Malinard Manor

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Design company: Cravotta Interiors Designer: Mark Cravotta Photographer: Paul Bardagjy Location: Austin, TX Area: 1,300 m2

Malinard

Malinard Manor was designed to be the perfect expression of the clients who they are and how they live. The clients envisioned a Gothic house that was neither typical of the area or the times and was unlike any project I had worked on before or since. The project became both possible and exciting due to the clients desire for authentic details and quality inside and out combined with a willingness to provide a commensurate budget and time. I was able to dream big, and they were willing to dream with me. The house is not purely any one thing but rather conceived as an English manor

that could have developed over centuries and generations, much like many of the great historic English manors. The foundations of design draw primarily from a combination of Gothic, Tudor and Jacobean styles and periods and regions throughout Europe. We adhered to a philosophy of using real materials; there is nothing faux in the house. And even though the majority of materials we used were new, we built and finished them with old-world techniques including mortise and tenon joinery and a seven-step process to the wood finish, the final step being hand-waxing.

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Similar to the rest of the house, the goal of the wine cellar was to have it look as if it were 400 years old but very well maintained. The room is made entirely of stone with bench-made cabinetry and millwork. The walls are the same as the exterior stone, which is a blend of four varieties of limestone and sandstone. The floor is Antique Walnut Lueders Limestone, and the ceiling is ceramic tile. The millwork and cabinetry are American Black Walnut, finished to look like French Walnut. The benches were purchased along with a fantastic wood fireplace surround (used in the Keeping Room) c.1850 from a chateau in Le Hermitage on the border of France and Belgium. The chairs were custom made by Elijah Slocum and the tables by Paul Ferrante, both from French Walnut.

Malinard 400 1950 Elijah SlocumPaul Ferrante

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