W Penthouse

They said their dream home was a cabin in the woods. They had just bought a penthouse at the W Hotel. That was the starting point. The first conversation set the direction. The clients mentioned offhand that their ideal home was a cabin in the woods. They had already purchased a penthouse at the W Hotel in downtown Austin. Cravotta told them directly: you bought the wrong place for that. They laughed. Then came the real work — leaning fully into the urban experiment while holding onto everything that made the cabin dream worth having. Warmth. Intimacy. The feeling that the city is out there and you are in here. The defining move in the living room is a Mondrian-inspired steel wall, glass panels with delicate fabrics laminated between them, moving to reveal a hidden television and speakers. The entry wall pairs antique mirror mosaic with a significant Brutalist sculpture. The wood-paneled private office is the room where the city disappears. The clients sold after three years for the highest dollar-per-sqft in Austin downtown residential history. They still say they have seller's remorse. This was the first of five projects together over twelve years, a friendship that has since extended to a cabin on the lake in Whitefish, Montana.