack of books.
  • A commissioned green flower painting hangs above a wooden settee dressed with blue and white block print pillows, next to a boxwood topiary in a blue and white cachepot on a slim brass stand.

A Music Room Instead of a Formal Dining Room

Given the choice between a second dining table and a room the family would use every week, the homeowners chose the music room. It is the decision that sets the tone for the whole house.

Four custom chairs turn it into a room that seats a small audience. An antique long case clock, a terracotta urn and a gilt sunburst mirror give the space the weight of a formal room without asking anyone to behave like it is one. The instruments stay out, because they are meant to be picked up.

A music room with two upholstered chairs and two animal print swivel chairs around a large patterned ottoman, guitars resting against the wall beside a tall antique long case clock, under a gilt sunburst mirror and a pale abstract landscape.

An Entry That Puts Antiques Against Clean Lines

The entry is where the house explains itself. A pair of antique chairs sits against a reeded console with clean, quiet lines, chosen for the storage it hides as much as for the way it looks.

A brass mirror anchors the wall with a pair of alabaster lamps flanking it. Old and new are given equal footing here, which is how the rest of the rooms are built.

An entry with a gilt mirror above a grey reeded console flanked by two alabaster lamps, a pair of antique black spindle back chairs holding raspberry pillows on either side, and a pale floral rug on wide plank floors.

The Powder Room, in Scalamandré Zebras

A powder room is small enough to be brave in. This one is papered in Scalamandré's Zebras, the print that has been in production since the 1940s and still reads as a decision rather than a default.

Navy hex tile grounds the floor. The plumbing fixtures are Brizo in brass, and the countertop carries a high contrast black and white stripe that catches the eye on the way past. Nothing in the room is trying to be subtle, which is the point.

A powder room papered in a dark zebra print, with a gold scalloped mirror, a brass sconce above it, brass cross handle faucets on a white marble counter edged in dark stone, and white hydrangeas in a brass bowl.

An Americana Dining Room With Pops of Pink

The dining room runs an americana palette of red, white and blue and then breaks it open with pink. A seagrass rug keeps a natural element underfoot so the colour never gets loud.

The dining chairs wear an Anna French check. The host chairs carry custom monogrammed pillows. The built ins are painted Boothbay Gray, HC-165, which is the quiet blue grey that lets the blue and white collection on the counter read clearly.

A dining room with an oval wood table, cane back chairs in red and blue check seats, two patterned wing host chairs holding pink pillows, a drum shade chandelier with brass arms, and pale blue grey built in cabinetry along the wall.

A Closet Built Around a Wedding Dress

Her closet started with one object. The wedding dress was framed and given a wall, and the room was designed outward from it.

Schumacher wallpaper lines the backs of the open shelving so every shelf reads as a small display rather than storage. A custom bench in the matching fabric sits in the middle of the room, which is the detail that turns a closet into somewhere you would actually spend a morning.

A closet with white built in shelving backed in a pink block print wallpaper, handbags and boxes displayed on the open shelves, a framed white dress in a shadow box, and a custom bench in matching pink fabric on a polished metal base.

His Office, in Hill Country Style

The office is the most masculine room in the house and the most personal. Animal mounts, a framed coast map and a western painting fill the wall above a wing chair, hung the way a collection is hung rather than the way art is spaced.

A hand knotted wool rug sits under it all. The wallcovering is a wood print, and custom swivel chairs keep the room usable for more than one person at a time. It is Hill Country without costume.

A study wall hung with animal mounts, a framed coastal map and a western winter painting, above a brown wing chair with a striped pillow and a blue throw, a leather topped bench, and a dark sofa layered with southwestern pillows.

A Master Bedroom That Stays Playful

The master bedroom is elegant and refuses to be serious about it. Zebra print swivel chairs sit in a room of custom bedding, Visual Comfort lamps and antique intaglios that were professionally framed rather than propped.

Behind the brass mirror is a bow Sarah designed for the wall. An oversized bench doubles as a daybed at the end of the bed, which is where the reading actually happens.

A bedside with a blue upholstered headboard and layered ikat and geometric pillows, a cream lamp on a whitewashed nightstand, a gilt frame of pale intaglios on a pink mount, a blue and white vase of flowers, and a zebra print swivel chair.

A Living Room Where the Walls Step Back

The walls in the living room were kept white on purpose. Colour is everywhere else, and a painted wall would have made the furniture and the art compete with the room instead of filling it.

A Currey & Company brass chandelier hangs over burl wood ottomans upholstered in animal print velvet, which bring a natural texture and a modern layer into the same piece. Custom embroidered pillows, a pair of commissioned green and pink flower paintings and a carved limestone fireplace do the rest.

A white walled living room with a carved limestone fireplace under a large teal water lily painting, pink ginger jars on flanking built in shelves, a blue and white geometric swivel chair, brass candlesticks with pink tapers, and two burl wood ottomans topped in animal print.
  • A gilt mirror reflects the room above a grey reeded console holding an alabaster lamp, a white coral specimen on a stack of art books, a small silver bowl and a little landscape painting propped on a brass easel.
  • A gilt framed painting of orange and pink irises hangs above a caned wood bench dressed with a raspberry pillow and a pale blue throw, beside a large boxwood topiary in a stone crock.
  • A guest bed with an arched linen headboard, green block print pillows and a monogrammed lumbar pillow, next to an oak nightstand holding a striped lampshade, a floral still life in a gilt frame and white roses in a pale blue vase.
  • An oval rattan mirror hung beneath a large blue fabric bow with long trailing ribbons, beside a fiddle leaf fig, with a floral upholstered bench and a blue daybed in the foreground.
  • A small built in desk nook papered in natural grasscloth, with a blue enamel pendant, a green trellis print swivel chair holding a pink ribbon trimmed pillow, a pinboard dressed with a pink bow, and a blue and white garden stool.
  • A laundry room with white cabinetry, a brass faucet, a wicker pendant and a roman shade in a green and yellow tree of life print, with a rattan counter stool, a basket of garden flowers and a patterned runner on brick set tile.
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