From Train Depot to Family Home in Texas
Julie and François Lévy converted a run-down 1904 train depot into a family home with a judicious mixture of traditional and modern elements. It is “modern in its scale and willingness but conventional in its construction, materials and detailing,” says Lévy. “It’s a very welcoming house, filled with family heirlooms out of France, pieces from Ikea and small pieces of salvaged shabby chic that have caught in our nets.”
at a Glance
Who lives here: François and Julie Lévy and their kids, Olivier (15 years old), Chloé (13) and Eliane (9)
Location: Guadalupe area of East Austin, Texas
Size: 2,000 square feet; 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
Kara Mosher
AFTER: The family wanted to live at the Guadalupe area of Austin and kept an eye out for older schoolhouses or churches to convert. “One weekend I took the kids around Dallas to visit family, and Julie later joined us — a foreshadowing of what was to come,” says François Lévy.
“We drove home together along precisely the exact same route, stopping at the homes she’d spied on the road on the train. None of them actually bore close scrutiny, but in Granger, Texas, we found the train depot had been moved about a block from the tracks”
Before Photo
BEFORE: The channel was in fairly poor shape once the family bought it. “As far as we all know, the railway station was built around 1904, possibly even a decade later. When we moved the house, a train aficionado approached us shared the one-sheet set of working drawings for the building out of 1904,” Lévy says. “Back in 1986 it was no more in usage, along with also the railroad sold it into the city of Granger for $10 if they would move it off the railroad line.”
Kara Mosher
AFTER: The family moved the house from Granger into Austin and gave the outside a facelift. Lévy reconstructed the roof and additional six dormers for daylight and natural ventilation. He also added a half cellar beneath the living room.
“We replaced two of three missing windows using some salvaged ones we discovered and moved a door and its transom from the west end of the house to the east facade to replace the third window. It is now the Juliet balcony at the kitchen,” says Lévy.
Before Photo
BEFORE: “When Julie and I decided to move a house and renovate it, we struck a bargain: Julie would pick the area, and I’d pick the building,” says Lévy. After buying the construction, Lévy completely gutted the interior.
Kara Mosher
AFTER: The brand new kitchen now sits along the east wall of the building. “The railroad had added two or three bathrooms at that location, which we snapped out. Coincidentally, that is where I decided to place the kitchen,” says Lévy. The location was largely determined by the desire to keep an open-plan design, because the few loves to cook and entertain.
The kitchen has no dead corners. A cast-in-place concrete counter that is all 1 elevation provides a large work area to spread out on. The cabinets were salvaged out of a law office renovation.
Bar stools: Lyon Workspace Products
Kara Mosher
“I made a counter that ended up being a little long. What can I say? I really like to cook,” Lévy says. Because of this, the table needed to be rather narrow to match in the leftover space. “We have been through three or four dining tables, trying to find the most suitable one. The one we have now is that a reused glass top from an Office Max desk, sitting on a pair of 10 trestle legs from Ikea,” he says.
Kara Mosher
The curio cabinet contains many treasures, such as the children’s ceramic jobs, a collection of Quimper faience from Brittany, France, and wineglasses.
Lévy can not really pinpoint his design style. He says, “I would use words like ‘relaxed,’ ‘casual,’ ‘salvaged,’ ‘agrarian,’ ‘bohemian,’ ‘a little awesome,’ ‘charming,’ ‘quirky.'”
Kara Mosher
Julie discovered the wooden mantel at a garage sale. The few thought of using it for an indoor fireplace one day but chose to have an outside fire pit instead. The mantel subsequently got a new lifestyle as the framework for an old thrift store mirror.
Kara Mosher
The couple worked with color designer Carol Burton to help determine the colour. “We asked Carol to be a neutral third party. She gave us a pile of magazines to clip out of. We each separately trimmed out swatches of pleasing colors, and Carol exercised a palette that represented the colors we had in common,” says Lévy. “No fights about color!”
The paint color on the accent wall is a first created by Carol that is similar to Ablaze from Sherwin-Williams.
Kara Mosher
The wood floors are original. “With these previous flooring, Watrelox, a tung oil merchandise that Julie discovered, was a godsend. We didn’t want to urethane them as that would require future sanding they probably couldn’t shoot,” says Lévy. The few just buffed the flooring with all the oil and added a couple more coats to rejuvenate them.
Before Photo
Kara Mosher
AFTER: The master bedroom is now calm, and its lots of skylights fill the area with a natural, almost heavenly, glow.
Among the most beautiful elements in the residence is a stairs created of sheet-copper out of Austin metal provider Todd Campbell.
Kara Mosher
One of the additional unique and cool elements in this house would be the peek-hole windows that offer an eagle’s-eye view of their living room and kitchen area as you walk up the spiral stairs.
Kara Mosher
François Lévy, revealed here, says, “My home is my architectural laboratory.”