Hip, early 60s bachelor décor. Telephone poles as faux exposed ceiling beams. A grand, carved “staircase to nowhere.” Not exactly the stuff a dream house—or even guesthouse—is made of, but Kathy Sosa fell in love with it.

“I have the ability to see something stripped to its essence—what it once was and what it could be again,” says the San Antonio-based designer and artist, who lives in Floresville in an old farmhouse she restored. “And then, I want to save it.”

After buying the 100-year old house, one of the oldest in Alpine—“the adobe walls are really what I bought”—Sosa set about restoring the house, as much as possible, to its original state. She discovered a former owner had tried to achieve a Santa Fe pueblo effect by rounding off the edges of the trim on the walls. A newspaper article dating back to the 1960s was found stuff into a crack in the wall, giving the distinct impression that was the last time the house had been remodeled. Then, there was the perplexing “staircase to nowhere,” as Sosa christened it. “It’s a one-story house!” she exclaims, laughing at the absurdity.

Hidden Beauty

So began Sosa’s labor of love. Dark, “depressing” wood paneling was stripped from the walls, and the sheetrock beneath it chiseled away. The 20" thick stucco walls had to be re-done because, as Sosa explains, with stucco, there will always be a “ghost,”’ revealing the changes that have been made.

“They’re real stucco—the most wonderful insulation on Earth—with the pigment inside, made from mud and hay, not mud on top of sheetrock, not Venetian plaster.” In a town as transient as Alpine, she feels it was “providential” that she was able to find a skilled craftsman to restore the interior walls.

The telephone poles were removed from the ceilings and replaced with whitewashed bead board. The windows, which had been altered to different sizes, were made uniform, and custom doors were made to fit the non-standard doorframes in the house. Sosa shipped a door from The Old Door Store in San Antonio, installed it as the front door, and adorned it with milagros from Mexico. Sub-floors that had been covered with carpet (in the ‘60s, Sosa suspects) were replaced with pine and painted in Raffia by Ralph Lauren.

“This house is mainly Mexico-meets-west Texas, but the inspiration for the palette is French,” says Sosa, who has studied French homes for years. Sosa prefers soothing, neutral colors, but likes to interject what she calls “punches of colors” throughout the house in the form of accessories that can be moved around or changed, depending on the season or her mood.

The brick and adobe fireplace, which had been positioned at an odd angle in the middle of the house, was demolished and a pre-made, “green” fireplace that will retain 80% of the heat it generates was installed flush with the wall in the dining room.

New Life for Familiar Possessions

Putting into practice the almost-universal mantra, reduce-reuse-recycle, Sosa completely furnished the guesthouse with items from her Floresville farmhouse and San Antonio art studio, with one exception—a custom-made sofa-sleeper, so the house could accommodate four guests instead of just two. The bedroom is furnished with a bed the Sosas had when they were first married and later updated by taking it to an ironsmith and having a wrought-iron canopy made. The zebra-patterned chairs in the living room were originally made for Sosa’s art studio; an easel with one of her oil portrait collages stands in a corner of the room. Three Veronica Prida chairs are the result of a barter agreement: Sosa traded one of her paintings for them. The focal point of the living room is the display case, which is filled with pillows fashioned from huipiles, individually-made, hand-embroidered blouses that Sosa purchases on trips to Mexico and Guatemala. (A 2007 Smithsonian exhibition featured Sosa’s huipiles paintings.)

As Sosa says, “It is not a west Texas vernacular interior because I didn’t own any big leather furniture with nail heads! But, when people walk in, they say, ‘I know who designed this.’”

The dual-purpose, kitchen island/work surface is a modified sofa table that stood behind the Sosa’s couch for years. She maximized what little kitchen space there is by hiding the appliances under counters and in cabinets.
 Sosa painted the corrugated tin roof a rust color to camouflage the shiny areas where the stovepipe and skylight had been removed and a new pitch created. Punched-copper light fixtures by Judith Maxwell illuminate the front of the house.

A Jewel Emerges

The house that once stood in shambles is now a charming guesthouse where Sosa’s family and friends—as well as the public—can go to relax and “clear their minds” in the west Texas solitude. It is also the “little jewel” that Sosa sees as the cornerstone of her latest business, Cinco Estrellas (Five Stars), a line of housewares, linens, artwork (paintings by both Sosa and her husband, Lionel Sosa), fabric by the piece, and one-of-a-kind pillows fashioned from huipiles. Guests can buy what they want and take it home with them, have it shipped or order it online (www.cinco-estrellas.net).

Reflecting on previous owners’ attempts to make the house into something it was not, Sosa muses, “My aesthetic says, ‘What would it have been like originally and what is the least I can do to it that will make me happy?’ [Restoring old homes] is a passion of mine. I took it back to its simplest form and enabled it to live on.”