Edgeland House, where the wild things are

Located successful a (formerly) derelict concern portion successful eastbound Austin, Edgeland House is 1 of the astir written-about residences successful town, contempt being each but invisible from the street. Owner Christopher Brown, a lawyer and author of dystopian subject fiction, built his unsocial location connected a brownfield with an abandoned lipid pipeline moving done it. Once the pipeline was removed and the tract cleaned up, helium hired Bercy Chen Studio LP to physique a location wedded to the land.

Taking inspiration from Native American pit houses, the location tucks into a bluff supra the Colorado River. A meadowy pyramid — a greenish extortion of prairie plants that insulates the sunken location — disguises grounds of quality habitation until you’re astir connected apical of it. An exhaust tube poking done the grasses hints astatine the surviving abstraction below, reminiscent of the Lost Boys’ lair oregon Bilbo Baggins’s hobbit hole.

And past you find, essentially, the extortion borderline of Edgeland House and look down with astonishment astatine the hidden location below. A wide factual step leads down to the entranceway — entrances, really. The location is divided successful 2 by a canyon-like breezeway. An open-concept surviving country and room marque up the nationalist fractional of the 1,400-square-foot home. Two bedrooms and a bath are recovered successful the backstage half.

Soaring walls of solid successful the halfway admit flooding light, soaked up by a postulation of supersized houseplants successful the kitchen. Crossvine connected the greenish extortion drapes implicit the windows, offering a front-row presumption of hummingbird antics. The divided location doesn’t conscionable invitation but requires regular engagement with the outdoors, arsenic its residents determination betwixt the nationalist and backstage spaces.

I visited Edgeland House past week. Chris gave maine a circuit of the award-winning house, wherever helium lives with his woman and daughter, and we took a locomotion done the floodplain nationalist lands below, wherever helium loves to research on the Colorado River. I archetypal met Chris astatine the Texas Book Festival past fall, astatine a presumption for his latest book, A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places.(Read my review of his elegiac eco-memoir.)

Echoing the home’s triangular rooflines, a tiny swimming excavation juts toward the bluff edge, offering an flight from the summertime heat. The information fence, erected erstwhile their school-age girl was a toddler, volition travel down soon, Chris said.

As Chris writes successful his book, his household shares the spot with each mode of chaotic creatures drawn to the prairie-roofed location and the quiescent pockets of this post-industrial landscape. Deer, coyotes, turtles, monk parakeets, hawks, herons, coral snakes, armadillos, and much marque their homes alongside Chris and his household successful this semi-feral edgeland.

Just beyond the house, a curved partition of stacked and cobbled chromatic beckons — a fireplace grotto Chris constructed from section chromatic and recovered objects.

Accompanied by Fifi, a Jack Russell puppy with tornado-like energy, and Lupe, the family’s older (and remarkably puppy-patient) rescue, Chris and I acceptable retired connected his accustomed walking route. Chris is simply a keen-eyed observer, and I was funny to spot what we’d observe on the way.

Native spiderwort and widow’s tears were flowering successful the shade.

Chris rescued a tiny turtle connected the way from becoming a plaything of Fifi’s.

The fireplace grotto with built-in benches gave Old Austin vibes, reminding maine of Sparky Park and cobbled walls I’ve admired successful the gardens of Jill Nokes and Tait Moring. It’s built of limestone and recovered objects that turned up connected the spot oregon washed up on the river.

Chris inspected a 1950s physics something-or-other — a relic from different era, erstwhile eastbound Austin’s concern businesses catered to Bergstrom Air Force base, contiguous the tract of Austin’s commercialized airport.

Wall detail

A niche holds much recovered objects.

I was amazed to spot a husk of a car beside the patio, a gleeful skeleton astatine the wheel. “Did you find that present too?” I asked. “Yep,” helium said.

It’s each just crippled for dark-humor decoration.

A turtle ammunition connected a seat looks wired for something. I privation I’d asked.

A cervid skull connected a chain-link obstruction prompted Chris to accidental this is the stag helium recovered garroted by ligament successful the woods, which helium wrote astir successful his publication and successful Field Notes, his Substack (well worthy subscribing to, by the way).

A plywood disguise connected the obstruction made maine ask, “Found oregon made?” I should person known by this point. “Found,” Chris said.

At the bottommost of the bluff, trees towered implicit a ungraded way lined with deadfall. Lupe meandered done gangly writer with her chemoreceptor to the ground, deciphering scent trails.

As I followed Chris on the trail, I saw a rat snake successful the grass. It had narrowly missed getting stepped on. It held truthful inactive arsenic I leaned successful for a photograph that I wondered for a infinitesimal if it was dead. In a flash, it turned and changeable away.

A small farther on, the trees backed distant and the grasses gave mode to the wide, greenish Colorado River — and not a gathering successful sight. It was a presumption truthful astonishing that a Wow! popped out. “I know!” said Chris enthusiastically.

If you didn’t cognize the metropolis sprawled on the bluff down you, hidden down trees, you’d deliberation you were connected a agrarian agelong of the Pedernales.

Bluebonnets straggled among stream rock.

Chris and Fifi walked ahead…

…with Lupe trailing along.

Phlox similar fireworks exploding…

…and successful tightly held bouquets mingled with the bluebonnets.

There were a fewer antithetic pinkish bluebonnets hiding among the modular blues.

Wild mulberries too

Heading back, Chris pointed retired this gothic country of grapevine-swagged trees arsenic his favourite presumption — a chaotic tussle for light, possibly adjacent a life-or-death struggle playing retired successful dilatory motion. Just the benignant of presumption I would expect a committed quality person surviving connected the edgeland to admit most.

My acknowledgment to Chris for the location circuit and the stream walk! And readers, if you don’t cognize astir Chris’s book, A Natural History of Empty Lots, cheque it out. He and I stock the aforesaid steadfast and editors astatine Timber, and I cognize however arrogant they are of his publication too.

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