A Down-Home Touch: Architect Uses Old Barn Wood in Townhouse
from the Houston Chronicle, September 3, 1972
by Madeleine McDermott, Home Furnishings Editor

   Granddad wouldn't recognize the side of the old barn.
   Not if he could see what architect Jim McBride, A.I.A., has done with it.
   Out FM 1960 way, in the land of trees and many, many big new homes, Jim is designing townhouses (he calls them "town homes") and cluster houses in a new development called Cashel Forest.
   While basically contemporary, Jim's designs are obviously influenced by his travels and his varied interests. He spent some time designing ski lodges in Aspen and living in Norfolk, Va., where he grew to love the traditions found in places like Williamsburg. After nine months in Washington, D.C., he went to Guatemala for the state department on a low cost housing project. During his two years there he studied Indian architecture and made some grand Mayan rubbings, two of which will be on permanent display in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.
   So, armed with all these influences, plus his love for Texana, Jim set out to plan modern townhouses that would have a friendly feeling, not an austere contemporary coldness.
   What he devised is an informal, open interior plan with woodwork and ceilings of rough, graying woods from old barns!

Jim calls his creations "a contemporary expression of traditional Texas lifestyle." The perfect example of how to live with such a scheme is the townhouse Jim and his wife Charlotte live in.
   They have kept the living-dining area colors neutral, almost the same light sand shade of the Austin-area limestone hearth of the natural brick fireplace. A neutral shag covers the floors and a very light linen covers all the walls, the perfect foil for colorful contemporary paintings and Jim's huge rubbings.
   Their furniture ranges from comfortable contemporary in more light nubby neutrals in the understated living room to Spanish designs in the bedrooms.
  You might think the railing on the stairs and around the second-floor balcony is Spanish, but Jim copied the design from a traditional old home in Philadelphia. And the glass double doors that open onto the patios are French in feeling. Then there's the colorful Mexican tile that gives life to the master bath and the kitchen.
   Little patios and balconies increase the living dimensions of every room. No draperies are needed to cover the expanses of glass, as brick walls around the house maintain privacy, an old-fashioned commodity once offered by big yards and trees.