The light in the studio has a certain weight to it around 4:00 PM. It’s that transitional hour, the "blue hour", where the momentum of the morning meets the exhaustion of the craft.For decades, this was the moment of the strike. You’d hear the crisp friction of a match, see the glow of a Chesterfield reflected in James Dean’s eyes as he leaned against a Porsche, or watch Miles Davis shrouded in a haze that seemed to carry the very notes he was composed of. To them, the cigarette was a tactile metronome. It was a three-minute grace period to stare at a blank page or a raw textile and wait for the ghost of an idea to manifest. It wasn't about the habit… it was about the hush.
But time moves on, and our understanding of the body has sharpened. We’ve learned that the hand reaches for the pack not out of a need for smoke, but because the nervous system is seeking an equilibrium it cannot find in the noise of the city. The "reach" is actually a search for a dopamine reset. It’s the brain’s way of asking for a temporary exit from the pressure of "The Creative Act."
At The Sanctuary at Soundhaus, we wanted to capture that storied, cinematic pause, but strip away the toxicity. We imagined a space where the creative mind could still find its "punctuation mark," but leave feeling more alive than when they entered.
Imagine the same 4:00 PM slump. Instead of the street corner, you step into the wood-lined sanctuary of the Sauna. The heat forces a presence that no vice can mimic. You follow it with the cold plunge, a sharp, tectonic shift that flushes the system and clarifies the vision better than any stimulant ever could. We aren't just changing the habit, we’re elevating the lifestyle. We’re giving your body the healthy boost it was actually looking for when you first reached for that light.
The ritual remains. The medium has simply evolved.
Photos by Jeremy Doddridge
Evolution of the Artist's Intermission
Track 03: Erasing the Blank Slate
CV: We started with a completely sterile, builder-grade white canvas, and our first instinct was that we had to completely envelop the space. We wrapped the walls in a deeply textured limewash paint and brought in warm, wood-paneled ceilings to instantly drop the volume of the room. Then we built a custom, floor-to-ceiling display to showcase a curated record collection and a set of vintage headphones. The goal was to make the music entirely tactile again… something you have to reach out, touch, and respect.
TS: The real anchor is the custom DJ booth right in the center of the living room which was such a big swing, but it worked because its a grand centerpiece that creates this gravitational pull. Today, music is so frictionless… you just plug an iPhone into an aux cord and let the algorithm handle the rest. But when someone is physically manning that booth, flipping records and dropping the needle, it demands your attention. The room achieves a perfect, hypnotic stillness, and suddenly you don’t want to do anything else but sit back, watch, and listen.
“We aren't just changing the habit, we’re elevating the lifestyle.”
- Tim Stanton | Head of Brand
“We aren't just changing the habit, we’re elevating the lifestyle.”
- Tim Stanton | Head of Brand
CV: That's beautiful. On the other side of the house, my personal favorite might be the canvas we printed and tagged with 'Creativity Over Conformity' across the top. To me, that piece is the pure embodiment of the ethos here. It feels like speaking truth to power and completely rejecting the corporate status quo.
TS: It anchors the message, for sure. But then you have the 40-foot mural that physically draws your eye from the entry all the way into the living room. It’s this stripped-down, illustrative ink style depicting a traveler arriving on horseback. He meets a woman, they share a meal in front of a window, where we quietly placed a chapel and a cross as a small nod to our faith and they’re serenaded by some live music. It captures these deeply tactile, unforgettable moments of life… a home-cooked meal, good music, and real company. Essentially, it's everything we want people to encounter when they stay at SoundHaus.
“ If materials are the heavy bassline of this house, the color is the melody that carries you through the space.”
- Charles Vesley | Head of Design
CV: It completely redefines the hospitality experience. But what about the painting of the hand holding a cigarette in the primary bedroom? That image is so iconic. It embodies the classic, smoking creative archatype, where we argue that image was never really about the nicotine… it was a desperate reach for a mental exit from the weight of the creative act.
TS: It's important to note, we aren't condoning the youth start ripping darts… actually, quite the opposite. We crafted this entire property, primarily the listening lounge and the backyard amenities, to give the mind and body the healthy release it was actually looking for when you first reached for that light. The ritual of the pause remains, but the medium has simply evolved. In this house, that mental exit isn't a cigarette... it’s the listening lounge, the cold plunge, the sauna, the pool, and sharing a meal in the backyard. We built a space where you can unplug without tearing yourself down.
Track 05: Color as a Melody
CV: If materials are the heavy bassline of this house, the color is the melody that carries you through the space. We bridged sound to paint by treating every room like a different track on an album, changing the tempo and tone as you transition through the doors. The green pistachio room on the main floor feels like an entirely different song is being played… it’s completely color-drenched from top to bottom in a rich, textured limewash paint. When the afternoon sun hits those walls, it feels like a warm, golden acoustic solo… soft, heavy, and completely immersive.
TS: And then you hit the home theater, which is easily the biggest change of pace on the entire record to continue your analogy…. It’s a total blackout, a completely cinematic mood that instantly transports you to a place before devices existed. Instead of traditional, sterile individual theater chairs, we brought in these deeply layered, sculptural couches that force people together. It hits this incredibly romantic, serenading undertone, shifting the energy of the house into a completely different, late-night key altogether.
Track 06: The Red Neon Reverberation
CV: When the sun goes down, the entire SoundHaus album flips to the B-side. The architectural volume drops, the shadows deepen, and the vibe shifts into this heavy, late-night groove. The catalyst for that entire transition is a vintage red neon sign we hung in the entry wing of the house. It completely bathes the 2 story corridor in this moody, saturated crimson glow… evoking the raw, late-night allure of a classic underground vinyl lounge or an after-hours studio back-alley.
TS: The craziest part is how we found it. We stumbled across a local collector right here in Austin who had this authentic, vintage piece that simply read: SOUND. Finding that specific sign, in this city, for this exact project wasn’t happenstance… the ultimate cherry on top that reinforces the entire ethos of SoundHaus. When that red neon hits the walls at midnight, the house strikes its highest note. It captures that exact gritty, 90s counterculture, Kurt Cobain level of raw rebellion we were chasing the entire time.
CV: A heavy nod to the innovators, the rule-breakers, and all the brilliant ones we lost far too early. Their sweat is still in the soil of this city and heartbeat alive in this place.
