Preserving the Rhythm of Our City and It’s Culture
Before the tech takeover and the sterile glass towers, there was the music. In 1991, the city officially trademarked Austin as the Live Music Capital of the World, a title earned not by corporate backing, but by the creative grit, edge, and eclectic underground energy. Like when Nirvana played a $7 gig at Liberty Lunch (now Stubbs) and before he was "The Boss" a young, hungry Springsteen played a legendary five-show run at the Aramadillo. But as the city has grown and attracted a wave of corporations, the very culture that put Austin on the world stage is at risk of being flattened out and completely forgotten. SoundHaus is a monument built to bottle up that original energy and nostalgia, bringing the raw, countercultural pulse of the city’s past directly into the present.
Photos by Jeremy Doddridge
Track 01: The Soundtrack as a Blueprint
Charles Vesley | Head of Design: This project forced us to completely unlearn our typical process. Usually, we begin with a tactile, visual anchor… a landscape we encountered, a photograph, or a place we visited. But with SoundHaus, the genesis wasn’t what the space looked like… it was what the space sounded like. Starting with a soundtrack instead of a mood board lent an unexpected, multi-sensory richness to the architecture, creating an undeniable feeling the moment you step through the door.
Tim Stanton | Head of Brand: It takes me back to 2011, the first business trip of my career, to Austin during SXSW. I was completely broke, nowhere near enough money to afford a ticket to the main stage to see Kanye, Cudi, or Bon Iver. Instead, I stumbled into a free hip-hop showcase at a tiny, weathered venue called the Carpenters Local at 1266 Union Hall and spent the entire day watching then-unknown kids Mac Miller, Big Sean, Big KRIT, and Kendrick Lamar. It was a raw, electrifying moment that permanently shaped my taste in music, and that exact, unfiltered energy is what we wanted to bottle up and reintroduce through SoundHaus.
Track 02: Turning Sound into Structure
CV: The design challenge was how do you take the gritty hip-hop baselines, soulful vocals, and melodic instrumentals from a playlist and turn that into a physical space? I chose materials that feel really human and heavy… aged metals that patinate over time, raw stone, deep dark walnut, and heavily textured linens and leathers. It’s a highly tactile palette that gives the home this warm, boutique hotel dimension, acting as a direct counter-punch to the sterile, frictionless glass and drywall of modern corporate developments.
TS: And the color story is where the melody lives. We grounded the house in soft creams, clay tones, and sage greens, but then we threw in denim blues, charcoal accents, and aged brass to give it that necessary street-level edge and definition. For the furnishings, we looked for sculptural silhouettes that have a real visual impact but are layered with softness. The pieces are incredibly durable because the house is meant to be lived in by large groups, but they keep that inviting, low-slung '80s studio lounge vibe where you just want to sink in and listen.
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.
“The room achieves a perfect, hypnotic stillness, and suddenly you don’t want to do anything else but sit back, watch, and listen.”
- Tim Stanton | Head of Brand
Track 04: Art, Faith, and the Creative Act
CV: Music and art go hand in hand, and for SoundHaus, we knew the art had to be unforgettable… something completely bespoke that you couldn't just find and buy on the internet. So we commissioned a local brotherly tandem to bring the entire visual story to life. The centerpiece is this absolutely iconic 12-foot Mac Miller piece. I remember asking you how we should fill that massive, two-story stairwell wall, and you came back to me within an hour with a wild idea to recreate the cover of his Swimming album.
TS: It’s one of my favorite albums and tragically the last one he gave us before he passed. What I love most about that mural, aside from its sheer scale, is the reaction from people who don't actually know who Mac was. They always look closely and comment on his dirty feet. For us, that represents the fact that everyone is welcome in this space exactly as they are. It’s an acknowledgment that we all need our feet washed… we all require an internal cleaning that only Jesus can provide. And ultimately, it's a sobering reminder that the very lifestyle that makes great art isn’t always the lifestyle that leads a great life.
“ It’s a Biblical acknowledgment that we all need our feet washed...”
- 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.
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.
“ 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
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.
