I Built a Modern Mexican Mansion in Austin, Texas

What’s up y’all? It’s John Gioffre with Revent Builds in Austin, Texas, and I’d like to showcase our most recently completed custom home. Think modern Mexican mansion and luxury resort. This is Casa Tulum.

Walking up to Casa Tulum, you feel a sense of peace and serenity. All of our color tones throughout the whole project are whites and beige and light grays, a lot of the same colors you’d see that would wash up on a beach in Tulum. So the first thing that’s going to really stand out to you is our lush, exotic landscaping.

You have all these brilliant greens and browns and reds from the yuccas that pop off that creamy white stucco. So from the street walking up to the front door, we have this beautiful Leuder pathway with steel edging. You go up these beautiful steps all covered in Leuder, that’s on the tread and the riser, and this brings you to this beautiful front porch. Walking up to the front door, the first thing you’re going to notice is our soffit, which cascades down to our front door.

Another subtle feature that you’ll see throughout the project is the use of wood slats. It’s a great way to add privacy. It kind of adds a barrier to the front porch, but it doesn’t make it feel too closed in. We paint those white, we kind of just want them to blend away, but up close, it’s a really cool feature and when the sun’s pouring through it, you get these awesome shadows as well.

Walking into the house, we push open our seamless door that’s cladded in the same Douglas fir as its surroundings, and immediately what happens? Your eye is drawn from the entry a hundred feet back to the opposite side of the house. It just immediately feels grand and expansive. The theme of white oak continues from the floor up both side walls. We have cabinetry with a mudroom drop spot floating bench on the left and then on the right side, this is all white oak paneling.

If you look closely, you’ll see that we have integrated doors built into the paneling. Opening this first door on your right-hand side is our first powder near the entry. This powder bath is just a teaser for the rest of the home. We have terrazzo along the whole back wall of the vanity, an integrated mirror that’s flush with that tile, and then that terrazzo tile goes over the integrated floating sink and then inside to make up the sink itself. It makes it look like it’s just one giant hunk of stone.

The entry hall acts like a chute to warmly welcome you to the kitchen and great room, and now you can tell just how expansive this space really is. This whole area was littered with load-bearing walls. We blew all of them out and all that remains is the structural steel tie rods in the ceiling in place of the bulky wood trusses that used to be there.

Walking into the kitchen, you’re punched right in the mouth by one of the biggest islands you’ve ever seen. Not only is it very wide, it’s also extremely deep. Tons of base cabinetry around the perimeter. We have a wet bar and a regular sink. To keep this feeling really organic, we paneled every appliance that we could, so the dishwasher, the ice maker, both the standup column refrigerator and freezer are fully paneled. What’s so special about this open cavernous area is how much natural light just permeates into the space. We have two massive skylights in the ceilings, a giant picture window with two sets of custom steel french doors on each side. What’s so important about natural light and especially here, is that you can leave the synthetic lights off during the day. So what that does is the natural light interacts with all of these organic earthy materials and it makes you almost feel like you’re outside. We love to bring those outdoor elements inside of a home. Another thing with these big windows is we’ve oriented them throughout Casa Tulum to all have an amazing view of both the pool and our spectacular view of the green belt beyond.

The fireplace surround really anchors as the heart of this home. It pulls your eye in no matter where in this space that you are. The whole surround is coated in a lime wash plaster, and if you look closely, you can see all of the swipes and the organic patterns, and it just really lends itself to this overall theme. Looking even closer, you’ll see these small lines, which are actually the edge of our cabinet doors. We actually plastered over those cabinet doors and we left off the hardware so it’s push to open and just seamlessly integrates with the surroundings. There’s an open room behind the fireplace that we carved out as a child’s playroom, a place to put all their toys, a place for all the kids to play while the adults are hanging out in the common space.

From anywhere in this home you’re drawn to the outdoor living and walking from indoor living to outdoor living is a seamless transition. Covered patio space is really important for entertaining and outdoor living. What we did here is we extended the covered patio roof line, so now this enlarged space can easily accommodate an outdoor dining table and living set. Something that I love that you might not notice at first is this whole area is actually steps that goes down into our courtyard. This was very intentional. Again, think of a resort in Tulum. This is a space where I picture people barbecuing in the outdoor kitchen and everyone else is just kind of hanging out in the steps, somewhere at the table. It really just makes for a more inclusive all around space. Walking down the stairs across the lawn, you really feel like you’re leaving your hotel and walking down to the resort pool by the beach.

If I just showed you a picture of this area, I think you’d be hard-pressed to say that we’re in Austin, Texas four minutes from downtown. Surrounding you is palm trees, yuccas, Tiki torches, this beautiful view of the Austin Greenbelt that makes you feel like you’re in Brazil. What’s incredible about this property is it transforms you. It brings you to a place of tranquility. You feel like you’re on vacation anywhere at Casa Tulum. The oversized pool was intentionally designed to feel like a natural oasis. We went with a sand colored plaster, which makes you feel like you’re on the beach and results in that teal green paradise colored water. We also have a large shallow beach area, which is an awesome place for lawn chairs or a place to relax and sunbathe. The whole expansive pool deck, just like the covered patio and stairs is natural cream limestone Leuders.

