Living in High Style

$2 million gets your foot in the door of swank high-rise designed by architecture heavyweights

Adios traditional high-rise living, hola sculptural profiles and amenities that give those moving from terra firma a sophisticated option for living in the clouds. Thank you computer technology and new supple materials for making the transition a seamless reality.

Case in point is Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie Architects (PJAR) current Houston project — Aurora, a 16-story modernist high-rise that will soar over Tanglewood and Uptown Houston. Just as the late, great Philip Johnson's Pennzoil Place, Williams Tower and Post Oak Center redefined the city's commercial profile so Aurora and 3615 Montrose, another PJAR project, promise to ignite a new form of residental living.

Think curving glass walls, sweeping verticals, sharp-edged corners and undulating balconies.

Ritchie was in town for the grand opening of the Aurora sales office in Uptown Park where he discussed the project along with Marko Dasigenis, who heads the PJAR Houston office.

"We're excited to be back because we had such a presence for so many years," Ritchie said. This time around it's "a more modern sculptural form" that will define the firm's projects much like PJAR's design of the AT&T and Sony buildings in New York.

"So coming here, I saw that there really hasn't been anything like that and everybody has been complaining about the sort of boxes and the standard thing," Ritchie said. "So one of the things that Marko and I discussed was how we could extend that through some of the ideas that we had been developing . . . and so this is where it's given us some opportunity. We've given the clients some ideas and they have been very receptive to it."

In fact, PJAR is in the early stages of design for another project this one in the Museum District, "something that will become a signature building in the neighborhood." But the lid is on details until the developer is ready to discuss.

Sims Luxury Builders on the other hand is all about spreading the news on the Aurora. The project will have 40 residences, ranging from 3,400 to 4,000 square feet with four penthouses ranging from 5,700 to 6,400 square feet. Prices start at $2 million. Sudhoff Companies has been tasked with marketing the project.

"There's been a shift in the market," Chris Sims said at the opening. Clients for whom he built major homes are now looking to high-rises as the ideal residence. In hiring PJAR, Sims noted, “Their design concept perfectly matched our vision to create a comfortable, contemporary high-rise in a prime uptown location that we think will really resonate with people looking for a turn-key luxury lifestyle.”

Describing the Aurora, Ritchie said, "I hate the word style but it's modern architecture clean, simple modern architecture but having sort of the free form sculptural form and using materials which enable us to express that sort of thing, obviously glass, metal panels."

The 16-story Aurora brings modern sculptural architecture to high-rise living.

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SOUTHERN EXPOSURE

Southern Living showcases design trends at Hill Country 'Idea House'

Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

The 4,000-square-foot Idea House in Frieden, a development in Fredericksburg, combines stone, brown siding, and a metal roof.

The 2026 Southern Living Idea House is now open for public tours in Fredericksburg, bringing the magazine's long-running showcase-home series back to Central Texas.

The 4,000-square-foot house is in Friedën, a planned community about three miles from downtown Fredericksburg. The development is expected to include roughly 230 to 250 custom single-family homes when complete, along with commercial space, retail, offices, multifamily housing, trails, lakes, and green space.

The Idea House program is part model home, part design experiment, and part brand statement for Southern Living. For more than 35 years, the magazine has worked with builders, architects, designers, and landscapers to create homes in different parts of the South, usually pairing regional references with current home-design trends. Past projects have included homes in Nashville, Louisiana, Georgia, coastal Texas, and the Carolinas.

$Southern Living Idea House 2026\u200b$ This room really plays with textures, including an abstract art piece that looks a little like crushed velvet.Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

Central Texas last hosted a Southern Living Idea House in 2018, when the magazine renovated a 1980s fixer-upper in Austin's Northwest Hills. That project leaned on local architecture and design talent to turn an older house into a more open, family-oriented home.

This year's Fredericksburg project is a new-build contemporary farmhouse. The exterior mixes limestone, brown siding, and a dark metal roof, with separate wings arranged around a broad drive. The home also has floor-to-ceiling windows, multiple porches, and a backyard fire pit, which are meant to connect the interiors to the surrounding Hill Country setting.

The design team included a secondary private casita, a feature Southern Living says was intended as a nod to Fredericksburg's historic Sunday houses. Those small in-town homes, traditionally near churches, were once used by German settlers who had to travel long distances into Fredericksburg on weekends for church, shopping, and social visits.

$Southern Living Idea House 2026\u200b$ Dark wood cabinetry and brass hardware frame the kitchen’s veined stone backsplash and large island.Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

The interiors were split among three Texas designers: Jean Liu of Dallas, Marcus Mohon of Austin, and Paloma Contreras of Houston. The broader team includes builders Melanie Sparks and Chris McGinley of Kurk Homes, architect Andrew Bray of Mustard Architects in Fredericksburg, and landscape designer Melissa Gerstle of Dallas.

The kitchen uses dark wood cabinetry, brass hardware, pale pendant lights, and a heavily veined stone backsplash. It is more formal than a typical farmhouse kitchen, but the long island and six counter stools keep it oriented around gathering rather than display.

One bedroom takes a more traditional approach, with a four-poster bed, exposed wood beams, and green scenic wallcovering wrapped around the room. A matching green chair near the window and a pale patterned rug keep the palette tied together without making the room monochromatic.

$Southern Living Idea House 2026\u200b$ Green scenic wallcovering surrounds a four-poster bed beneath exposed wood beams.Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

Southern Living editor-in-chief Sid Evans said in the release that the house was designed to take cues from the Hill Country landscape while showing "a home that's as warm and welcoming as it is stylish and innovative."

Public tours run through December 20 at 518 Interlaken St. Tours are scheduled Thursdays through Saturdays from 10 am to 5 pm and Sundays from noon to 5 pm. Tickets are $44, with part of the proceeds benefiting Operation Finally Home, the Hunt Preservation Society, and the Gillespie County Historical Society/Pioneer & Vereins Kirche Museums.

$Southern Living Idea House 2026\u200b$ Look out for this cover on newsstands to pick up a copy and learn more about the home.Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

Southern Living is also scheduling several event weekends during the tour run, including Volvo test-drive weekends and a Holiday Classics event from December 4-6.

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