A Metal-and-Limestone Barndominium with Two Stories of North Texas Sky

HOME TOUR · SUNSET, TEXAS

A 2023 build north of Fort Worth trades farmhouse nostalgia for pale oak, warm stone, and a wall of glass.

The gate gives away almost nothing. Black steel, limestone columns, pipe fence running out both directions, and a gravel drive that disappears over a rise. There is no house in sight from the road. That is the first decision this property makes, and it is a good one — you do not see what you came for until the land has had a minute to introduce itself.

Arrival

The house reads as two buildings that agreed to get along. The living end is white vertical metal with a limestone chimney running the full height and a black standing-seam roof pitched shallow. The working end — three garage bays plus a taller door sized for equipment — carries the same siding and simply keeps going. Nothing pretends to be a farmhouse. It is a metal building that was designed rather than ordered.

The detail that does the most work is the timber-framed outdoor room bolted onto the front corner. Heavy posts, exposed rafters, open on three sides. It breaks up what would otherwise be a long flat elevation, and it gives the entrance somewhere to happen.

The Great Room

Inside, the ceiling goes and goes. The great room is stacked two stories of glass on the pasture side — a grid of windows above, sliding doors below — with a limestone fireplace climbing the opposite wall and a single live-edge slab set into it as a mantel. Black iron ring chandeliers hang at two heights. White oak floors run flat and pale through the whole level, which is what keeps a room this tall from feeling like a lodge.

It is one volume: living, dining, and kitchen with nothing between them. In a house where the point is the view, that is the right call — every seat gets the same pasture.

The Kitchen

The kitchen splits its cabinetry: painted white above, natural oak below and on the island. A timber range hood anchors the cooking wall, and clerestory windows above the uppers let daylight in from a height most kitchens never get. There is an X-bin wine rack, a beverage fridge, double wall ovens, a full-height stainless refrigerator, and a walk-in pantry visible past the ovens.

Over the island hangs the piece everyone will ask about — a raw log fitted with a row of bare bulbs, suspended on chain. It is the one object in the room doing something unexpected, and it works because everything around it is disciplined.

The Quiet End

The primary bedroom drops the ceiling back to human scale and runs three exposed beams across it. Three windows line the exterior wall, all of them looking at grass and oaks. An upholstered sleigh bed, weathered oak nightstands, a pair of worn leather chairs by the window — the room is furnished the way the whole house is offered, and it is restrained enough that you could live with it as-is.

The bath is the most detailed room in the house. A glass shower runs wall to wall with herringbone tile inside and stacked subway outside, black fixtures throughout, and a rain head plus a wall head. The double vanity is natural oak under a marble-look quartz top, floating oak shelves beside the mirror, wood-look plank tile underfoot. It is a lot of pattern held together by keeping every material in the same narrow range of warm and pale.

Where the Evening Goes

The covered patio runs the length of the glass, tucked under a stained wood ceiling with the limestone wall rising beside it. There is a linear gas fire table in the middle, lounge seating around it, a long dining table down one end, and an outdoor kitchen with a grill, a smoker, and a pizza oven built into the corner.

At dusk the two-story windows go gold and the whole elevation turns into a lantern. It is the most honest picture of what living here is actually for.

The Land

Forty-one and a half acres, mostly open pasture with mature oaks scattered through it and heavier tree line at the edges. A stocked pond sits below the house with a small island and a single tree on it. The drive curves in a long arc to a circular turnaround at the door.

Behind the house, a full sport court in blue and grey with a basketball hoop sits on the lawn beside the shop end. It is an unusual thing to find on acreage this size, and it says something true about who built this: the property is set up for a family that wanted the land and did not want to drive anywhere on a Saturday.

What We Would Steal

• The two-tone kitchen. Painted uppers, natural wood lowers. It keeps a tall room from going heavy and costs nothing extra to specify.
• Clerestory windows above the cabinets. Most kitchens light from one side. This one lights from above, and the difference at midday is enormous.
• One raw object per room. The log pendant, the live-edge mantel, the beams. Everything else stays quiet so the one rough thing reads as intentional.
• Limestone on a metal building. The stone chimney and column bases are what keep this from looking like a shop with windows.
• Pale floors everywhere. White oak run flat through the entire level, which makes 4,479 square feet read as one continuous space.

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