Right off of the pool is the pool cabana. We used the back of the detached carport as a place for us to overhang our roof for some shade, and then we added some slats on the end to cast some shadows like a pergola. Right behind the cabana is the pool bath. The pool bath is different than all the other bathrooms at Casa Tulum, which are a lot more dialed in. This is meant to feel like showering off at the beach. It’s an open bathroom area with a shower with no partition. We have hand troweled concrete on the floor, handmade clay tile on the wall, and that concrete continues into a floating concrete vanity with an integrated concrete sink. At night, Casa Tulum is completely transformed with all of our beautiful landscape lighting, the lighting from the pool, and the iridescent lighting coming from the house, you feel like you’re in Pandora. There’s just this deep low glow, you feel like you’re dreaming.

Directly off the pool is the primary suite. Wake up, open your sliding glass door and be right on the water. Walking into the primary suite from the pool is a seamless transition because both floors are at the same elevation. What this does is it allows you to feel like you’re outside when you’re sitting right in your primary bedroom. Now that you’re in here, notice the 12-foot ceilings. We have eight foot tall sliding glass doors and windows with a two-foot tall transom above, and then another foot above that to the ceiling. Around the whole perimeter of the exterior walls is glass, so you get amazing views out into the green belt. And then also the best view in the house right out to the pool. What better way to bring the outdoors in by using the same yellow limestone we did outside the house, inside the primary bedroom. Another cool accent here is our floating custom white oak console.

Adjacent to the primary bedroom, we have this area where we have our awesome white oak custom built-ins, more Taj Mahal quartzite on the countertop. Also, a hidden gem is this cabinet that pulls out, that we call the appliance garage. Here is a perfect place to put your coffee maker for your morning coffee right outside your bedroom. With a primary bedroom that makes such a statement, you need a primary closet to mirror that. Here we have our custom shelving going all the way to the 12-foot tall ceilings. That whole top band of cabinetry is for seasonal storage. This is all additional storage that you would never get out of a normal height closet.

Now onto one of my favorite rooms in the house, the primary bathroom. This is just a completely luxurious space. You feel like you’re in a spa when you’re in here. This bathroom echoes the monochromatic theme throughout the house. You’ll notice the same 12 by 24 tile on the floor continues seamlessly into our shower and tub area. It’s also along our vanity wall all the way to the ceiling. Look closer at this tile. It feels like it’s a stone that washed up on the beach. It’s porous, it’s gritty. It has an awesome feel to bare feet. Now onto the vanity. We have a floating white oak custom vanity. More Taj Mahal quartzite, two integrated sinks, and then what we did is we recessed our mirror so that it’s flushed with all the tile behind it.

Now, behind our seamless glass enclosure is our tub and shower area. Along the side is a floating quartzite bench with a mitered edge, so it looks like one big hunk of rock. A special touch in here is the transom windows up at the ceiling. They let in tons of natural light, but they also are very private, and they let us have full walls of tile, which really show luxury. Walking out of the primary bath, just looking back through the primary bedroom, there’s this moment where the hallway just lines up perfectly with the large picture window and your eye is just drawn out into that beautiful backyard and the green belt views.

The utility room is as functional as it is beautiful. I love the ample countertop space, the sink, tons of upper cabinetry, the washer and dryer are built in, and a cool feature that I like is there’s hidden drying racks on the other side of the washer and dryer.

Now walking down the hall, you’ll notice that this side of the house is where really all the living quarters are situated. We have a secondary bedroom with an en suite bathroom. There’s also a guest bedroom and a large powder bath. Now, this is a very special powder. Not only is it the second powder in the house, this looks more like an art piece than a bathroom. We have white oak paneling surrounding the walls and the ceiling of the vanity. This whole entire sink is Taj Mahal quartzite, mitered on all sides, the apron and built in for the sink itself. Our luxurious white oak wood flooring continues up the stairs leading you to an another secondary bedroom with an en suite bathroom, an office, and an office bath with a full shower. Stepping out onto the Juliet balcony from the upstairs bedroom is just awesome. You get an amazing view out over the green belt and down into the courtyard below. Across the house up the other staircase, there is a media room with sloped ceilings and a dropped floor, which makes this space feel really intimate.

And honestly, this area is just a great utilization of space. All in all, building Casa Tulum was a tremendous experience. Of course, it had its challenges, every build does, but this project is very close to my heart because it expanded my building style. We got a chance to work with some incredible clients that really pushed the boundaries of design and finishes. Special shout out to Richard Hamer, our architect and Slick Design on the incredible interior and exterior design. Lastly, as always, I want to thank my team and all of the amazing tradesmen and women that worked on this house. Without you all, I could never build these incredible homes. To see more photos and details about Casa Tulum, click here.