M10| Friday, February 28, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
TIPS FOR BUILDING
ON THE RIVERFRONTHomebuilder Jeff Derebery of-
fers advice for building on the
riverfront in Texas Hill Country:- Hill Country is known for its
flash floods, said Mr. Derebery,
so don’t be fooled by a calm-
looking river such as the Ped-
ernales that runs past his
home. “It goes from not much
to pretty scary in a few min-
utes,” he said. - He took that volatility into
consideration when siting the
house, building it on a slope 45
feet above the river, and some
25 feet above historic flood lev-
els. “If our house ever floods,
then all of Austin will, too,” he
said. - Another consideration: Make
sure the house is close enough
to the river to have optimal
views, but far enough away to
minimize views of nearby
houses. For him, he said, figur-
ing out exactly where to build
involved “a lot of standing on a
stepladder.”
MANSION | WATERFRONT LIVING
Outside, concrete balconies are
cantilevered over the hillside on
either side of the courtyard. A
walkway leads from the main
house to a sitting area by the
river, with bright orange furniture
Ms. Fischer chose because it
echoes “the color of the sunset.”
She likes to take the couple’s
two retrievers, Blue and Ponder,
and sometimes their cat, Lewie,
with her to the sitting area.
“I go down there almost every
night and have a glass of wine
when I get home from work,” she
said.
If the inside is natural, the out-
side is where Mr. Derebery let his
creativity run wild. In addition to
the Campbell’s Soup deer feeder
and the Yellow Submarine propane
tank—his way of dressing up in-
dustrial-looking objects—the prop-
erty includes a shiny, silver car-
port made of galvanized steel.
The diagonal roof has solar pan-
els on top for power, and rainwa-
ter flows into a water tank for
landscaping and fighting fires.
“I love living there,” said Ms.
Fischer. “It’s really different. Every
day feels like an adventure.”BYCANDACETAYLOR
INSIDE STORY
ARareTexasTreat
Jeff Derebery and his wife, Janice Fischer, found a riverfront lot in Hill Country for their estate
The couple
built a single-
story house
with an interior
courtyard that
brings in light.
Inside, they
played it safe,
using materials
that won’t go
out of style.
Outside, they
got creative,
turning a
propane tank
into the Yellow
Submarine.HILL COUNTRY
WATERFRONT HOMES$4.9 million
Johnson City
Five bedrooms, six bathrooms
Rancho Mareeba, with a 3,600-
square-foot main house, is on 169
acres on Grape Creek.
Agents: Andi Eystad and Jeremy
Lacy, Anders Realty
$12,237,340
Cypress Mill
Six bedrooms, three bathrooms
This 612-acre ranch on the Peder-
nales River and Cottonwood Creek
has a screened-in porch.
Agents: Carlotta McLean and Tim
Riley, Riley-McLean Land
lawn on the property’s rocky soil,
studded with basketball-size rocks,
cactuses, rattlesnakes and “all
kinds of Texas things,” Ms. Fischer
said.
The courtyard’s outdoor furni-
ture is made of recycled plastic by
the Spanish company Vondom.
While the gray chairs are modern
in appearance, they fit in with the
rugged landscape in that “they just
kind of look like rocks,” Ms.
Fischer said.inally from
New York City,
is a genetics
professor at
the University
of Texas at
Austin.
They wanted
their second
home together
to be in a more
rural setting,
but not too far
from Austin.
Mr. Derebery
has moved his
business out of
Austin, but Ms.
Fischer still
commutes to
the city three
days a week.
So she was
skeptical when
he said he
found a piece
of land about
50 miles from
Austin.
“I said, ‘Johnson City? Are you
kidding?’ ” But she came around
when she saw the lot set on “this
gorgeous, gorgeous river.” River-
front property is a rare find in the
Hill Country, Mr. Derebery said.
They sold the Austin house and
paid about $275,000 total for two
lots of 7.5 acres each. They saved
money by having Mr. Derebery act
as general contractor on the new
build, which took 10 months and
cost about $1.5 million, with mate-
rials from Lindal Cedar Homes.
The roughly 3,500-square-foot
home was completed in 2018.
