Tour a Dreamy Marfa Compound With Never-ending Views of the Texan Sky

“It was the only made structure as far as the eye could see, so it became the pivot point by which we designed everything else,” Bob Harris, partner at Lake Flato architects, says of an old water cistern on the approximately 700-acre ranch his clients purchased just outside of Marfa, Texas. “It is this symbol of people that survived in the past and made their livelihoods there in a harsh environment. You want to build upon that, which is what we decided to do.”

But initially, this idea was sold to clients who did not end up building the house that the Texan firm designed for them. The clients in question decided that the location was a bit removed from the proverbial action of the art-world mecca, which houses just under 2,000 full-time residents. Ultimately, they decided to sell their land to Ashlyn and Dan Perry, a couple who met when both were living in San Antonio but are now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In an unusual turn of events, the Perrys, philanthropists with a long history of charitable work in the arts, decided to green-light the rammed-earth structures that Lake Flato had designed for the previous land owners, rather than do what many others would have—start from scratch, and potentially with different architects.

Ashlyn, who has a design background and at one point worked in sales for Knoll, was very familiar with the firm. “I loved their work, but never dreamed in a million years I‘d be involved in a Lake Flato project,” she says.

It took 2 years and 3.5 million pounds of dirt just to create the two-foot-thick rammed-earth walls of the resulting 6,000-square-foot home (the rest of the construction took an additional year). Pilgrim Building Company, the general contractor, tapped Austin-based Enabler to do this incredibly labor-intensive and time-consuming work on-site—outdoors and by hand. “Part of the reason that rammed earth was the chosen construction method was due to the thermodynamic properties. Because of the diurnal swings in temperatures—cold nights and warm days—the mass of the walls allows for moderating the temperatures,” Ashlyn explains. “There’s something about the rammed earth that gives it a texture that is suited to the Chihuahuan desert in a way that I think is pretty interesting and unique. It’s the soil, the ground that makes up that beautiful rolling plain that is the Marfa landscape,” Harris adds.

In total, eight structures were constructed using this method, and, for the most part, each is its own room. They include a mechanical room, an office, gym, guest suite, guest wing, art studio, combination kitchen, living and dining area, and the primary bedroom suite. The structures are set around a courtyard, connected by a covered porch above and breezeways below, which are also used to access each room, as they’re not interconnected. The placement of these structures and every single window was deliberate and designed to take advantage of the unobstructed views of the surrounding desert landscape and nearby mountain ranges while simultaneously sheltering from the often harsh weather that is characteristic to the region.

Furnishings are still a work in progress for the four-bedroom seven-bath home (more furniture and many more rugs are coming). Ashlyn tapped Keith Johnston, a set designer and stylist whose client list includes the likes of Calvin Klein and Neiman Marcus, to help with the interiors. The two had worked together several times before, including on the couple’s Santa Fe home, their midcentury-modern home and the guest cabins at their New Mexico property, Trout Stalker Ranch, as well as their restaurants Chama Local and Palace Prime in Santa Fe. Ashlyn likes to joke that Johnston’s “favorite colors are black, white, and gray,” but she has managed to insert moments of muted color. With this project, she has found yet another reason to hit up the twice-yearly Round Top Antiques Show. Overall, she said the duo “tried to find that right combination of modern but comfortable, without it feeling so stark that you don’t feel like you can go sit on the couch.”

The “dream project,” in Ashlyn’s words, was finished last year. With its low profile and use of natural materials from the earth, it stays true to the architect’s intention to “create a home that has been inserted into the untouched desert landscape without disturbance. . . it almost feels like a natural part of the desert itself.”