means of porches, windows, dog-trots, lean-to's, gables and dormers.

In only the way that Moore was able, he took these two contrary architectural idioms and fused these vernacular voices together to make a place special to Texas, but "uniquely his own." (Strong helpings of Soane, Maybeck, Schinkel, Pompeii, Sherwood Ranch, Vierzehnheiligen, Bantry House, and Kyoto were added to the mix!) Binding all these metaphors was the sense of building as geode. The whole compound would be sheathed in plainspoken board and batten, painted taupe to emphasize the foliage, preferring reticence to self-importance. But upon entry, each layer gets looser and freer and more festive, until the act of crossing Moore's threshold unleashes what Paul Goldberger once described as a "mad magnificence." Thwarting all expectations of the shell's equanimity, the inner sanctum is encrusted with Moore's collection folk art and toys, the crystals of the geode.

This is the place that Charles Moore called home for the last ten years of his life, where he centered his many activities, ideas, friends, colleagues, and students, and where he connected to the bigger picture.