Mr. Derebery long envisioned
living in a single-story home with
an interior courtyard, which he
said lets in light and makes the
house seem bigger.
His love of copper as a building
material meant an exterior with as
many copper elements as he could
afford. To turn the copper the
blue-green color he wanted, he es-
chewed expensive commercial pa-
tinas for a combination of Miracle-
Gro, vinegar and water.
“Every time there’s a big rain-
storm it changes a little,” he said.
He complemented the copper
with charred Japanese cypress sid-
ing, allowing the black to contrast
with the blues of the patina. His
inspiration, he said, was the local
environment. “Our native lime-stone is kind of black, and the
river is a kind of turquoise color.”
The house has floor-to-ceiling
glass windows to take advantage
of the river views and let the cou-
ple watch bald eagles and ospreys
catching fish.
Throughout the house, Mr. Der-
ebery opted for natural materials
whenever possible. He also chose
finishes such as polished chrome
for the bathroom and kitchen fix-
tures, believing they are less likely
to go out of style.
“One thing I’ve learned over the
years is that houses get dated very
quickly,” he added. To that end, he
also installed long, rectangular
windows in the kitchen in place of
a tile backsplash.
For the floors, they chose dia-
mond-polished concrete.
The master bedroom and the
great room have sliding glass
doors that open to the courtyard,
a 21-by-32-foot concrete space that
serves as the home’s backyard. It
was impossible to create a grassyPed
erna
les
Riv
erJOHNSON
CITYAustin
Johnson
CityDerebery
HomeTEXASV
isitors to Jeff Dere-
bery’s home in rural
Texas are often sur-
prised by the 12-foot,
glow-in-the-dark
square nestled among the trees on
the riverfront property.
“Cubie,” as Mr. Derebery calls
the white box with copper strips,
was built out of polycarbonate
panels to conceal a holding tank
for the property’s well. Next to Cu-
bie, a well head
is covered by
“Cubie 2,” a
smaller square
that glows red.
“I designed
them to light
up at night and
be kind of
sculptural ele-
ments,” said
Mr. Derebery, 63, a home-builder
by trade. “They mystify a lot of
the locals.”
The Cubies are among many
playful elements on the 15-acre
property of Mr. Derebery and his
wife, Janice Fischer. In a nod to
the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,”
an oblong propane tank is painted
yellow with the Fab Four peering
out of circular windows. A deer
feeder is disguised as a giant
can of Campbell’s soup,
suggesting pop artist
Andy Warhol. Copper
accents on the
exterior of the
house have a
blue-green pa-
tina that Mr.
Derebery cre-
ated using, of all
things, Miracle-Gro fer-
tilizer.
After years of building homes
for other people, Mr. Derebery had
a stockpile of ideas he was eager
to use for his own dream home.
“I’d been working on the design
for 15 years,” he said of the re-
cently completed post-and-beam
house, which overlooks the Peder-
nales River outside Johnson City
(population 2,051).
The contemporary, four-bed-
room, three-bathroom house,
about an hour’s drive west of Aus-
tin, is a radical departure from
most homes in Texas Hill Country,
which 20 years ago was predomi-
nantly goat and cattle ranches.
“Some people don’t get it, but
that’s OK,” said Ms. Fischer. “We
wanted to do something different.”
The pair were ready for a
change from their previous home
in downtown Austin, a carefully
restored, 100-year-old Arts and
Crafts bungalow where Ms. Fischer
had lived for 25 years.
The couple, who both have chil-
dren from previous relationships,
started dating after Ms. Fischer
hired Mr. Derebery to repair her
home’s windows. Ms. Fischer, orig-
BRENT HUMPHREYS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (7); AMANDA TERRY (JOHNSON CITY); JONATHAN H JACKSON PHOTOGRAPHY (CYPRESS MILL); JASON LEE (MAP)The floors are diamond-polished concrete.For the patina, Mr. Derebery
mixed together Miracle-Gro,
vinegar and water.The couple paid $275,000 for two, 7.5-acre lots.The Yellow Submarine
is a propane tank.$1.5
MILLION
Cost of building
the one-story,
four-bedroom
home on the
15-acre lot